abject in raiment that all peaceable lookers on will
wonder where they came from, and how it happened that
in a city so well supplied with water their unclean
appearance, and the evident satisfaction they derived
from scratching, was a sight for the eyes to behold.
The hero must be careful to admonish the two or three
ex-aldermen who accompany him, that it will not do
to expose the necks of bottles in their pockets during
their passage through the streets; he must also be
sure to deliver his bows with becoming grace, and
to keep his right hand upon his heart, (if he have
one,) giving the mob to understand that therein beats
his love for righting wronged humanity. Nor will
he lose anything in reputation, if he exercise great
courtesy in returning those manifestations of approbation
which are become so common with enthusiastic chambermaids,
who flourish napkins from third and fourth story windows,
and are mistaken by the uninitiated for damsels of
quality with delicately perfumed cambrics. And
as he let nothing slip through his fingers while bathing
in blood the homes of the people he had made wretched,
so must he now comfort himself with the assurance,
that the uproar of the rabble constituting his train
is all cheers sent up by the honest people in admiration
of his wonderful exploits. And, being free from
every restraint or obligation, he may, with advantage
to himself, recur to the deeds of Csar and Alexander,
(not forgetting to remember Cicero,) to which he may
compare his own. He can then sneer at your people
of quality, and having sufficient cause, prepare himself
for a speech of extraordinary eloquence, in which
he need have no fear of profaning, for his hearers
will stand amazed, and think how mighty a thing it
is to be a hero.
I would also advise him to give his thoughts entirely
to himself, and be careful not to betray them with
his words, lest some ambitious critic set them down
and use them at some future day to his damage.
He must likewise sufficiently eulogize the companions
in his exploits; and though they were true to nothing
but debauchery and their own conceits, it will serve
him best if he tell distressing tales of their patriotism.
And above all, he will be wholly deficient in rendering
himself justice, if he do not set forth with the very
best of his rhetoric, how much he is misrepresented
by the press, which will persist in calling him a
monster, when in truth he is a servant of heaven, sent
upon earth to raise the fallen. And when he shall
have been drawn through a sufficient number of streets,
and the eyes of the curious shall have been gratified,
and the dyspeptic fifer has exhausted his wind, and,
together with the Dutch drummers, can no longer invest
the jaded train with a martial spirit, then, if the
lean animals have strength enough left in their dilapidated
frames, the cortge, as it is well called, may proceed
into the Park, where the hero, if it do not rain,
may take off his hat to the multitude of rejected humanity,