The Whig Standard

MARRIAGE OF THE PRESIDENT.
"None but the brave deserve the fair."
Our peaceable and moral city was thrown into trepidation and alarm on opening the penny papers on Wednesday morning, and finding that the President of the United States had arrived the night previous at Howard's. "What could have brought him so suddenly and so secretly from the White House?" was the question everywhere asked. War with England on the Texas question, and he came to examine the harbors and provide for the public defence; forthwith, orders were given to sell all the fancy stocks at the New Board--Harlem, Stonington, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Canton, &c., &c. Then the politicians surmised, that his visit was to arrange the business for the new collector; a thousand rumors prevailed; no one could see him; Howard stood sentry at the door, as fierce as one of Harry the Eighth's beef-eaters ; at length a deputation started off to our friend Colonel Graham, Usher of the White Rod and Lord of the Bed Chamber, when the mystery was at once solved: it was not a war visit, which had brought the commander in chief to the city--it was not the offices, or the dispensing of political favors--it was not Texas, but it was annexation--a mission of love--a visit of recreation--of joy : the President came on to be married ! to carry off a beautiful belle from the Empire State, to soothe him amidst the cares of State, to have his way in one agreeable determination, in spite of the belligerent Senate; he came to be married--post haste to be married; so the church was thrown open, the Bishop jumped into his pontificals, the lovely, blushing bride held out her finger for the ring, the clerk cried amen, the ships of war fired salutes; and honest John Tyler soon found himself seated in the rail-road car with a friend at his side, which he found in New York ! Mirabile dictu! a friend, in whom he could confide, and whose office required no confirmation, but her own free will; a friend to soothe his cares, of which he had plenty, to smooth his pillow, and to enjoy, on the banks of the James river, the charming view of little niggers, cotton crops, and tobacco fields. So suddenly had this affair been conducted, so bewildered and astonished were the beau monde, at what Mantalini would call "a dem'd abduction," that it was at one time debated, whether old Hays should not be sent to arrest the wedding party, and the whole affair looked into by his honor the Recorder, who would have been delighted above all things, to have cross-examined the lady, under a writ of Habeas Corpus; and one of Mike Walsh's boys was so indignant at the suddenness of the irruption, which he classically compared to the "Rape of the Carbines," that he seized one of the muslin banners belonging to the order of the Huge Paws, ran down to the foot of Courtlandt street, and inscribed upon it, "BRING BACK THAT GAL."
Well, honest John Tyler is a courageous man, and a lucky man, and his life has been striped and chequered most zebra like; he has been a Whig and a Democrat, vetoed two banks, settled everything amicably with John Bull, made a treaty for the annexation of Texas, which the Senate would not ratify, and married all within four short years.
It was amusing, however, to hear the superannuated old maids, the Miss Lucretia Mactabs, and
the simpering girls, holding a matrimonial caucus over the tea table.
"Well," said Miss Anna Maria Dubbe." what could Julia Gardiner see in that old man to marry him, why he is old enough to be her grandfather."
"Suppose he is," said Miss Mactab, taking a hearty pinch of Mrs. Miller's rappee, "don't you know the old say, 'better be an old man's darling than a young man's slave.' Then you know she is the President's lady and Mistress of the White House."
"Only till the end of the term," said Mrs. Piccadilly, a very great tory, with a toss of her head "vots your Hamerican onors--vy like our lord mayor, who only holds his title for von year."
"Well," said Miss Snip, putting two large lumps of sugar in her tea, "I am glad she is married--it's one belle less in the field she can't now take the beaus from us at Saratoga."
John Tyler is the only President who married during his term of office ; Mr. Van Buren was a widower--a gay widower flirted with the girls and widows, but declined committing himself to matrimony. He had no lady at the white house, and lost his election in consequence. Mr. Tyler, who has so often complained of being cheated by his pretended friends, is not cheated now, in this new and agreeable experiment, and if the lady herself has been in part governed by ambitious views, she will find consolation in domestic happiness; for whatever may have been the political errors of John Tyler, he is an exceedingly amiable man, and studies to make all happy around him.