THE judicious and forgiving reader will, I am sure, join me in approving the facility with which the major regained his stock of courage, (lost when entering Tarpaulin Cove,) on hearing that the politicians of New York had determined on making him a hero of no mean parts, and were devising a grand programme for our reception. And this consoling news I read to him from that very enterprising and extremely reliable journal, the New York Herald, a copy of which I got of the parson, who was its Tarpaulin Cove correspondent, and admired it much for its mingling of divine and human things, as well as the amount of honey the editor always mixed with his brimstone. The Common Council had, according to this sagacious journal, held a meeting, and, at the expense of much unintelligible oratory and disorder, passed a resolution appropriating five thousand dollars for the purpose of giving us a reception worthy of either Cicero or Washington. And this was to be entirely in consideration of the great public services we had rendered the country.

And it was further resolved, and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of "this great metropolis." It was also resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ever attempted by Choate, that the mayor, who, though he contemplated himself the greatest of potentates, was famous only for commanding an unruly police to bludgeon the heads of peaceable citizens, should publicly receive us at the City Hall.

This news so elated the major, that he commenced running about the deck, after the manner of a madman. He next tore the bandages from his head, and swore though his eyes were disfigured, his body remained in most excellent condition. As to persecutions, all great men ought to endure them with humility, for they were only the forerunners of great honors. He therefore resolved to say no more of the scars, but, in proof of his faith, to for ever esteem Captain Luke Snider a public benefactor, and to set about commending himself to the consideration of all good citizens, for therein, as he conceived, lay the virtue of true eminence. And now that he had a horse of such excellent parts, and a pig whose rare gifts, (did the critics do him justice,) must prove invaluable, he flattered himself he was fairly on the road to fortune, and might safely leave the rest to the hero makers of New York.

I must inform the honest reader, that great value was set by the Common Council upon the fact, that the major had transferred his affections from the whig to the democratic party, which could not fail to shed a lasting luster upon its principles. Two honest Hibernian members of the very common board of very uncommon councilmen, had, with that modesty so characteristic of them, paid me the high compliment of saying, that I had been justly styled the great northern political war horse. I could not suppress a blush at seeing myself cut so strange a figure, inasmuch as the flourish of speech was such as had never been thought of by Aristotle, and would have paled even Henry Clay. Let no man, therefore, doubt the truth of what I here say; for I am not given to writing satires, preferring to wait until heaven shall send me some nobler mission. Nor would I have the reader express surprise, that persons so humble as the major and myself should be thus suddenly subjected to the process of hero making so much in fashion with the forty thousand idlers and politicians of New York, who have graciously taken upon themselves the directing of all public affairs, seeing that good men are so engaged in the getting of gold as to care not a whit if the devil get all their liberties. And if the reader have read the histories of Greece and Rome, wherein it is written that he only was made a hero who had achieved some great undertaking, and thereby conferred lasting honors upon his country, his surprise may be increased at the strange elements of character necessary to a hero at this day. But I humbly beg him to consider the circumstances of these forty thousand idlers and other politicians, who, having no employment for their fingers, let the devil direct their brains, and have turned hero making into a commerce of so cheap a quality, that no good christian can be got to engage in it. In fine, (and it is no vulgar invention of my brain,) the virtues required of an hero at this day, are that he have been a great marauder, who, having invaded the country of a poor, down trodden people, driven them from their quiet homes, plundered them of their property, ravished their daughters, drenched their fields with the blood of the innocent, and whitened the highways with the bones of his own dissolute but deluded followers, and spread desolation over the land, had to leave it a vanquished miscreant. And upon the principle, that if you give power to the idle and reckless they will make heroes to suit their kind and circumstances, he will then be received at the Battery with a great waste of powder, and such other noisy demonstrations as shall please the unruly. From thence he shall be conveyed in a shabby carriage, drawn by four lean horses, escorted by six firemen in red shirts, and preceded by two Dutch drummers with serious faces, and long, light beards, and a dyspeptic negro fifer, through sundry of our most crowded streets. And there shall follow him a procession of urchins, so 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 C'sar 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............