Salmagundi Volume 10; Or, the Whimwhams & Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. & Others

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1869 Excerpt: ... NO. IV.-TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1807. FROM MY ELBOW-CHAIR. ERHAPS there is no class of men to which the curious and literary are more indebted than travellers--I mean travelmongers, who write whole volumes about themselves, their horses, and their servants, interspersed with anecdotes of innkeepers, droll sayings of stagedrivers, and interesting memoirs of--the Lord knows who. They will give you a full account of a city, its manners, customs, and manufactures; though perhaps all their knowledge of it was obtained by a peep from their inn-windows, and an interesting conversation with the landlord or the waiter. America has had its share of these buzzards; and in the name of my countrymen I return them profound thanks for the compliments they have lavished upon us, and the variety of particulars concerning our own country, which we should never have discovered without their assistance. Influenced by such sentiments, I am delighted to find that the Cockloft family, among its other whimsical and monstrous productions, is about to be enriched with a genuine travel-writer. This is no less a personage than Mr. Jeremy Cockloft, the only son and darling pride of my cousin, Mr. Christopher Cockloft. I should have said Jeremy Cockloft, the younger, as he so styles himself, by way of distinguishing him from 11 Signore Jeremy Cockloftico, a gouty old gentleman who flourished about the time that Pliny the elder was smoked to death with the fire and brimstone of Vesuvius; and whose travels, if he ever wrote any, are now lost forever to the world. Jeremy is now in his one-and twentieth year, and a young fellow of wonderful quick parts, if you will trust to the word of his father, who, having begotten him, should be the best judge of the matter. He is the oracle of the family...