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.

302 SALMAGUNDI.
sion to getting mellow, considering it a wilful outrage on the
sanctity of imperial mind, a senseless abuse of the body, and an
unpardonable, because a voluntary, prostration of both mental
and personal dignity. I have heard him moralize on the subject, in a style that would do honor to Michael Cassio himself;
but I believe, if the truth were known, this antipathy rather rises
from his having, as the phrase is, but a weak head, and nerves
so extremely sensitive, that he is sure to suffer severely from a
frolic, and will groan and make resolutions against it for a
week afterward. He therefore took this waggish exploit of
old Christopher's, and the consequent quizzing which he underwent, in high dudgeon; had kept aloof from company for a fortnight, and appeared to be meditating some deep plan of retaliation upon his mischievous old crony. He had, however, for the
last day or two, shown some symptoms of convalescence: had
listened, without more than half a dozen twitches of impatience,
to one of Christopher's unconscionable long stories, and even
was seen to smile, for the one hundred and thirtieth time, at a
venerable joke originally borrowed from Joe Miller, but which,
by dint of long occupancy, and frequent repetition, the old
gentleman now firmly believes happened to himself somewhere
in New England.
As I am well acquainted with Launcelot's haunts, I soon
found him out. He was lolling on his favorite bench, rudely
constructed at the foot of an old tree, which is full of fantastical
twists, and with its spreading branches forms a canopy of luxuriant foliage. This tree is a kind of chronicle of the short reigns
of his uncle John's mistresses; and its trunk is sorely wounded
with carvings of true lovers' knots, hearts, darts, names, and
inscriptions! —frail memorials of the variety of the fair dames
who captivated the wandering fancy of that old cavalier in the