SELECT MISCELLANY.

SUNDAY IN LONDON.

BY A RETIRED COCKNEY.

'Tell me,' says Chesterfield, 'what company, you keep, and I will tell you what your character is, modification of the same idea, will apply to cities. If we know how Sunday is obeyed, we can immediately suppose what is the general character of the town. Now a Sunday in London is a twenty-four hours of Salma

gundi, the upper surface of which Asmodeus could

little done in the markets, except a little retailing. The noise and bustle of the arrival of the country wagons are at an end. At this hour, unless now and then may

of night generally trust rather to their ears than their
eyes, both as regards in-door and out-door operations.-
Among the working classes, a little indulgence is ex-
pected on Saturday night, and the majority are pru-be seen a hackney coach driven very rapidly to the resi-
dent enough to remain at home; but Saturday night
will be Saturday night; for, according to the logic of a
well-known cockney maxim,' A veek vithout a Satur-

day night vouldn't be no veek at all.'

At one o'clock on Sunday morning, the north side of Leicester Square, which is noted for being the latest thronged thoroughfare in London, begins to be deserted. Here and there may be seen a small debating society, generally composed on the spot by journeymen tailors, standing at corners, and arguing with much vehemence on the corn laws, the standing army, the beer act, and the American panic.

dence of some accoucheur, the city seems all quiet except the printing offices of the Sunday morning papers, which are very numerous, and if you meet a genteel

looking man, well dressed in black, with both hands in his pockets, his feet tender, his shoulders rounding, and a red Berkley cravat tied over his mouth, you may be sure that it is some compositor, who, poor fellow, has just succeeded in getting through his week's work of putting into English the scratchy and blotted effusions of some Irish reporter or assistant editor, who does all the heavy writing for the paper, provided always that he may be allowed to provide for himself by guzzling

gone home is a sure sign that the paper is to press, and the machines which are used in London for printing an immense edition in a few hours, may then be heard in all directions. Anon, the newsmen begin to arrive.— These men, whose sole business it is to carry and deliver the newspapers, are a very useful class of society in London, their life is one constant routine of hard toil, and while they are waiting for their turn to be served with the papers at the different offices, they are apt to be rather noisy in their merriment. They are a wellto-do, red-faced, mud-splashed, light heeled set of fellows, and their troops of boys are what would be called in New York 'pretty hard citizens.'

hardly describe. In a place where the classification of society is so completely adopted as in London, it may be naturally supposed that the 'Diable Boiteux' would be puzzled by finding that so many engaging persons are engaged in the kitchens by day, and engage the garrets Most of the unfortunate females who infest such cit-on all provi lential occasions. The compositor being by night; and after all he would not see the real stream ies, are by this hour out of the streets, or perhaps shivof society which fertilizes the valley between the Sur-ering under the piazzas, thinking of the time when life rey Hills and the Highgate Archway. No, no, to describe London with any thing like success, it must be not only unroofed, but thoroughly explored, and the exploration will well repay the trouble after it is accomplished. But it requires a life, a long life of examination and condensation, to extract a description of it from the brain. The study of London is the study' of human nature, and the knowledge of human nature requires something more than human wisdom to discriminate its characteristics. It is not an every-day affair to obtain an insight to the intricate and manifold surfaces which are presented by society in a city which numbers two millions of inhabitants. What a glorious opportunity the great fire in London would have had, if the language of fire could be expressed in print! However, it is not every 'magazine' that would receive such a contributor without a death-shudder; and the reader is probably not disposed to countenance a too flaming article.

London! To describe one day, and that the Sabbath, in London, requires the eye of an eagle, the hand of a lady, and the heart of a lion.' O for the eye of Richard Birnie, the hand of Leigh Hunt, and the heart of William Cobbett! All these combined might have done justice to the subject. Johnson once said that the full tide of human existence seemed to be at Charing Cross,' and there the moralizing doctor leaves us. It is the combination of excellence that is required, which makes it difficult to find a person willing to attempt a description. Otherwise, men who are now, or who have been lately on the stage of life, would have gloried in accomplishing the achievement. Charles Dickens, Pierce Egan, Tom Hood, Smith of the Despatch, Theodore Hook, Lewis of the Morning Herald, The hermit in London,' or Douglas Jerrold, might, could, would or should have done it, but as it appears that they have not-why then, it remains to be done.

