TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
70
ness of typography, & the brilliancy of editorials, to take the public by surprise,-to extort the admirati~n of all, and secure the patronage.of thousands. To this end he dedicated many an hour of laudable m- dustry & perseverance to the concoction of what is professionally styled, a salutatory address. His utmost powers are exerted on the perform- ance-history is ransacked for illustrations, poetry for rhetorical flour- ishes-ever_,. thing is put in requisition that can gratify taste, delight the imagination, o'r illuminate the understanding. To the merchant, he shews himself off, the l\lan of business, by adopting the phraseology of the pursuit,-to the politician he talks of freedom, fame & power; of War, Nullification, & chimeras dire-and such glorious & horrible things, as excite to a love of Country, & arouse the slumbering senti- nels of endangered liberty; whilst to the fair and beautious portion of Creation, whose smiles he values higher than the gold of Ophir and the fame of Opheus, he pours his devotions in the golden cadences of poetry. If success crown his efforts he considers his fortune made, & himself a happy man. Visions of wealth, & perennial honors float in his mind's delighted eye; and he sees advertisements in every letter, puffs in e,ery paragraph, & the astounded foes of his party, flying be.- fore the lightning of his pen, But if on the contrary, he fall below public expectation-if the beautiful conceptions of fancy, like "spirits from the hasty deep," will not come when they are called- if when he knocks at the door of his understanding for glorio-µs thoughts and beeming expressions, he receives the reply of, no one at horne,-in a word, if in soaring too high, the beams of the sun shall melt his wa.~en wings, and leave him to tumble pinionless from his aerial flight then will he realize in the bitterne~s of despondency, the dreadful re- verse of his golden dreams; & instead of an overflowing exchequer, & a halos of glory, . . . [blank] perspective, shame, poverty & de- feat, & sinks under the pressure of mortified pride, and the painful ~pprehensions of a mo[rlbid imagination, Gladly would we succor him, if we could-gladly would we exci_te public sympathy in behalf of every one in such an unhappy condition; for in doing this, we should only be pleading our own cause, For such, most courteous & gentle reader, is our present deplorable predicament. We feel called upon by the voice of ancient custom, to fire, in this the first number of our NEW SERIES, A bold salute to our patrons and the public; but on exam- ination we find that we haYe neither the artillery nor the ammunition, to make a report suitable to the occasion. Our heaviest Ordinance, will report no louder than the crac-king of a "chestnut in a farmer's fire," What then shall we do? Why, we will make no explosion at all, Or, in plain parlance, we beg leave to decline entirely, every thing in the shape of a Salutatory adclresf1, We do this from a conviction of our utter .inability at this time, to elaborate any thing which can be worthy of us, or acceptable to the reader, For such performances we have no taste or talent. \\"hatever requires the refil1e1nents of fancy, or the elegance of Exvression, we freely confess that our skilless pens are unsuited to it~ execution. Without wit to enliYen, or the beauties of lan~age to adorn what we ~ay, wr. cannot hope to propitiate the hirrhlv cultiYatecl mintl", 01· win tlw l'arnr of tho:-e who delight to revel in°1uxurief: of fine eompo~ition.- Rut turning from such productions :ts require thr touc-ltef: of a maf1ter pencil. we are content to labor ob-
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