SEEING OURSELVES. 127 But lo! his head had reached the window-sill; and now, just as his old white hat appeared above the window, his affectionate daughters 'dropped him like a hot potato;' and, with something like the emphasis of a squashed apple-dumpling,' the old man came in instant contact with mother Earth; while the two knights of tape-and-scissors, who were not far off, enjoying the scene, 'made hasty tracks from the settlement,' leaving nothing behind them but bodily misery, horror-stricken damsels, and their own coat-tails streaming on the cool night-air!' A FOG lay over the broad expanse of the TappaänZee, at DOBB his Ferry, the other morning. There is a small but very long-eared donkey at that place, the Bucephalus of a juvenile play-mate of 'Young KNICK.,' whom also our scion backs whenever so minded. The little ani age;' so we mal is very strong, and 'carries weight for mounted him, on the foggy morning aforesaid, and rode to the water's edge, looking into the mist, which hid the farther shore from sight. Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, in one of his lectures, says that the horizon-line of the 'great and wide sea,' in mid-deep, is one of the most striking emblems of the infinite and the eternal to be found in all the works of the ALMIGHTY. We thought of this while looking off upon the dim (and at the time boundless) waste of waters 128 SEEING OURSELVES. before us; and then came the thought of NAPOLEON at Saint Helena, musing by the solemn shore of the vast ocean which formed the watery walls of his island-prison : and so strong was the last impression, that, mounted as we were, we began to feel, in that moment of deep reverie, that we were NAPOLEON, taking our equestrian exercise of a morning, and looking off upon the sea; when all at once, an unmistakable juvenile voice, that is usually 'music to our ears,' 'let down the peg' that held up our musings, with the untimely, and we may add uncalled-for remark, accompanied by a loud laugh, that was surely unnecessary if not unbecoming: 'If there is n't Father on DUNKEY!-how he looks!' Our imaginary NAPOLEON vanished as quickly at this interruption as did Hamlet's father's ghost when he 'smelt the morning air;' and we 'saw ourselves as others saw us;' a biped, clad in a thin linen coat, broad-brimmed Rocky-mountain fur hat, (a present from 'BELLACOSCA,' now of that ilk,) seated on an ass, and a little one at that! As we turned him to go back, having 'satisfied the sentiment,' his saddle turned. too, and we fell to the ground, a distance, perhaps, from the top of his back, of some three feet. No bones were broken; but we did n't like the report of the unimportant circumstance which 'Young KNICK.' bore to his mother: 'FATHER got threw from DUNKEY!' 'Threw!'- that's a good style of grammar to be used by the son of an EDITOR! JARVIS AND THE FRENCHMAN. 129 All this may seem ridiculous: but why might we not have fancied ourself NAPOLEON, amidst the kindred outward accessories of his last position? Supposing our dress and steed were not warlike? Is it the uniform that makes the captain? If it is, we should like to know it! WE heard the other afternoon, from a proved raconteur, who has no rival, either orally or with pen in hand, a story of JARVIS's, the distinguished painter, which made us quite ‘elastic' for half a day. A mercurial yet misanthropic Frenchman, who, to 'save himself from himself, used often to call upon JARVIS, had an 'Old Master,' a wretched daub, whose greatest merit was its obscurity. Being ignorant of the hoax which had been played upon him in its purchase, he set a great value upon it, and invited JARVIS to come to his room and examine it. JARVIS did so; and to prevent giving its possessor pain, he avoided the expression of an opinion upon the merits,' but advised the owner to have it cleaned; it being 'so dirty that one might easily mistake it for a very ordinary painting.' Some four or five days afterward the Frenchman called upon the painter; and the moment he entered his apartment, he exclaimed: 'Ah! Monsieur JARVEES, I 'ave some'sing to tell you! My graänd picture is des-troy'!no wors' a d n any more! I get ze man to clean |