For the Lady's Miscellany. QUERY. The other night as home I went, Full often' thus, we are beguild, And urged by soft persuasion mild; A good Segar to smoke, or take And eat a bit of pye, or cake. Thus in I march'd, and sat me down, (And why for this should any frown?) Not long was there; before twas said That if I'd answer, I'd be paid, I soon agreed: and ask'd the boon what is the oldest thing on earth?" I soon reply'd; the credit gain'd; And after which, not long remain'd Now can your readers tell me true, And bring this eldist thing to view. FROM THE DUENNA. Tune-Gramachree. Had I a heart for falsehood fram'd, For tho' your tongue no promise claim, No stranger offer wrong; But friends in all the ag'd you'll meet, And lovers in the young. But when they learn that you have blest Another with your heart, They'll bid aspiring passion rest, And act a brother's part: Then, lady dread not here deceit, Nor fear to suffer wrong; For friends in all the ag'd you'll meet, And brothers in the young. CARPET WEAVER. The subscriber, respectfully solicits This dear little plant that springs from the patronage of the Lady's in this city, as carpét weaver he is an aged man, and wishes to employ his time in this way, as weaving has been his général profession, he will be thankful for, and will strictly attend to all orders left for him at No 12 Henry street, August 17th 1811. Let the hard hand of industry nourish,2 ちょ John Jones. Thom Broadway, where he conti H. Brantingham, has removed to No. nues to procure money on Mortgages, notes of hand & deposits, buys & sells houses, improved farms, & tracts of land Also lets & leases houses & lots, on rea. sonable commision. Also the lease of or sale 30 houses, & annuity. Also farms, several with good improvements, will be sold low, goods & property of every sort taken in payment, or any who And love in each heart find its own warm birth, While peace, joy, and plenty, shall forms a company tickets & draw for the different farms will be liberaly paid for it character, will meet with encouragement Also a skilfull farming man with a good by applying as above. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL B. WHITE, No. 317 Water street, New-Yorks AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM. OR, WEEKLY THE VISITOR. FOR THE USE AND AMUSEMENT OF BOTH SEXES. VOL. XIII.] Saturday, September 21,.....1811. THE SPANIARD; OR, THE PRIDE OF BIRTH. A Tale. THIS ingenious little novel commences as follows: Every one who has frequented the Strada de Toledo, at Madrid, must have observed the little barber's shop, near the convent of the Carmelites, kept about twenty years ago by little Pedrosa Leandrez' the most facetious good-natured fellow in the whole neighbourhood: the front of this edifice, which was adorned with all the emblems of the profession, although its dimensions towards the street were not more than six feet, was yet capacious enough to exer. cise the arts, by which its possessor maintained a wife and three children. [NO. 22. of his dexterity in the operation' and it must be confessed, that he had had the honour of torturing many of the prettiest faces in Madrid; but on these occasions we must do him the justice to say, that his feelings suffered more than his purse gained: nature had never intended poor pedrosa for a son of Esculapius, therefore, he never got rich by practising the art: scenes of misery were no way congenial to his disposition; be felt himself happy, and he delighted to sec others so; and when the beauty of a summer's evening induced him to regale the children of the neighbourhood with the sound of his guitar, at his little shop door, Pedrosa forgot that there was such things in the world as pain, disease, tooth drawing, or bleeding. from humanity; why should I attempt to exempt Pedrosa from them! often a hasty call from a suffering patient, or the heedless caprices of a vain customer, de Little Pedrosa, besides his knowledge in twisting a mustachio to advantage, was frequently employ-prived him of his dinner; his wife ed in breathing the veins of his sick neighbours, and in extracting carious stumps from their painful and enflamed gums: this last was indeed his forte; he often boasted had two or three times been of, a different opinion from himself; and once the boys filled his little shop with smoke, blown in at the key-hole by means of a horn: these might have discomposed a philosopher, but little Pedrosa philosophised upon no subject whatever, and he felt the misfor than might have filled the veins of twenty of his generation.' The night was, as we have ob tune no longer than the actual in-served before, very dark, but little conveniance remained. Kings and kingdoms have their revolutions, and we shall see by the sequel, that poor Pedrosa, in his turn, experienced the capricious mutability of fortune. It was past twelve o'clock, on a very dark night in the month of September, that a loud thundering noise at the door awakened the little barber and his wife from a profound slumber. What is the matter?' cried he half asleep; 'what do you want?' 