father behind the counter of Mrs. Alexander, (who, in silks and satins, laces and lawns, monopolized the whole fashionable custom of the city,) in the hopes that he might one day become a merchant. But the quick eye of that old lady detected a great many inaccuracies in his arithmetic, with occasional fluctuations in the state of the till, which could not be accounted for by corresponding variations in that of the market. One day she saw him in church, ostentatiously protruding on public attention, a pair of skyblue silk stockings with red clocks. This sight gave her such painful sensations, that she retired prematurely, apparently half-fainting. On examination, she found that these integuments had actually been abstracted from a parcel received by the last importation; and, when Tevas returned, she very cavalierly divested him, with her own hands, of the dry-goods, and turned him off bare-legged, with a malison and a prophecy of evil import.

After this dismission Matthew led a miscellaneous life for many years. Sometimes he vouchsafed his attendance at the bar of the Blue Bell, in Sloat-lane. Sometimes he ran of errands for the Governor. Sometimes he carried invitations to funerals for the sexton. During the annual fortnight's session of the Legislature, he assisted

in making fires and filling pipes for the members. He was the regular door-keeper at the school balls of Mr. Turner, the patriarch of New-York dancing-masters. Though his exterior was

rather ragged and dishevelled, there was a certain jauntiness about its arrangement, and what Leigh Hunt would call a viridity and leafiness in his air. He loved to dispose such ornaments as he could muster, on those parts of his person where he supposed their exhibition would prove 'most effectual. He wore two-thirds of a threecornered hat, with a Ramilies cock. Though his linen was filthy dowlas, his ruffles were of deep lace. If his knees seemed to indicate a curiosity to peep out of their investments, his knee-buckles were of sumptuous Bristol paste; and his stockings, though rarely whole, were always of silk. His frugal and affectionate mother often besought him to put on stout woollen hose, of her own knitting; but he rejected all such overtures with unfilial contempt. The fragments of his shoes were always highly polished and garnished with buckles, one of brass, and one of steel. Such was Tevas' course of life, and such the assortment of his apparel.

By the arrival of the packet, on the 30th day of December, 1760, after a short passage of seventy-nine days from Falmouth, the melan

choly tidings were brought to this Dutch colony, of the death of its German master, George the Second. This monarch happening to die at a lucky moment, just after the conquest of Canada, left behind him an excellent character. All England was in tears. So said the London Advertiser, the regular channel of intelligence to this city. With that laudable imitation of the customs of the mother country, for which its citizens have ever since been distinguished, it was unanimously resolved that New-York also was much afflicted. The dignitaries before named, with others not there specified, laid aside their customary splendour of velvet, brocade, and gold lace, and appeared in full suits of mourning. The sober burghers brought forth their solemn black attire from the recesses of their wardrobe; and those who were unprovided repaired to Van Snick and Hoffmeyer, or to M. La Culotte.

These magnates, with all the minor members of the sartorial trade, were hard at work in making new mourning suits, or in refitting and furbishing up old ones, which had not been worn since the death of the last near relation, or of one of the royal family. Hard at work were they all, in cutting up the fine, thick, glossy Dutch blacks of former times, to whose solidity,

compactness, and lustre, the boasted Regent's cloth of modern days is, in comparison, a mere web of gossamer—or in darning, piecing, patching, letting out, taking in, turning, scouring, seating, new collaring, new cuffing, and new buttoning the lugubrious livery used on former

occasions.

I am not a tailor by trade, which I regret, for I have a genius that way; but I love and honour the art, and sympathise in all the mishaps of its professors. I am, therefore, thus particular, because none, not even the meanest of these jobs fell to the share of poor Vince the Cockney, who sat some days after the arrival of the gloomy news which accompanied all these outward signs of woe, the veritable picture of woe itself, if poetical propriety would justify the personification of Woe in the shape of a tailor. He sat in his shop alone, playing with his measure, and meditating on sundry wants and necessities. Among these, the most prominent was his last quarter's rent, still due, with a balance of the former one, amounting in all to fourteen pounds fifteen shillings. For living in the most frequented part of the city, his rent was proportionately extravagant. Sadly and listlessly he felt and unrolled, for the fiftieth time, a piece of black velvet, rather shop-worn, which, having abandoned all hopes

of clothing with it any of the dignitaries, from the Governor down to the Alderman of the Ward, he had that day offered, at what he called half-price, to the Dutch Church Consistory, and to the vestry of Trinity, for mourning hangings; with equally bad success in both instances. He had almost come to the desperate conclusion of making himself a suit from the despised cloth, out of respect for the memory of his departed sovereign, and in keeping with the gloom of his own fortunes; and of putting himself on board the next packet. Suddenly the door of his shop opened, with a peremptory shove, and an authoritative bang, and closed again with an emphatic noise. He looked up hastily, while the fear of a sheriff and the hope of a customer made his heart palpitate and his eyes incapable of accurate speculation; until, after some moments, he recognised the form of our friend Matthew Oakes, in his wonted costume, but enlarged and heightened, as it seemed, by a new air of dignity or impudence.

Supposing he was the bearer of a message indicative of business, from a respectable quarter, (for Matthew never ran errands for low people,) the tailor regarded him more complacently than usual, and waited for an explanation of his embassy. Mat seated himself, with great familiarity,