Twelve o'clock on Saturday night, generally finds the theatres just cleared, and the chandelier of the Italian Opera House darkened. Carriages, freighted with beauty and fashion, are dashing and rumbling about the squares of the west end; and by the time the ladies have discussed the merits of Lablache, Seguin, Braham and Tom Cooke, the gentlemen have duly decided on the attractions of Grisi, Taglioni, Vestris, or the Elslers. The apprentice and the mechanic, after having been to the theatre, walked two or three times thro' the piazzas at Covent Garden, taken some alamode beef and a glass of 'Hodges' best' gin, begin to separate in small parties for home. The hard cases,' however, know very well where to spend the night, in gambling, or any other kind of dissipation that inclination may prompt. Policemen are on the alert, and at this time

There are three times as many papers published on Sunday as there are on any other day of the week. It should be here observed that in England, custom has made the Sabbath the great reading day for the middle and lower classes. who are generally so much engaged during the week, that when Sunday comes, the boon of a day of rest is enhanced with millions of men by a pot

was a pleasure and knowledge was innocence; when
friends would assist, and even enemies might pity.
The heart of a man will refuse to be pitied; his nature
enables him to despise the pity of others; but the heart
of a woman inclines her to rely upon something besides
herself; some dear friend who might pity her, even if
devoid of the means of helping her. It is most strange,
but so it is, that the consolation of pity is withheld from
a degraded female, while the vilest highwayman and
murderer is regarded with some degree of deference,
even after he is convicted by a jury of his country. The
real bitterness of heart which is combined with the
forced gayety of this class of women, can scarcely be
conceived by any but those who have seen every side of
Life in London.' In passing one of these unfortunate
creatures after the theatres are out, and she has been
unable to procure a victim for the cold-blooded wretches
who employ her, the observant mind is led into a very
painful view of the depravity of human nature, and the │| a pipe and a paper.
too certain wages of sin.' While she is debating in Daylight coming to London on a Sunday morning, is
her mind whether to return alone to the house to which a great and glorious sight. The absence of the smoke
she is one of the tempters, or whether she shall throw from the larger manufactories, makes an agreeable dif-
herself off one of the bridges into the Thames, who can ference in favor of viewing the architectural beauties of
tell the pangs of remorse and reproach that alternately the metropolis. Every thing appears to understand that
possess her? She recollects when kind parents watch- Sunday has come again, and every body seems to say,
ed over her, only to bless her waking energies, and con. To day shall be a happy day if we never have another.'
fesses that if their fervent prayers to Heaven for her Boots and shoes, and gilt buttons, begin to sparkle in
safety and preservation from evil had prevailed, she the sun, as if to greet the day with nothing but hap: y
would never have been the victim of passion and the reflections. The barbers' shops are crowded, and while
slave of prejudice. She now remembers the delights of some wily tory will get into a corner, with a few friends,
school-fellowship, and the prattle of playmates, only to to read the leading article in the 'John Bull,' a hot-
feel the difference between the past and the present; be-headed radical will take possession of the back parlor,
tween that school and the hard school of the still harder and fill it with a crowd of the great unwashed,' (and
world; she is reminded, by a justitiable vanity, of the unshaved too, for that matter) who will greatly applaud
time when the pride of man would humble itself at her his delivery of some very expostulatory and explosive
feet, esteem it au honor to take her hand, and glory in article in the Despatch.' There are few men who
the privilege of speaking to her; and now the awful could take breakfast unless the paper has come.' in-
truth bursts upon her mind, that one error has decided deed, the head of a family may always be known by the
har fate; that she has no resource but crimes and pros-possession of a newspaper at the table, for however
titution; and even these have left her to walk home un-
protected, and trembling with cold, in the same thin at-
tire which had been hired out to her for the purpose of
attraction in the saloons. Of all the elements of which There is one very peculiar trait about London me-
society in large cities is composed, none probably are chanics, as respects their fondness for periodically ru-
more interesting to the philosopher, or the man of the ralizing. Almost every week they have a sudden admi-
world than the causes which create, support, and final-ration for botany, mineralogy, icthyology or concholo-
ly destroy so many of these 'painted palaces, inhabited
by disease and death.'

