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.

PLEASURES AT THE SPRINGS. 323
watching the little tadpoles as they frolic, right flippantly, in the
muddy stream, and listening to the inspiring melody of the harmonious frogs that croak upon its borders. Some play at billiards, some play at the fiddle, and some-play the fool;-the
latter being the most prevalent amusement at Ballston.
These, together with abundance of dancing, and a prodigious
deal of sleeping of afternoons, make up the variety of pleasures at the Springs-a delicious life of alternate lassitude and
fatigue; of laborious dissipation, and listless idleness; of sleepless nights, and days spent in that dozing insensibility which
ever succeeds them. Now and then, indeed, the influenza, the
fever-and-ague, or some such pale-faced intruder, may happen to
throw a momentary damp on the general felicity; but on the
whole, Evergreen declares that Ballston wants only six things,
to wit: good air, good wine, good living, good beds, good company, and good humor, to be the most enchanting place in the
world —excepting Botany Bay, Musquito Cove, Dismal
Swamp, and the black-hole at Calcutta.
[THE following letter from the sage Mustapha has cost us
more trouble to decipher, and render into tolerable English,
than any hitherto published. It was full of blots and erasures,
particularly the latter part, which we have no doubt was penned
in a moment of great wrath and indignation. Mustapha has
often a rambling mode of writing, and his thoughts take such
unaccountable turns, that it is difficult to tell one moment where
he will lead you the next. This is particularly obvious in the
commencement of his letters, which seldom bear much analogy
to the subsequent parts; he sets off with a flourish, like a