The New-York, Connecticut, & New-Jersey Almanack, Or Diary, For the Year of Our Lord, 1799; Being the third after Bissextile, or Leap-Year, The twenty third of the Independence of the U. States of America.


This 1798 almanac for the year 1799 presents the usual information found within such efforts, but with brief pieces of humor, proverbs advice, politics and poetry as well.

An argument for the “fundamental articles of religion” is a push-back against those who do not subscribe to them. A proverb declares that “Lawyers heads are built on the heads of fools.” A maxim for men gives advice on promoting matrimonial harmony, suggesting that a man “should govern with a gentle Sway ... As the woman is deemed the weaker vessel, the man should give grains of allowance for her frailties; and if she appear to him from a mistaken notion, to be too warm in a wrong cause, add not fuel to fire, by a spirit of contradiction, but let her her passions subside…”

A Love Letter from a Lawyer to His Mistress is a humorous epistle written in legalese of some length. A brief joke above details a 16-year old girl who applies to become a wet nurse. The surprised would-be-employer doubts her qualifications whereupon the young woman replies: I never was a wet nurse yet, but I think that I could soon learn to be one.

Anti-British sentiment decries a Jamaican slave plantation with cruel overseers and anti-Spanish sentiment tells of a Franciscan burning a native American at the stake. A cure for a whooping cough is provided and a notice from the Treasury Department allows for a temporary pause of taxes upon stamped parchment, vellum and paper.

A Winter Piece, an anonymous poem (“Surly Winter now returns; Nature drops her head and mourns…”) and a lengthy joke about an Italian bishop fills out the text.


Description: The New-York, Connecticut, & New-Jersey Almanack, Or Diary, For the Year of Our Lord, 1799; Being the third after Bissextile, or Leap-Year, The twenty third of the Independence of the U. States of America.

Printed at New-York for John Reid. [1798]. 12mo. [36]pp., stitched. One Anatomy illustration. Rawhide thong holder. Illustrated title-leaf and final leaf with frass, dust-soiled and browned; print worn and light at times; good.

[3725803]

Evans 33390. Drake 6084. ESTC W22671 (AAS, NYHS, Newberry, University of Minnesota only).


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