There is scarcely an hour when the city of London can be said to be hushed in sleep,' but if there be an hour in the whole week in which the comparative quiet is remarkable, it is from two to three o'clock on Sunday morning. This is accounted for by there being very

much the young folks might wish to read the paper they would not be guilty of the unpardonable sin of do ing so, on any account,' before father sees it.'

gy. There is always some maggot in the brain on a Sunday morning, and at the very time they have been hoping all the week to rest themselves, they are sure to get up earlier than usual, and go out with Tom This and Bill That for the ostensible purposes of fishing, shooting or buying flowers, but in fact to go round to a certain number of gin-shops, and drink purl or milk

punch with old shop-mates, talk over old times and en- Probably no sight in London is more interesting than beautiful. There are always great numbers of continquire about each other's 'old woman and young uns.' that of the household troops going through the daily ental singers in London, and they are very fond of meetA very laughable instance of this kind was exemplified ceremony of mounting guard in the different garrisons ing at church, so as to sing together, con amor. The by a journeyman cabinet maker, who for many years and on Sunday, when the soldiers are going to church, churches of the Roman Catholics yield in magnificence had been in the habit of thus going out with his friends the spectacle is very imposing. There are several mil- to none in the world except in point of architecture, and on a Sunday morning, 'to get some water-cresses for itary chapels, but that at Whitehall has the most atten- that circumstance is easily accounted for. In these, the the youngsters.' It is true that he always walked to dants. The line is generally formed in St. James' park solemnity of the High Mass, the heavenly harmony of Bayswater, and that he always brought some water- and going through parade, it proceeds from thence to the voices, the thrilling grandeur of the music, and the cresses home; but by carrying them in his warm hand, Whitehall, where three or four different bands of mu splendid composition of the English lecture,' which and drinking so much liquor as he did, the water-cress- sic, (each band numbering thirty-six men exclusive of generally closes the service, are all of that heavenly chaes became saturated with any thing but water, and were fifers and drummers) all stand in a circle at the princi-racter which would engage the minds of the foreigner or not eatable. His wife, who knew him well, and had pal entrance, and perform the task of 'playing in' the the native; the Christian, or the man whose heart is too much tact to thwart him, for he was at all other times men, who generally exceed two thousand. It is a fine yet unchanged by the power of God. a most worthy man, never undeceived him, but invaria- sight, the manly forms of the noble fellows bowed in debly led him to suppose that she gave them to the child-votion, their caps off and set down at the right hand of Poor fellow, he would sometimes look up suddenly while reading his paper and address her

ren.

each on the desk of the pew, so as to front the beholder the choristers, chaplains and visitors all joining in the 'I say, mother, did you give the water-cresses to the service, which is considerably heightened by one of the youngsters?' finest choir organs in London. The same ceremony is She would answer-'I have put then in water a little performed at the Tower, and at about twenty barracks while first.' in and about the metropolis.

The children used to say, how red father's face gets when he comes home from Bayswater.'

The afternoon is the time when each person follows his own inclination, with more reference to personal enjoyment. Some take a late dinner, some take a glass, or perhaps two; some take a nap, some take a book, and some take a new suit to take an airing. The tea gardens, which are so numerous in and around London, are sure to be well attended in the summer time, and in the winter, friends, relations and visitors meet round the fire, which, finding itself hemmed in by such a semi-circle of red faces, does nothing but return the compliment; that is to say, with the aid of a few timely visits from the coal-scuttle, and some 'Christmas lumps' sorted out for the purpose.

When viewing the troops in St. James' Park, one cannot help being struck by the military power possessThe departure of the different stage-coaches is a plea-ed by England, when he reflects that the same identical cant feature in London; and as the most delicate ladies ceremony is performed at half past ten o'clock in the there are not afraid, in any weather, to sit outside with morning of every day in the year, in whatever latitude the gentlemen, nothing can well be conceived more spi- or longitude British troops may happen to be posted, so It is in the afternoon that the mass of the people conrit-stirring than the English stage-coach, with twelve that, in fact, the British national airs may be said to fol- gregate toward the parks, where throngs of all classes outside and six inside passengers. The excellent con- low the sun, in a perpetual rondo or glorious march pass in review before each other. The prince and his dition and prancing gait of the horses, the red cheeks of music, from London round to London again. butler, the duke and his tailor, the banker and his clerk, of the coachman, glowing with health, as he sits on the Two o'clock, and sometimes three, is the time for the the tradesman and his laborer, all meet here on common box with four in hand, the elegant make of the coach, cabinet ministers to meet in privy council, which gene- ground, and exchange salutations. The parks are and the smoothness of the roads, enlivened by the com- rally takes place at Downing-street. It is on Sunday mostly crowded from two until seven o'clock, and these pany going out to spend the day, the gay dresses of the at this time, just after Her Majesty has come from the hours are equally convenient for those who have dined, ladies contrasting with the dark colors of the gentle- Chapel Royal, that the most important cabinet busi- or for the nobility who are just taking 'the morning men's coats, as they sit upon the roof, just far enoughness is laid before the council, and decided upon. Some drive.' The inspiring beauty of the scene can only be apart to be comfortable, and just near enough to be objections have been raised to this custom, but the peo-judgod of by the reality. To describe the splendor and friendly, all combine to make a great many converts to ple generally approve of it. It is on these occasions that magnificence of the equipages, the display of wealth, of the belief that an excursion by stage is one of the best in making a decision, the sovereign has a legislative ca- taste and elegance, and above all, the hearty sociality methods of enjoying the day. Many a pic-nic dinner pacity, but her vote counts as one member only of the which marks every movement of the people assembled, and chance church service is got up every Sunday mor- cabinet which administers the government. The pow- would require the pen of a poet, and a charmed existning, and many a bright eye and happy heart leaves ers of church and state, sovereign and people, are bal-ence to the imagination. the city for a few hours, to have a romp in the fields, anced with much greater nicety than is generally supand gather strength for the forthcoming week of study posed in America. The cathedral service is always and business. performed at the Chapel Royal, and the arrangements are grand and beautiful. The choir is composed of regular scholars belonging to the Royal Academy of Music, endowed by the sovereign's private purse, and under the direction of Sir George Smart. One of the best chapels in London, next to the Chapel Royal, is that which is attached to the Foundling Hospital.

