best souchong tea. Oh! they loved their tea!

It was their nectar,

their chief good,' their ambrosial food. To this delicious beverage, all other viands yielded up the palm.

How well do I remember them, grouped about the tea-table, on a winter's evening, starched and prim, waiting for the moving of the waters.' A genial fire burnt brightly on the hearth; the tidy bricks were painted of a flaming redness; the brazen andirons were like refined gold. In those days, grates, Franklins, and other paraphernalia, had not possessed the ample jambs, nor dissipated those feelings of greater sociability, which rallied around the ancient hearth, like an altar. There was no intense and sulphur-breathing coal, to clog the free atmosphere of the apartment; but gay and brilliant flames shot upward, with an agreeable crackling, diffusing the double luxury of light and heat. A tabby-cat, that requisite appendage to a picture of domestic comfort, lay wrapped up in perfect quiescence on the rug. She was a beautifully-tortoised creature, and would have graced a painter's canvass. The mantel was not crowded with shell temples, and other gimcrackry of a vulgar school, but with four substantial brazen candlesticks, with china vases between, and at the ends two polished conch-shells, which made a dreary sound when applied to the ear, like the distant roaring of the surge. The family Bible occupied a conspicuous place in the apartment, and was reverentially supported by a polished walnut stand. The walls were adorned with needle-work, in excellent preservation, enclosed in narrow gilded frames, and protected from dust, dirt, and close inspection; the enduring monuments of Miss Patty's early taste and ingenuity. In order to save the trouble of answering questions, they were severally inscribed, 'basket of flowers,' 'fruit,' 'robin red breast,' etc., etc., and underneath, in legible characters, PATTY JONES.'

In fact, every thing about the apartment looked 'so nice.' The carpet was most cleanly swept; the sideboard was polished to the last degree; the mahogany table in the centre reflected a plate of very desirable toast. The tea-urn, that honored receptacle, was worthy of its pure ambrosia. 'Non cedebat honori.' It raised itself in silvery whiteness, above all the minor utensils of the table, while the steam ascending from it, like a rich incense, made a shadowy undulation on the wall. Around its circumference, was an embossed representation of a fox-chase. Reynard was flying for his life; the huntsmen were winding their horns; the horses were dashing over the hedge; the hounds were in full cry, over bush, brake, and scaur,' and pursuing the game unto the death. The milk-pot was a little model of classic elegance. The cream reposed in it like double refined snow of the Appenines. It seemed as pure as purity itself. It looked a cordial, as if it might be 'parmaceti for an inward bruise,' a balsam for the most deadly wound. And then the sugar! - rivalling the milk in whiteness! — glistening in the bright light; cracked into the most convenient lumps, and ready to be conveyed with tongs of silver for the grand amalgamation!

Does not a tear-like

Is not your mouth moistened, my reader? drop struggle and gush from its corners, and your inmost stomach yearn? The lip has its tears of sympathy from a yearning stomach,

as well as the eye from the 'burning crucible of the brain.' Oh! delightful banquets, noctes cenæque Deum !'-superior to all other banquets, and worthy the sweetest inspiration of the muse. Dinner, with its viands, is a gross, brutish, animal enjoyment. Teeth, muscles, eyes, heart, soul, must be engrossed in despatching its solid masses. But tea is a divine, ethereal, subtle symposium. It distils into the brain, it enliveneth the soul, it sharpeneth the tongue, it brighteneth the eyes, it smooths down wrinkles and cares; it is worthy of a god above the purple god Bacchus; worthier far of chased goblets, and to be crowned with flowers. Tea bringeth no redness of eyes, no defection of the wits, no grovelling obeisance to the earth, no mockery of the world, no melancholy abstractions. Tea clothes none with raggedness, shakes no man's credit, forfeits no friends, brings no 'gray hairs in sorrow to the grave,' makes no wives broken-hearted, no children beggars, no houses desolate. And can the bacchanal say as much, who steeps his soul in forgetfulness, and riots on the juice of the grape? Come with me to the garden of Rollo. He is a raving votary of the god. He revels in nocturnal orgies. Look around you, and behold the garden of the sluggard. How are these walks clogged with rubbish. These beds, once so redolent of fragrance, how vainly do they struggle against the dominion of weeds. How doth this tender plant droop for shelter. How doth that sweet flower struggle to bloom. How doth the bruised and trampled vine beg for thy training hand, heart-broken wife of his bosom! How even the birds do not pause upon the wing which once descended, and made these alleys vocal. Behold here a ruined arbor, a neglected grotto; there a fallen statue, and a fountain choked with leaves. The train of the serpent is over the 'flowers of loveliness;' the wild grass grows long and unheeded, and I gaze upon a waste and desert spot, which might have been a garden of paradise.

