Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

Original Miscellany.

LETTER OF K. Z. D.
IN REPLY TO THE ADVERTISEMENT OF
J. Z. H.
Which appeared in the Gazette of Tuesday, from the Boston Centinel.

RESPECTED SIR,

Your communication, addressed to the editor of the Boston Centinel, has at length reached me.

Your personification of yourself—the enumeration of your acquisitions—the protestations of your fidelity—and, lastly, your fondness for domestic life—render you extremely valuable, and a prize much greater than ten thousand blanks.

You, though the hero of your own description, have forgotten, in the paroxysm of your anxiety for a wife, to represent the beauty of your face, or the stateliness of your form. Whether this omission has been through stratagem, or neglect, is doubtful. Beauty, though of little avail with those of my sex who, for want of it, depreciate it in others, is with me a characteristic of great importance; and if you do not possess a little, I think the treaty between us is at an end. You may be extremely homely, nay, frightful; or you may be a monster! sounds truly distressing. alas! killing to a delicate ear and refined understanding. You will, therefore on the receipt of this, hasten to a limner, and have your likeness taken, for fear any misrepresentation may take place I beg you will, after the drawing, have its good qualities, in point of similitude, examined by two or three impartial female friends, who are capable of judging, from their own deformed and ugly appearance. Their certificates, acknowledging the similitude of the effigy, must accompany it. which you will transmit to me through the same channel wherein flowed your other important acquisition.

My reasons for this step are to give the public, whom I know to be impartial, an opportunity also of judging. When these conditions shall have been complied with, I know of nothing that will impede our marriage: but as there will be an intervening time, I shall with proper dispatch communicate whatever thoughts may occur. I rest satisfied that, when united, we will do honor to Hymen's bands and render each other more than temporary happiness. Believing that this negotiation will terminate to our mutual satisfaction, I take the liberty of adopting your name, and subscribe myself your affectionate wife,

K. Z. D.

N. B. I observe that you possess, among other good qualities, that inestimable one, economy, which will in time add to our wealth. Being myself an advocate for frugality, I cannot but commend it in others. and have taken the hint to save the postage, by giving this an insertion in a paper distinguished for its liberality.