'Get up, Pedrosa, immediately" said a voice on the outside; the Licentiate Signoir Garcia desires you will come immediately to bleed him he is in the utmost danger; his disorder, I believe, has fallen upon his lungs.' 'I wish it were on yours,' muttered Pedrosa to himself as he jumped out of bed, * we would not be so disturbed with your impertinent bawling. Tell the Licentiate,' said he, opening the door to the messenger, that I shall be with him immediately.' Pedrosa knew every inch of the way which led to the Licentiate's! he safely passed the windings which led to the great gate of the church of San Nicolas; not a passenger was to be seen in the streets, &poor Pedrosa,who never loved solitude,preferred talking to himselfrather than preserving a silence, which he felt at all times disagreeable. He bad, already, recited the names of above twenty of his customers, with more real devotion than the archbishop of Tolledo probably would those of the saints of the calender, when passing through a small street, he was suddenly inter. rupted by the figure of a man, who darted with incredible swiftness across the way, with a drawn sword in his hand. Pedrosa had never in his life evinced the smallest symptorn of heroism; he stood motion less with terror, and with staring eye-balls, observed the stranger in his hasty passage to have dropped the dark covering with which he had been enveloped. Before he could recover his scattered senses, his terror was redoubled by a noise seemingly made by several persons forcing open the door, through which the unknown person had rushed into the street. "The holy Virgin protect me!' cried the astonished barber; the ideas of robbery and assassination crowded into his mind, and he instinctively a monk of the order of St. Francis. It is the first benefit the holy fathers ever conferred upon me, thought little Pedrosa, and when monks go a rambling. The cautions barber suppressed the rest, it was certainly an ill-natured sarcasm on the holy community, which, notwithstanding his loquacious propensity, he was afraid of exposing to the open ai. Certain it is, that without any further re ed the garment around him, and tucking up in the best manner he could, the long skirts, which, by hanging on the ground, shewed fell with his face to the ground. In the mean time, the people had succeeded in their endeavours to force their passage to the street; three men with drawn swords, and one armed with a poignard, rushed out. It was you, Bernardo,' said one of them, in a furious tone, who let him escape; you ought to have plunged your dagger in his heart, rather than have marred such a job,' the others made no reply, for they all four immediate-flection on the adventure, he foldly rushed forward to overtake the fugitive object of their vengence. Poor Pedrosa, whom fear rather than prudence had induced to lie hid from observation, gradually re-sufficiently the disparity, in point covered, as he imagined the object of his terror to be removed to a distance, and without wishing to have any thing to do with the adventure, began to creep forwards to the place of his destination. Scarcely had he gone two steps, when he felt his feet entangled in the cloak of the stranger. Though his skin was at that time covered with a copious perspiration, he felt the midnight damp spread its chilling influence over all his body, and as he now fancied himself, every moment, in greater security the natural good humour of his temper began to exert itself. This is a lucky adventure for me,' said he to himself, as he lifted the garment from the ground, I shall have a great coat to keep myself from the cold.' By spreading it, and rubbing his fingers over it, he soon perceived it to be the habit of of size, betwixt little Pedrosa and the former wearer, he proceeded forwards, recommending himself to the holy care of St. Peter, who, he used often to say, had never forsaken him. It is asserted by some philosophers, that man has a natural pro pensity to move in a direct line forwards, but little Pedrosa seemed to have been born to give the lie to this assertion. His air in walking, excepting in the rapidity of his motions, resembled nothing in nature so much as a duck's, the simile, though not perfectly exact, may yet be rendered sufficiently illustrative, by observing that poor Pedrosa had acquired such a facility in turning the one side and the other alternately to that point of the compass whither he was bound, that a person from behind |