Direct your eyes to the old mansion, at the end of the avenue. The moss grows on the roof, the bricks drop from the chimney, the windows hang by a hinge, and the lintels are decayed. Does it bear about it any appearance of a HOME? Are there any altars around which the affections may gather in holy sacrifice? Alas, the golden censers have been broken, the sweet incense goeth up no more. And are these thy fruits, oh Bacchus! giver of joy! And is the danger sweet to follow the god whose temples are encircled with verdant leaves? Away with thee! I contemn thee, thou crowned god! We will tear down thy altars, and build others, even to new divinities. Behold a contrast. Come to the cheerful mansion of Miss Patty, and to her 'small domains.' Nightly she sips of her nectarean TEA. Do you see there aught of the elements of disorder? Is any thing apart from its own peculiar place? Are the walls unbrushed of cob-webs? Does the mantle harbor dust! The gauzy robe of Queen Mab might be trailed over those floors, and yet contract no soil. The spirit of comfort reigns within and without. The court-yard is blooming with prim roses, the weeded garden is sweet with herbs. This then is the spirit of tea!

Yet are there cavillers without number, despisers of God's blessings, setters forth of strange doctrines, who declare that even this harmless beverage is a poison. I abhor them I detest them! Keep your

'Journals of Health,' gentlemen, your inane scribblings. More life has been sipped from a tea-spoon, than will ever be sucked through your quill. I wonder what next will be asserted; what new device to torture patience, or what new pledges will be required. Is tea a poison? Then is there ratsbane in a peach. Then call all things poison. Write poison on the flood of the rock, destruction in the air we breathe, or death upon the heavenly manna. Point me to the

wretch who, being weary of life, seeks not the ordinary method of departure, and neither blows his brains out, nor leaps from the fourth story, and gasps out his life on an iron pale, nor tosses himself from some Milvian bridge into the sea, nor hangs like a dog in his own garret, nor draws his razor at right angles with his throat, and severs the vein jugular, but resorts to a more simple operation, and with all the coolness imaginable, tells cook to put the tea-kettle on a simmer, and mixing cream and sugar, drinks down the deadly hemlock, and departs to his fathers. Or have you ever known a coroner or a jury render a verdict in the words following, to wit: Poisoned by a cup of tea?'

'Ay, Sir, we grant you; but cause and effect are not always simultaneous. There be some things which loiter and lurk in the system, and the end of them is death. It is a slow poison.' Slow as a snail's pace, doubtless. It is a potion to be taken every day, and 'warranted to take effect' at the end of three score years and ten. Then, when the aged gentleman, with head like an almond tree, and well contented, goes to his long home, ye say, 'Behold the victim !'

It were a mockery to measure the depths of such shallow reasonings. Give me none of your ' TEA-total pledges.' I shall stand up for this 'ardent liquor,' be it green or be it black, without distinction of color.'

Is it not enough to cast away so many of God's 'good creatures,' and would you dry up this last drop of comfort also? Shall every upstart reformer be thrusting his pledge and statistics in the face of my conviction, and attenuate my already slender bill of fare,' dictating to me what I shall eat, and what I shall drink, and wherewithal I shall be clothed? Reining me within bounds, and saying 'hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther? Shall my stomach never 'vaunt itself?' shall it never be 'puffed up?' Truly, my poor judgment will have little to exercise itself upon, if it thus yields up its prerogative, but will be warped and twisted to suit the will of these moral charlatans. There is the Graham,' on the one hand, would starve me into a walking shadow,' and deprive me of those nutritious solids which make the man, substituting his own bran, worse than the broth of the Spartans. There is a host of zealots on the other, of whom we would not grumble a monosyllable, so long as they kept within modest bounds, and did not wax insolent in their might, but who, not contented with their inch,' but they must take an 'ell,' would banish from high days, and holidays all that can intoxicate,' pledging insipid healths in brimmers of water- risum teneatis amici! vaunting philanthropists! Have ye yet to learn that it is not wine alone which can intoxicate? That there are other draughts, more delicious in the quaffing, and which make the brain reel and madden; love, beauty, flattery?

VOL. XIII.

20

Ye

But your senseless code would banish all that comes in questionable shape.' It would ostracise the most precious gifts of our good God, and forbid their use, because he trusted that his creatures would not abuse them. The bright scenes of pleasure should never expand, because they may be too much indulged in; and the breath of music should never be heard, for its tones are too seductive; and the rose should be banished for ever from the garden, because it has a thorn. But worse than all, the ghost of the Boston conspiracy is stalking. At midnight it again moves, which is best suited for unhallowed deeds. In the guise of savages, a tumultuous crowd rushes whither the seacrossing ships are riding at anchor. Listen to their infernal yells! Chest by chest they throw over the precious weed into the waves. Did ever the greedy sea receive such a treasure?

