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.

406 SALMAGUNDI.
there lingered with sweet delay. Wherever it bent its course,
the face of nature brightened into smiles, and a perennial spring
reigned upon its borders. The warblers of the woodland delighted to quit their recesses and carol among its bowers; while
the turtle-dove, the timid fawn, the soft-eyed gazelle, and all the
rural populace, who joy in the sequestered haunts of nature,
resorted to its vicinity. Its pure transparent waters rolled over
snow-white sands, and heaven itself was reflected in its tranquil
bosom.
The simple Arab threw himself upon its verdant margin; he
tasted the silver tide, and it was like nectar to his lips; he
bounded with transport, for he had found the object of his wayfaring. "Here," cried he, " will I pitch my tent: here will I
pass my days; for pure, 0 fair stream, is thy gentle current;
beauteous are thy borders; and the grove must be a paradise
that is refreshed by thy meanderings]'"
Pendent opera interrUpta. VIRG.
" The work's all aback." LINK. FID.
4( H OW hard it is," exclaims the divine Con-futse, better
known among the illiterate by the name of Confucius, " for a man to bite off his own nose!" At this moment I,
William Wizard, Esq., feel the full force of this remark, and
cannot but give vent to my tribulation at being obliged, through
the whim of friend Langstaff, to stop short in my literary career,
when at the very point of astonishing my country, and reaping
the brightest laurels of literature. We daily hear of shipwrecks,
of failures and bankruptcies; they are trifling mishaps which, from