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.

44 SALMAGUNDT.
sion of all the sensibilities of youth. His eye kindles at the
relation of a noble and generous action, his heart melts at the
story of distress, and he is still a warm admirer of the fair.
Like all old bachelors, however, he looks back with a fond and
lingering eye on the period of his boyhood; and would sooner
suffer the pangs of matrimony than acknowledge that the world,
or anything in it, is half so clever as it was in those good old
times that are "gone by."
I believe I have already mentioned, that with all his good
qualities he is a humorist, and a humorist of the highest order.
He has some of the most intolerable whim-whanms I ever met
with in my life, and his oddities are sufficient to eke out a hundred tolerable originals. But I will not enlarge on themenough has been told to excite a desire to know more; and I
am much mistaken if, in the course of half a dozen of our numbers, he don't tickle, plague, please, and perplex the whole town,
and completely establish his claim to the laureateship he has
solicited, and with which we hereby invest him, recommending
him and his effusions to public reverence and respect.
LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF.
TO LAUNCELOT LANGSTAFF, ESQ.
DEAR LAUNCE,
As I find you have taken the quill,
To put our gay town and its fair under drill,
I offer my hopes for success to your cause,
And send you unvarnish'd my mite of applause.