We are then to be reduced to the original element of water, as our father Adam drank it, sparkling. Is not this retrograding with a vengeance? Is not this rolling back the tide of time,' and throwing the world into infancy? What advantage then hath it of all its discoveries, at which it has arrived by no sudden flash of intelligence, but slowly and painfully? But, no, no; we will oppose this deeprooted conspiracy; by the powers of Souchong! we will oppose it. We will not be reduced to the extremity of water. Flow on then, thou generous liquor! flow on like a river :

'Mingle, mingle, mingle,
Ye that mingle may.'

Water is decidedly good in its own place;' and a manly tar once stutteringly declared, that no one thing has done so much for navigation.' But to return to that alone, is too much like returning to the dead weight of metallic currency; like discarding the superior light and discoveries of the age, and going back to the land of Egypt. I say again, I love water. It is delicious; and when the tongue is parched, and fever rages, would willingly plunge into its refreshing depths. But it is too cold, and not pungent enough for the social board, or for occasions of extraordinary rejoicing. Water is tasteless, as air is colorless, and as every thing that is good, is unmixed and pure. I look upon other liquors, when compared with tea, with the respect of a Virginia host, who advertised his whole stock to be sold. His cider was excellent, his champaigne wines were worthy of the highest consideration, but his Madeira was so old, as only to be mentioned very reverentially!'

Let these new-fangled pledges, the cunning inventions of a generation spiritually proud, who are perpetually discovering some new land in morals, (and who then kneel down in thanksgiving, as did Columbus, and erect their standard to the breeze, and claim it in the name of God, by right of the first discovery,) let these pledges be applied to tobacco-chewers, if you please. They may be driven out, we maintain, by all means, by fair or by foul, as we would bid a guilty, outlawed, garlicky wretch begone. If he departs precipitately, it is well; 'if not, we turn him out, without compunction. Oh! the filthy, nauseous weed! and oh, ye snuffing, snivelling, sneezing, chewing, spitting, squirting votaries, who make your mouths reservoirs, and your lipcorners aqueducts for foul waters to gush through; ye are the

depraved subjects for the violent benevolence of this age! Let the BACCHO ABSTINERE of the present wine-pledge be modified or altered thus: ABSTINERE TO-BACCHO. To expel this noxious weed, pledges' may be employed, or any other means, lawful or unlawful, Jesuistical or Christian; as no argument can be trumped up, which is not ingeniously absurd, to prove that it was ever intended for the human mouth. In other respects, we are opposed to the unnecessary increase of pledges; and surely it is imagining a vain thing,' to expect us to abstain from delicious, purifying, enlivening TEA. Are any so depraved, that they cannot use a good thing moderately, but must pledge themselves to abstain from it altogether? The more shame for them! And the command of their appetites, and the knowing where to stop, are habits which ought to be acquired. He who never faces danger or temptation, deserves little credit for his virtue; but whoso can sit down at a luxurious banquet, and, like a skilful charioteer, command the reins of his appetite, is entitled to more regard, and acquires a more important lesson in the science of self-government. It is true that most men find it more easy to abstain entirely as thou, Boswell, canst adduce an illustrious example — but that will not alter, but rather strengthen, the principle which is here laid down, that tenperance is better, more honorable, more praiseworthy, than abstinence. When I behold a person at the cheerful board abstaining from the proffered cup of green or black, and all through fear of being carried away by an excess of love, I cannot help lamenting that he is so little able to trust himself, and that appetite must be cruelly imprisoned and confined, for fear of hurling coward reason from the throne. Instead of awarding the palm to such a one for superior self-denial, I cannot, except for his pusillanimity, give him any credit at all. When, on the other hand, I behold a person, after thankfully indulging in his 'two cups,' that Rubicon of prudence, beyond which it is unlawful to pass, yearning for a third, and yet with an easy sway, lording it over his appetite, curbing it, as it were, with a well regulated police, and coming off with a renowned victory from the conflict, I find it impossible to conceal my admiration. Surely for such a triumph it was not fool-hardiness to have entered the lists; and they who can so gloriously conquer themselves, are prepared to encounter the world beside.

Who then will ingloriously relinquish his prerogative? Who will pledge himself to give up the reins of judgment, and tremble to let his appetite go forth on its lawful errands, lest it should get the better of him? Nay, rather give it its own, and then if it should set up its rampant claims, fight against it manfully, and have it distinctly to know that you are not to be bullied out of propriety. Again I say, give me none of your TEA-total pledges. Shall I not, (by way of parenthesis,) put in one good word for coffee? As I am attached to the true faith, shall not this article' be protected against the heretical attacks of the reformers? I shall prove myself a very HENRY in these matters, and shall be a stubborn casuist to deal with. Summon your conclave, my dear Pope Leo, and tickle my ears with the title of 'Defender of the Faith.' These levellers shall find the country too hot for them. We will bring fires and kindle around the renowned DELAVAN, and GRAHAM shall be singed like a burnt crust of his own