And the same remark applies with equal force to all the appendages of Carl Benson, as delineated in this very sketch. Still, I suppose I ought to be obliged to the members of "our set" who got up this idea; for the factitious interest thus communicated to these papers has caused them to be reprinted (in the cheap and multitudinous style of American reprints), and thus to become known to the outsiders both of our own city and of other parts of the country, who could perhaps judge them more fairly on their own merits, from having no knowledge of, or interest in, the local celebrities supposed to be portrayed in them. Some have been disposed to accept them as what they were really meant for--light sketches of life and manners in a certain circle; some have had the bad taste to wax furious at them. I understand that a few southern editors have departed from their usual stoical calmness and dignified reserve on the subject, to assail me for my occasional allusions to "the peculiar institution;" and am told (life is too short, and time too precious, to read such things oneself, but there are always good-natured friends to put you up to them) that a correspondent of the _Ochloratic Review and No Government Advocate_, who probably never wore a decent coat in his life, and regards every man in a clean shirt as an oppressor of the people, has seriously taken me to ask for representing some of my characters as elegantly dressed! If this individual could find nothing worse to say of my papers, _after nine months examination of them_, methinks he might have continued to hold his tongue; but I suppose any trash will do for the _Ochlocratic_. Whether the abuse of these persons, or the praise of others, or my own inclination, may tempt me hereafter to essay something more definite and connected, I will not say at present. Of the things that "lie on the knees of the Gods," it becomes no man to speak prematurely. Meanwhile, make a long arm across the Atlantic--So--shake hands, and good-bye! FRANK MANHATTAN. FOOTNOTES: [20] A literal fact. Washington Irving's residence was among those disfigured by this operation, which made havoc of all the oldest and most beautiful properties in the State. [21] Commonly written _Catskill_; but I believe the above is the genuine Dutch orthography. From Dickens's Household Words. THE FLYING ARTIST.