Chapter 8

----------------"What is yon gentleman?"
Nurse. "The son and heir of old Tiberio."
Juliet. "What's he that follows there, that would not dance?"
Nurse. "Marry, I know not."

_Romeo and Juliet._

The sun was just heaving up, out of the field of waters in which the blue
islands of Massachusetts lie, when the inhabitants of Newport were seen
opening their doors and windows, and preparing for the different
employments of the day, with the freshness and alacrity of people who had
wisely adhered to the natural allotments of time in seeking their rests,
or in pursuing their pleasures. The morning salutations passed cheerfully
from one to another, as each undid the slight fastenings of his shop; and
many a kind inquiry was made, and returned, after the condition of a
daughter's fever, or the rheumatism of some aged grandam. As the landlord
of the "Foul Anchor" was so wary in protecting the character of his house
from any unjust imputations of unseemly revelling, so was he among the
foremost in opening his doors, to catch any transient customer, who might
feel the necessity of washing away the damps of the past night, in some
invigorating stomachic This cordial was very generally taken in the
British provinces, under the various names of "bitters," "juleps,"
"morning-drams," "fogmatics," &c., according as the situation of each
district appeared to require some particular preventive. The custom is
getting a little into disuse, it is true; but still it retains much of
that sacred character which it would seem is the concomitant of antiquity.
It is not a little extraordinary that this venerable and laudable
practice, of washing away the unwholesome impurities engendered in the
human system, at a time, when as it is entirely without any moral
protector, it is left exposed to the attacks of all the evils to which
flesh is heir, should subject the American to the witticisms of his
European brother. We are not among the least grateful to those foreign
philanthropists who take so deep an interest in our welfare as seldom to
let any republican foible pass, without applying to it, as it merits, the
caustic application of their purifying pens. We are, perhaps, the more
sensible of this generosity, because we have had so much occasion to
witness, that, so great is their zeal in behalf of our infant States,
(robust, and a little unmanageable perhaps, but still infant) they are
wont, in the warmth of their ardour, to reform Cis-atlantic sins, to
overlook not a few backslidings of their own. Numberless are the moral
missionaries that the mother country, for instance, has sent among us, on
these pious and benevolent errands. We can only