"perhaps, I might say experience:" then resuming his former high harsh tone and imperative manner, "sirr, it is the bane of both health and talent, it is the accursed thing,' sir, as much as that spoken of in holy writ." Then with another sudden change of voice accompanied by a corresponding expression of his changeful eye, he added, "I see, you laugh, sirr; yet the Devil can quote scripture for his purposes; but he never does so for the purpose of warning from evil as I do now." Then with a firm and dignified air he continued. "Sirr, it is the besetting sin of our profession---the efforts we make exhaust us, and we fly to stimulants for relief or support in those exertions we have yet to make. At midnight we go from the theatre to the tavern, or the hospitable board of an admirer, and we fur>ther exhaust, instead of repairing exhausted nature. This, sirr, becomes habit, and we become drunkards---drunkards, sirr! Sirr, the mind and body of the drunkard becomes enfeebled until he appears only to live when under the influence of the ? poison which is consuming him. When in possession of his reason he feels his lost condition---he loathes existence, yet he dreads its termination---as reason torments him, he seeks madness, and the desire of life hurries him on to death, here and hereafter." Spiffard gazed upon the speaker intensely. The meaning of the excessive interest he displayed may be hereafter explained.

As Cooke ended they found themselves opposite to the City Hotel, and the moralizer suddenly exclaimed," My dear boy, step in here with me. Let us look over the files of English papers. It is so refreshing to read an English paper. The Yankee journals are as flat as the whole surface of society in this country---a dead level---we look in vain for the splendid column with its Corinthian capital---the princely inheritor of millions who diffuses splendour on all around him and attracts the gaze of every eye." "True," said Spiffard, " and we cannot find thousands who are prostrate in the dust; or the kneeling supporters of the one princely column."

The tragedian did not appear to notice this Yankee observa, tion; but saying, in a hurried manner, "I have an ugly pain," he hastened into the bar-room of the hotel, and his com panion followed.

Spiffard sat down and took up a newspaper.

Cooke went to

the bar, and gave a practical illustration of his discourse on the evils of ebriety, by adding more fire to the consuming flame within---by seeking in madness a refuge from reason and conscience.

The unhappy bridegroom looked on the newspaper, but it was a blank to his eyes; his mind was far away. He ruminated upon what he had heard in the Park; he endeavoured to determine upon the manner in which he should conduct himself at his next meeting with his wife. The first thing to be done was to announce his marriage to the public, and have Mrs. Spiffard's name put in the play-bills. This being resolved as a first step, then came thronging on his mind, doubts, resolutions, objections, recollections, jealousies, and dire misgivings, which made his heart sink at one moment, and at the next seem to rise and swell almost to suffocation. He forgot all present objects. He struck his fist upon the table at which he sat, and exclaimed, "I will have some―― 99

The sentence was left unfinished, for the sound of his voice brought to his mind the place in which he was about to soliloquize, and to his eyes the surrounding objects; and this awakening of his faculties was aided by an audible exclamation and start on the part of a gentleman who sat nearly opposite to him, absorbed in the price of stocks as reported in the Daily Advertiser. Among the surrounding objects stood a waiter. "Some what sir? What will you please to have?" "Come, my boy!" said Cooke. "Let us. be moving. feel better. Let us be going. Exercise is the parent of

health."

"Yes sir," said the comedian, rising, the preserver."

I

"and temperance,

They left the tavern, and Cooke, yet more garrulous, proceeded with additional powers of voice and energy of emphasis, "Let us continue our ramble. Exercise gives health of body and mind promotes cheerfulness, dispels the thick-coming fancies of the brain, which late revels, and slothful morning indulgences (two familiar sins of our profession) bring upon us.

:

Spiffard had willingly obeyed the summons, glad to be relieved, in some degree, from his own thoughts by change of place; and the veteran, leaning on his arm, continued to pour forth his remarks and moralizings with renewed energy, but with increasing abruptness.

As they passed in front of Trinity church, Cooke, (to use the phraseology of his profession) took his cue from the object before him, and forcing his companion's distracted attention by making a stop and pointing to the door of the building, he commenced one of those rhapsodies which his unfortunate habits and peculiar mind made so strikingly his own. "What a mass of deformity in architecture these Yankees have made of this

once noble gothic edifice! It now belongs to no order or age. I remember it, when proudly it towered a monument of the taste of Englishmen, and the liberality of the church and government of England. A pure specimen of the rich and aweinspiring gothic without, and decorated within by the sculptures and paintings of the most eminent artists of Britain. What is it now? A Yankee specimen of republican economy! They had better have left it a noble ruin as they made it when they fled from their gracious monarch's armies, sent in mercy to teach them their true interests. I remember, sirr

"You! Mr. Cooke!"

