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.

DR. CAUSTIC,'S RAVINGS. C;9
club of wits who profess themselves supremely indifferent to the reception of their work. In the next number but one of the " Inspector " the
attack is followed up by an article -" SALmAGUNDI-alias BUBBLE AND
SQUEAK —again." In reply to the notice of the former which had appeared
in the interim in Salmagundi, Christopher Caustic raves in his extraordinary slang at these " frothy productions." " The disease," he says, " is
becoming epidemic, the fever rising to frenzy, spreading from fool to
fool; a numberless number of nameless names, has already caught the
infection, and from one end of the town to the other, all is nonsense and'Salmagundi.' " He calls it'a mnere hodge-podge of train oil and garlic,
instead of' Salmagundi.'.... This is, in English, a' gibe cat,' smothered in onions and eaten with fennel, rue, and caraway seed. In fact,
there was one Huddesford, an English wit, who wrote a poem with that
are title, which this worst of wizards may have purloined in some of
their rambles, and thus gained a legal claim to the wit it contains." He
proposes, to his own great delight, "Silly-kickaby" as a substitute for
Salmagundi. " Having dispatched' Salmagundi' or Silly-kickaby, we come
next to' whim-whams and opinions.' What a broken backed metaphor!
It is as bad as to have christened your nonsense apple dumpling; or
flights offancy.
Atque idem jungat vulpes,
Et mulgeat hircosThat is, in English:
This sorry set of silly shotes,
Should be employed to milk he-goats,
Or sent to Carolina bogs,
To yoke ox-teams of prairie dogs.'Whim whams' is taken by this junto of notables from an English publication.' Launcelot Langstaff,' is a vile daub of a caricature of'Isaac
Bickerstaff.' Will Honeycomb sat for'Anthony Evergreen;' Will
Wizard's original may be found in the British classics; and in short, the
prototype of every other character, with the exception of a few scurrilous personalities. The work ought to have been styled Silly-kickaby,
alias tag-locks of common English publications, compiled by Dunderpate,
Doughhead, Dumpling, and Co., published by Peter Pettyman, sold at the