{ * } THE OLD COMMODORE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "RATTLIN THE REEFER," &c. N'ESTROQUE!" NEW YORK: BURGESS, STRINGER, & Co., 222 Broadway, corner of Ann-street. 1847. M. A. Scrles. W "ZOUNDS!" OLD SONG. "You have begun your history with an oath !" ejaculates the purist. "You have begun it with a vulgarism," lisps the young gentleman who has a horror of being thought vulgar. dominions than myself; so do not expect that I shall be guilty of lèse majesté in recording the innocent and very ignorant answer. I have only related so much of the anecdote as is necessary to my purpose, to prove that the word, per se, is not vulgar. "Zounds!" Sure That, at the beginning of a book or chapter, it is a plagiarism, I again acknowledge; but surely the readers of novels will pardon me for I assure them, if they strain at this word, they will be precisely in the situation of Rabelais' giant, whe could swallow, digest, and thrive upon windmills, And alas? I myself confess that I have com- yet was choked by endeavoring to bolt a pound menced it with a plagiarism. I am sorry, truly of butter, near the mouth of a heated oven. sorry, that, by this confession, I have forestalled ly those who are in the habit of devouring, greedthe discovery with three-and-twenty critics, who lily, dished-up plagiarisms, in the shape of senwere all gaping, open-mouthed, to charge me tences, paragraphs, plots, and chapters, ought not with the crime. 'Tis a vile plagiarism, certain-to make wry mouths at a single pirated word. ly; for I must plead guilty to the knowledge of seven novels, be they of volumes more or less, This thunder-mocking word was ejected, althree tales, two romances, thirteen plays, and most at the loudest pitch of the human voice, in one sermon, beginning precisely in the same a large and lofty room of a splendid mansion, manner to say nothing of its being an invidious near Trestle tree, in the county of Herts. This piracy from the commonplaces of the day; for, apartment had nothing to distinguish it from the does not every husband, when, conscious of generality of those of an estated English gentlemuch wine, he comes home late and meets the man, at the close of the last century, with the exscowling brow of the soother of his soul, and ception that it contained many pictures, all relatviews the gathering remonstrance trembling on ing to nautical matters, and the portraits of Howe, her lip, like a bee hanging with its sting in the Duncan, Benbow, and most of the worthies who rose-bud-does he not, I say, arrest it ere it fall, have built up the proud monument of England's with the altisenant, Zounds! and, after this hap-naval glory. There was also among the other py commencement of his chapter, has he not all the words and sentences that follow, his own way, as I intend to have in mine? furniture, and in a place of honor, a superb model of a ninety-eight, with a commodore's broad pendant attached to the main royal head, and several specimens of Indian weapons of war were resting in the corners of the room. And yet, I have a little to say in defence of this boisterous "Zounds!" I can assure the pietist that, notwithstanding its etymological derivation Now this apartment opened, by means of a from the awful and right royal outbreak of "God's glass door, upon a carefully kept lawn, decorated wounds," that it is not an oath: and, in the sense with large and oval beds of roses; and the frahe will hereafter find it used, it is nothing more grance of many flowers from well-filled stands, than a pain-relieving expletive, guilty of no more containing vase upon vase, made the air near the impiety than its more modest and querulous bro-door balmy and oderiferous, and almost overcame thers, "Ah me!" "Alas!" and "Lack-a-daisy!" the aroma of tobacco, that was too distinctly perAnd I can assure the young gentleman with the ceivable within. gilt spurs and mosaic gold chains, that, inflated as it is, it is by no means vulgar; for it was used, with astounding emphasis, by the first gentleman of the age, and the first sovereign of Europe, his late majesty, upon a dirty little boy, who, when in search of the twopenny postman, and stumbling upon royalty, in the Windsor uniform, and alone, had thrust a penny in the regal palm, with a crumpled letter. "Zounds!" said the possessor of the lives and fortunes of so many royal Britons, "Zounds! oboy, whom do you take me for ?" There is not a more loyal man in his majesty's 37981 368 (RECAP) At the moment that the terrific interjection with which I have commenced this veracious history, was launched forth, this apartment, the lawn drawing-room, as it was called, was occupied by four persons, with whom I wish my readers to be most familiarly acquainted. Let us retrospect for one single moment, for, after the explosion of the terrible word, all was confusion and disarray. Observe attentively that stout, broad-built old gentleman, with his back to the light; mark his high and bald forehead: the structure is ample and noble; but its pure and marble brightness is disfigured by a deep red seam, which, if you will |