“Yes, sirr! I, George Frederick Cooke! I remember Trinity church in its pride, and I remember it in its ruins, even then infinitely more beautiful than in its present state. During the rebellion, sirr, when we occupied this city by right of conquest, the public mall, the favourite walk, was in front of the ruins of that proud building which even then from its dilapidated turrets spoke in praise of monarchy and prelacy---of church and state---and frowned on democracy and rebellion. Then, sirr, , every evening in summer, we had our military bands of regimental musicians playing loyal airs in the church yard, while we promenaded with the wives and daughters of the refugees and loyalists, and confirmed them in the love of old England. In the morning, sirr, it was the parade ground, from which the guards were detailed, and marched with drum, fife, trumpet, bugle, and bagpipe, to their stations. The main guard was down there, in Wall-street, where the Custom House now stands. There stood the old City Hall and Court House, projecting into the street. Sirr, you stare at my knowledge of this place, and its history-come on, sirr!" By this time some other auditors were collecting, and he moved on, but soon resumed his rhodomontade. "The night after we crossed from Brooklyn, all this part of the city, including old Trinity, was one sheet of flame--all was burnt by the rebel incendiaries. on fire from Trinity downwards, and then across to the east, leaving Kennedy's and a few houses towards Fort George, and the Battery. Here stood an old Sectarian meeting house which the flames had spared, and we made a military store house of it. The Yankee shopkeepers have built what they think an elegant church on the site and called it "Grace," there is grace in making it episcopal. Heaven grant them grace to improve their taste in architecture! It looks more like a storehouse still than a temple."

All

Thus the excited old man poured forth his recollections from

66

reading or from associating with officers who had been in America at the time he spoke of, mingled with his imaginings, as the objects they passed suggested images of things partly remembered and partly created. Thus with rapid strides and occasional pauses, he proceeded on his way, every word and every action marking that state of increasing excitement, which added an unnatural power to his colloquial faculties. His young companion, glad to escape from his own thoughts, gave way to the interest created by the remarks of his leader, and hung, wondering, upon his copious, singular, and wild eloquence. They arrived at the Bowling-green. "There, sirr," continued Cooke. "There stood the equestrian statue of his sacred Majesty George the Third, my royal master !— There, sirr, within that circular enclosure. It was of lead, gilt over." Then with a sudden change of voice and countenance, looking over his shoulder as if speaking to some one behind him, in an under tone he added, “ Gilded lead, said by the vile Jacobites, to be an apt emblem of the house of Hanover." Again resuming his former tone and manner, he proceeded," Before we landed, the rebels had melted the Lord's anointed, and cast the heavy material into bullets-musket balls to murder his loyal subjects-thus adding sacrilege to parricide, rebellion, murder and treason. Yes, sirr, his leaden majesty was dethroned before we gained the town-but I remember Pitt's statue in Wall street, the rebels left him standing because he was the leader of the opposition in parliament-and because they could not make bullets of the marble: but some of our wild boys took his head off one night-by way of hint to those who encourage rebellion. Ha! this, sirr, is Kennedy's house, the head quarters of Sir William, Sir Henry, and Sir Guy, his majesty's commanders-in-chief, now rebuilt and enlarged to receive a Yankee broker! Yes, sirr, this corner house was the British head quarters, and opposite rose majestically Fort George, surmounted with the floating banner of England, surrounded by her invincible fleets and armies, overlooking land and water-the town, the battery and the bay—but the democrats have levelled it-the hill is removed by the faithless, and the natural defence of the city prostrated by the foolish."

66

Perhaps they think its defence is in its men."

"And now, sirr, they are building yon stone Frenchified things! castles! things that one of our seventy-fours would batter down in an hour."

"Provided no guns were mounted on, or fired from them." "Guns or no guns, sirr! Guns or no guns!

They had now entered within the fence (then of wooden pales) which separated our magnificent public walk, still called the Battery, from the street which occupies part of the former site of Fort George, and is called State-street; and now the view of the spacious bay, with its islands, the rich and beautiful shores of the neighbouring state of New Jersey, the hills of Staten Island, and the meadows and groves of that part of Long Island which with the sister isle forms the outlet to the Atlantic and the inlet to all the commerce of the world, burst upon the view.

The hero of the mimic scene, looked around him on the realities of the present, and was for a moment silent: but soon he began again, taking a new hint from the prospect which opened upon him, and seeming to inhale additional animation from the pure sea breezes which swept over the waters, pouring health upon the busy multitudes he had left behind him. "My young friend" said he, "I never walk here, and look on these rivers, this bay and those shores, but I think over the days of my youth. I traverse again in triumph those heights." And he pointed to Long Island. "I marched proudly, driving before me the rebels with their Washington and their Lord Sterling (not a sterling Lord) until the night saved them from utter annihilation. It was the twenty-fifth of August when they fled before us to their lines in Brooklyn. I must give Washington credit for bringing them off that night. Yes, he made a skillful retreat, and did all that man-a Yankee man-could do with such troops. These Yankees, with all their self-conceit, are a poor race, sirr, a degenerate race in every thing."

"I think, Mr. Cooke" said Spiffard with an affected simplicity, "that it was on the twenty-fifth of August you said, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, that Washington fled with his army of raggamuffins before the disciplined veterans of Britain ?"

"Aye, sirr! the twenty-fifth! the twenty-fifth!"

"And on the twenty-fifth-" "Spiffard was interrupted by the exulting repetition of the words, "Ay, sirr! the twentyfifth!" But the Yankee proceeded deliberately, "the twentyfifth of November, seventeen hundred and eighty-three, these same Yankees, led by this same Washington, marched into this same city not leading a rabble of raggamuffins but a few regiments of well dressed, well equipped, well disciplined Yankee soldiers; and was welcomed by the grateful inhabitants as their