Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

164 SALMAGUNDI.
swells up to maturity, and after feeling for a moment the vivifying rays of the sun, bursts forth a mighty insect, and flutters, and
rattles, and buzzes from every tree. The little warblers who
have long cheered the woodlands with their dulcet notes, are
stunned by the discordant racket of these upstart intruders, and
contemplate, in contemptuous silence, their tinsel and their
noise.
Having once started, the Giblets were determined that nothing should stop them in their career, until they had run their
full course, and arrived at the very tip top of style. Every tailor,
every shoemaker, every coachmaker, every milliner, every mantuamaker, every paper-hanger, every piano teacher, and every
dancing-master in the city, were enlisted in their service; and
the willing wights most courteously answered their call; and fell
to work to build up the fame of the Giblets, as they had done
that of many an aspiring family before them. In a little time
the young ladies could dance the waltz, thunder Lodoiska, murder French, kill time, and commit violence on the face of nature
in a landscape in water-colors, equal to the best lady in the land;
and the young gentlemen were seen lounging at corners of
streets, and driving tandem; heard talking loud at the theatre,
and laughing in church, with as much ease, and grace, and modesty, as if they had been gentlemen all the days of their lives.
And the Giblets arrayed themselves in scarlet, and in fine
linen, and seated themselves in high places; but nobody noticed
them except to honor them with a little contempt. The Giblets
made a prodigious splash in their own opinion; but nobody
extolled them except the tailors, and the milliners who had been
employed in manufacturing their paraphernalia. The Giblets
thereupon being, like Caleb Quotem, determined to have "a
place at the review," fell to work more fiercely than ever; they