CA ET LÀ.

BY THE FLANEUR.

WHAT was Mr. Liner's plan? We will give it shortly, and hurry to a conclusion. He packed up his daughter and despatched her to Boston by Harnden's Express, in the month of September, carefully directed to a maternal uncle who resided there. With her went a letter explaining his peculiar situation. How Mrs. Liner and himself were afraid that their daughter, although now a 'dame charmante de vingt six ans moins un mois,' might become a middle-aged, ay, a very middle-aged single lady; how all her friends had married about her, even to Frederica Frizzle, who, like the Colossus of Rhodes, was very tall and very brazen; how Shuffleshanks had loved and died, leaving no sign; how the young man from Tobolsk had offered himself and been refused, and how the sparks no longer flew up when she appeared. That, in short, he despaired of settling her at home, although she was rich; as the New-Yorkers have an invincible aversion to any thing that has been long on hand; and Catharine, though certainly not passée was as certainly passante. He therefore requested the uncle to introduce her in Boston as a widow; the relict of a rich planter who died in New-Orleans of the yellow fever, leaving his wife the fee simple of all his slaves and half-breeds. To which the uncle willingly consented, as he was promised a handsome percentage if he succeeded; and Catharine herself was nothing loth, for she yearned to get married; and deceit, as we will prove one of these days, is the ground-work of the female character.

So Miss Liner was shipped; as old fashioned goods often are, in newer boxes. The bill of lading was marked thus:

Mr. Liner was confident that she would arrive safe, as her case was the very antipodes of the vinous accident alluded to in scrip

ture.

Here ends the authentic history of Miss Liner. All else is either fabulous or deeply tinged with mythology. But it is at least certain that her widowhood allowed her to be so much more lively and fascinating, and explained so satisfactorily why she was single at her age; and her fortune came in so strongly and opportunely to urge on admirers, that in less than a month she was engaged, and

in less than two, married. Our uncle pocketed his commission and kept his secret.

After Catharine Julia had left New-York on her marital journey, a small closely-written sheet of paper was found in her room, which was evidently intended for publication. She said in a short preface that she took the idea from Shuffleshanks, and that after his death, in her pensive moments, when

'oft at even as she sat

In a little summer-house in the garden without a hat,'

her experience of society shaped itself into the following rules, which she resolved to leave as a legacy to the beau sexe of the beau monde, among whom she had so long been conspicuous:

'RULES FOR BECOMING A PERFECT ZAZA.

'The accomplished belle, flowered, flounced, fanning, figuring, flirting, flinging herself in all directions with the timidity of the gazelle, and its endurance, approaches to the grand ideal of belles; the peerless Zaza.

'Zazas are like Pachas of one, two, or three tails; (no double entendre meant.) A Zaza of one tail has one or two regular beaux ; one of two tails has five or six; one of three tails has as many as she pleases. This is the summit of Zazaism. A demoiselle with no beaux is a nobody; (nobeaudy;) a poor creature; something quite despicable.

'RULE I. When about to seat yourself, pull your dress strongly on both sides to prevent its wrinkling; then subside. Consequently, upon rising, the dress must be raised again with the left hand, and three or four slaps given on each side, to complete the circle. The gesture of smoothing the front hair with the flat of the hand may be tolerated in the darkest closet of a house with stone walls, or in the centre of the great desert of Sahara when no caravan is in sight.

The

'RULE II. You should always endeavor to be sportive. lambkin and the very young cat style take well, and are quite Zaza. A frisk just tinged with the soupçon of a tremble is a very beautiful display.

'RULE III. If you perceive a friend arriving, and go to meet her across a large room, always proceed with three skips on the points of your toes, then two quick steps, then three more skips, and so on alternately. Take care that your face does not express more anxiety for the success of your pas seul than joy at greeting your friend. When you attain your très cherè, groan Zaza, seize her hand and kiss her twice. This is a simple and effective meeting. The coup d'ail is excellent when both young ladies are of the Zaza school. The three-skip gait is admirably adapted to entering a room unexpectedly; where there is a gentleman, or in leaving one at home tolerably full of company, when called out by a servant. It is invaluable at pic-nics.

6 RULE IV. Walk into a drawing-room behind your mamma. You appear timid and retiring, and she acts as a standard-bearer, announces your arrival, and people are better prepared to stare.

RULE V. Encourage only beaux who can add to your power by making you a great Zaza; such as great waltzers, singers; men who are rich, and who seem to be attentive 'pour le bon motif,' must of course be fed upon faint hopes.

