Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1819-05-25

LETTERS FROM io"N'
LETTER II.
You may have heard, perchanee, that Mar
ket street
Is much the gayest part OF all this city;
In which you always may such ladies meet
As Heay'n makes fond of gaddirg, vain
and pretty
And comedy gentlemen all trig and neat,
Very well dress'd. but seldom very wit
ty,-
Tooetber with a thousand things beside,
That cross your path, whether you walk or
ride.
Ican't bu, say I like the lounge myself,
That is, except in dusty or wet weather;
Altho' am needless, absent wight,
And scarce can keep my thoughts or
limbs together:
I'm apt TO break my head upon the ice,
Or run it.smash against lady's feather,
Or find myself demolished in trice
. By some huge fellow built of bones and
leather land the wai!'
Who gives me, 'twixt the curb stone
The pleasant op.ion OF crush or fall.
By the way, I'd like to see the city taxes
Applied in part to buy some lamps and axes:
For when one reeollects that brains and pay
Are both so scarce,-'twould seem il l
see right,
That skslls were in a slippery way by day.
And purses rather insecure by night.
However, as no person likes taxation,
Long live our worthy, frugal corporation!
May they extend Pratt street, and teach
good manners
Unto the millers and the tanners!
But, in this busting street, as was saying,
You may encounter many pretty misses
Fitting in squads and couples land display
;np Kisses
Their shawls and bonne.s, ANGLES and Pc
Sometimes Just three in number, like the
graces like the Muses.
Tho I've seen nine, IN which tby're
And bies, like them with very pretty faces;
IT'S pity now days, that each one choo-
Her own Apollo,-not for viii or sense
But for the golden rags he my dispense
Because, like Phebus, he good legs dis
plays
And can support earrie'e and bays.
This god, by the way, with all bis merit
land he iDsndy !;
Had much, no douht) was something OF
Was not unfond of glare or driuiag either,
And seldom show his face in cloudy wea-
don't remember that mythology teaches
He ever wore corsets OF cossack hreeches;
Had he done il, this wit.
One might have had some cause to doubt
Bet 10 return: these ladies that | SPOKE OF
Ars little beings pleasantly compounded
i'Tis what don't desgn 70 make ? joke off,
Ofiabs and bonnets delicately rounded,
And sa,ure and the milliner together
Combine to rig them out with brains and
feather;
And when you add fl ,unce, a little lace,
Apar of laughing eyes, and smooth lace,
Some common place, and an Italian ditty,
You may imagine what pretty
Furniture they are TO paper'd walls,
And what pretty show they make at birth
~ night balls
Indeed, so necessary are they reckon'd
That the managers
Always, however weighty their affairs,
Bespeak some hundreds for the ''twen-
y-second,"
s And round the room and supper table range
With other things as tasteless, fine y strange.
These ladies very Oft my fancy pose
To find to what fifty can compare them,
Something like insects that aroundyou buzz,
Which you'd near notice, if you did not
hear them
PICKLE like wind, which, tho itself so light.
Il known to sci the weightiest things in
mot,en: [sight,
Or like the aseds at sea that catch your
Obsery'd to ishow the currents OF The o.
cean.
Straws, as the saying goes,
Show how the wind blows;
so by their veering favors you are able
IT,, toll xy hf, n nj ic tasbiona hte
However, the simile that strikes nae most