The National Republican And Ohio Political Register

From the Nantucket Inquirer.

TEN DAYS IN THE METROPOLIS.
No. X.

THE UPSHOT.
King.-I have watch'd and travell'd hard;
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle.
King Lear.

Approach, ye furies fell!
O fates! come, come;
Cut thread and thrum;
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
Midsummer-night's Dream.

If the kind reader hath not ere this, ago grandized his memory, and solaced his fancy, with the wondrous facts and speculations which a sojourn of Ten days in the Metropolis may have enabled the writer to develope, the fault must be his own-that is, the kind reader's. Most accurate have been the revelations, and most weighty the theoretical conclusions, promulgated and drawn forth in the procatarctic sections of this memoir as will be more abundantly acknowledged by remote posterity; for whose use and behoof the same is mainly designed--and not for the ravenous amusement of some contemporary cavillers. Were all essayists thus to philosophize, dropping their productions upon the heads of subsecutive generations, instead of assuming an aspect of soreness at present sneers and disappointments, the world might wag how waywardly soever it pleased: there would be vastly less creaking in the wheels of society-the hypocritics could then derive no comfort from carpings, and snarlings, and growlings; for an unnoticed scorner ingurgitates his own bitters in solitude, and goeth speedily to sleep; while nothing so sweeteneth and mollifieth the pungencies of this acrimonious life, as an equanimous and smut-proof temperament.

Having arrived at his tenth and last decimal division of this right trustworthy relation, the writer is urgently prone to amplify and to moralize upon such topics as naturally present themselves at the close of his labors, in the premises: But to this temptation, however strong, he shall in no wise succumb: for, to yield thereunto in any degree, would lead to the mention of divers serious particularities, such as men do not admire to contemplate--viz. the mutability of all human concernments, the overthrow of contrivance, the defeat of expectations, the termination of enterprises, the extinction of enjoyments, the fleetness of time, and the end of all things-- matters quite unpleasant to suggest.

His course through the crooked and pestiferous quagmire of politics being finished, the writer prepared to remigrate septennially -vulgo, to plod northwardly towards the land from whence he came.- His departure from the metropolis was doubtless predestinated from the beginning; and who dare -wrestle with the fates? The decree had gone forth, that from and after the-- day of November, the place in F street that once knew him, should know him no more; 'because,' as was asserted concerning the father of Fanny."

"how ever much he might desire it,
The public good it seems did not require it."

Accordingly, with all due deference and submission to inexorable destiny, a dirty porter lugged the deponent's baggage,(consisting of some secondary habiliments, and a few odd twelvemos from a half-price book-store, meet for entertainment on the passage) to the wharf where lay the good sloop Galen ; with whose master and commander, the reader was made somewhat acquaint in the outset hereof. There was a mellow breeze blowing indulgently from the right quarter. At noon the fasts were slipped, and our little bark floated wantonly upon the sparkling bosom of the current, her stretched sails puffing and swelling like the cheeks of Boreas himself.

Gay and gladsome was the scene, and the prospect cheering. Hundreds of similar small craft were also disporting in the sun's eye, and moving swiftly before the invigorating breath of heaven. Leaving the Navy-Yard on the starboard, a circuitous and rigmarole labyrinth of waters wanders among the numerous irregular islets and projecting, capes; washing the borders of sundry gentlemanly manors, and bearing in its briny bowels myriads of the scaly tribe, studious of bait, and coveted by anglers. Onward, and onward went the vessel ; from whose deck might be descried in the distance,scattered hither and yon upon the meandering stream, multitudes of white topsails, now gliding behind cottages and chateaus, anon embosomed amidst umbrageous orchards or lofty forests, and finally stealing in obscurity beneath the dim and declivitous horizon.

A romantic enthusiast might discover in the variegated vista, all sorts of machinery for the fabrication of a real Radcliffean rhodomontade. The most picturesquely given taste could only desire the addition of a ruined monastery, and some half-a-dozen grim figures stalking among the cloisters by way of spectres and banditti.

An old fort that scowls woodenly above the whirlpools of Hell Gate, like an openmouthed statue of Cerberus, may serve for the first of these objects; and a few straggling sportsmen' or screeching seamews,might be winked at in lieu of robbers and goblins.

Having smoothly passed this devious and ever-varying panorama of hills, woods, vallies, rocks, palaces and farms, the great sound or inland sea, between the shores of Connecticut and Long-Island opened and lengthened before us. One by one, our sea-bound companions disappeared in the fast-failing twilight. The wind freshened momently, piping and wailing through the strained cordage, and brushing before it the foam of the curling billows. The waves drew further asunder at every dash of our frolicksome prow, alternately lifting us upon their swelling convexities, or yawning to receive us at full length as we slid along their frothy undulations. Three or four disconsolate stars peered dismally at each other athwart the grey firmament, now thickening with clouds that rolled up the darkling zenith. Some prefatory droppings portended a storm-and the passengers were fain to huddle below. Take two reefs in the mainsail!'screamed the skipper; accordingly the helmsman brought us to, where we lay shivering until the completion of this operation-when, with a huge flap, the canvass resumed its duties, and the vessel its course sea-ward.

Thus springing and plunging, before midnight we shot through 'the Race' like a hare before its pursuers. By this time the heavens were utterly invisible--furious squalls of rain swept almost horizontally across the deck-our staunch sea-boat, though scudding obliquely beneath the impetuous blast, still held her wonted track, till every friendly beacon and watch-lantern were fairly run out of sight. The pilot's only source was then the binnacle, whose lamp he was specially mindful to keep trimmed and burning -an arduous undertaking at this particular conjuncture, for the wild and tumultuous surges tumbled madly in gigantic volumes against the bark's broadside, casting leeward with many a concussive crash, every unsupported moveable. 'Now night the negro reigned' .-order and comfort forsook the cabin -so did the passengers--some grasping the companion-way, others clinging to the weather-shrouds in a perfectly periculous pickle, patiently preparing to buffet the rampageous and unprincipled tempest.-

'Two men were stationed in the forecastle, watching for dangers ahead, or emulous of the first glimmer of some far-off light-house. But the mute mariners could discern naught save certain flashes that played upon the ocean's black bosom, flickering and glancing like glow-worms in a sepulchre!

It was indeed one of those awful plights in which a man may recognize his own insignificance, and the powerless efforts of all his boasted faculties when placed in competition with the struggling and unrestrained elements. ' All temporals are as a hasty headlong torrent, a ship, a bird, an arrow, a post, that passeth by'-quoth the godly master Thomas Brooks in his discourse imprinted at London, 'and are to be sold at the Three Bibles, being the first shop in Popeshead-Alley next to Cornhill, 1673:'-and again, Ah what riding, running, and sailing is used by men of this world, to make sure the poor things thereof, that are but shadows, and dreams, and meer nothings ? Men will venture life and limb to obtain these things that hop from man to man, as the bird hoppeth from twig to twig.'

At length, while all on board were silently ruminating in a style somewhat like unto the foregoing, the day dawn opened, and we were hard by the westernmost entrance of the Vineyard sound; through which we rapidly sped, reaching safely but drippingly the long-desired haven--quite thankful for having escaped a more dolorous catastrophe. Whereupon the writer, making the best of his way up the long Straight-wharf into the ancient borough of Nantucket, did muse and commune with himself in this wise : 'there existeth no connection between the natural and political worlds! At our outgoing, no storms disturbed the atmosphere of nature; while that of politics was torn by villainous hurricanes : moreover, at our incoming, the phenomena of these several systems exhibit a downright inflection and reversement' and- and here endeth the whole matter.'