RULE VI. When sitting in a drawing-room, always cross your arms about your waist; each hand covering the small ribs on the opposite side, as if, like the gallant old soldier in Pelham, you wanted your hands to guard your heart. It is no objection to this style that it is always adopted by awkward cantatrices on the stage - and off. 'RULE VII. It is well for a Zaza, if she lives in a fashionable street, to read or embroider in a conspicuous window, which she may call her beau-window.

'RULE VIII. In talking, do not make your lips and head go faster than your tongue. The Zaza is languid and shakes her head slowly, looking all the while intently and impressively at the person whom she is entertaining with if he be a foreigner, a fortune, or a Coryphæus.

'RULE IX. In drinking tea, coffee, or lemonade, hold the cup with the thumb and the fore and middle fingers, and allow the others to point rigidly into the air, at as great a distance as possible from the three first enumerated.

RULE X. In playing or singing, timidity and tremors are quite out of date. The Zaza glides up to the instrument as if she had graduated at the Conservatoire, and sung three years at the Académie Royale. The only expression of face allowable is the smile of conscious power; such a smile as Jupiter's phiz might wear when contemplating the feeble struggles of sublunarians. On earth this smile may be often seen in female rope-dancers.

RULE XI. If a person asks to be presented, the Zaza 'really don't know;' she has so many acquaintances;' languidissimo.

RULE XII. If a Zaza of three tails, always dance at the head of a cotillon and lead off the waltz.

'RULE XIII. When a bad or an uncertain waltzer requests the honor, the Zaza is always engaged; but she may hint to a Shuffleshanks to beg for a turn, or even ask him outright. This has often been successfully practised by Zazas of two tails.

' RULE XIV. If you have received a bouquet from an anonymous admirer, or from your father, thank the most fashionable man, or the Great Catch, or both; and loud enough to be overheard. You believe not one word of their protestations, of course, and set it down to modesty.

'RULE XV. When two Zazas, accompanied by their respective cavaliers, meet in the ball-room, they should always stop for a

moment, interchange a few dulcet words, tell each other 'how sweetly pretty you look to-night,' and present for a moment a lovely picture of child-like simplicity and utter guilelessness-to the respective cavaliers and observers in general.'

LITERARY NOTICES.

DONNA FLORIDA: A TALE. By the Author of 'Atlantis,' 'Southern Passages and Pictures,' etc. Charleston: BURGESS AND JAMES.

'THE poem,' says the author of this miniature pamphlet-volume, of which the four first cantos (he means the first four, no doubt) are here submitted to the reader, was chiefly the work of the writer's youth.' He does not claim, however, that this fact forms any sufficient excuse for giving it to the public at this late day; but offers rather the natural tenacity 'with which the mind treasures up, and seeks to preserve, the performances which revive its early associations.' We have run through these cantos with some attention. The story does not strike us as possessing either great originality or interest. The verse itself is after the model of Don Juan,' then recently published, and rife in the literary world; but like the thousand-and-one imitations which we have encountered of that most facile and felicitous composition, its 'laborious ease' cannot be concealed. With BYRON, the play of fancy and of words was equally unconstrained, in this species of versification; but all his imitators have evidently been stretched upon Procrustean beds; and with all the seeming abandon of their manner, and the smirk of their ' varnished faces,' it has yet been but too evident that their situation was any thing but comfortable. In 'Donna Florida' however there is a good degree of cleverness. There are many thoughts interspersed throughout its cantos which the reader will encounter with surprise and remember with pleasure. Nevertheless we are compelled to say, that where the stanzas are most original, they are the least to our liking. We enter our protest against the writer's frequent habit of saying a plain thing in an involved, roundabout way, as well as against numerous words and similes which he employs. You can call a hat,' says Mr. YELLOWPLUSH, a 'glossy four-and-nine' or a 'swart sombrero;' but in the long run praps it's as well to call it a hat. It is a hat; and where 's the use o' mystifying?' Would it not, for example, be 'as well' also, and quite as natural, to write 'half of the rest,' as 'the subdivision of the remaining moïety? Or in saying that old jokes were laughed at, to express it in less magniloquent phrase than

'Old jokes found revivified expansion?'

-'the voicings of As little do we

Where does Mr. SIMMS find authority for such a word as 'voicing?' a bird?' In any dictionary of the English language? Guess not! admire the simile which makes a lady's eye the 'polar light in love's astrology,' or which represents it as

'peering beneath her forehead like a star, Bestowing a sweet glory on the sky.'

All these are 'affectations, look you ;' and are in our judgment even worse sins against