The rowing clubs, steam-boats and rail-roads are also great outlets for parties from the city. Bands of music and gay colors go with them, and happiness runs after them. They are patronized by tens of thousands every Sunday. To Gravesend, Sheerness, or Richmond, are very favorable sixpenny trips, and with the English people it is not so much a matter of importance as to where they go, provided they can enjoy themselves, and let every one seek happiness after their own fashion; consequently, the ride to Gravesend, for instance, will be occupied by divine service in one of the cabins, or bottled porter, sandwiches, and a good dance on deck, accompanied by the band of music, to conclude with a dinner and a bath at Gravesend before returning. The Thames is unusually crowded with every description of craft, and all sorts of amusement are resorted to for the purpose of making every one feel 'just like home,' and that is, to the mind of an Englishman, the height of happiness, even when seeking pleasure out of doors. The yacht and rowing clubs make a gay show on the river, and the boats of the Westminster scholars are much much patronized by ladies' eyes. Duets, catches, glees and songs are the principal amusements while in motion. The harmony of two French horns, or that of two Kent bugles, sounds much heightened in effect when played in a boat on the water, and is a favorite manner of keeping up the spirits of the rowers.

Every day in the year, cathedral service is performed throughout England, and any man who can spare the time, may step into Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's cathedral, or forty others, and enjoy the beauties of a ser vice and a religion which are supported by the learning, wealth and power of the British nation.

The varieties of out door attractions can scarcely be enumerated. For those who prefer aquatic amusement there is the Thames with all its panoramic changes of scenery. The bridges, of which there are nine, are any of them an agreeable promenade. The parks, squares and gardens are all open to the public; even Kensington gardens, the private property of the royal family, are thrown open from April to October, and are rendered decidedly the most fashionable resort. The ladies who visit these gardens all appear to dress as if they expected to meet some of the royal owners during their walk. The gardens are so contrived as to exhibit every possible view which a landscape can possess. The air is scented with the most beautiful flowers, and all the perfumes of the toilet, The colors of the ladies' dresses, At the chapels of the different continental ambassa- as their fair owners glide among the trees on the pardors who reside in London, divine service is performed terre, would enliven the eye of the most melancholy by Roman Catholic priests belonging to the respective misanthrope. The endless varieties of the walks and countries which the ambassadors represent. As the ob- views are such as to form a kaleidoscope of pleasure to vious intention is the accommodation of the foreign resi- the scenes, and a sublime vision to the soul. On the dents, no person can be admitted unless with a ticket mounds which overlook some parts of the wall that is from his ambassador. This makes the company select built round the gardens, are ranged in solid phalanx the without being a decided barrier to any one who will 'flower and chivalry' of Britain, the young men of the take the trouble of applying to any of the ambassadors, day, who have galloped up to view the passing river of otherwise, the crowds which might go to see the gran- fashion, grace and beauty, but are prevented from comdeur of such a service would be very uncomfortable to ing any nearer, by an order which forbids any mountthose whom the chape.s are intended expressly to bene-ed person or vehicle from entering the gardens. Many fit. Some of these edifices are small, being merely at- a love-scene is enacted in the bowers with which these tached to the houses of the ambassadors; but others are noble gardens are ornamented; many a couple find themlarge, and the service in all of them is impressive and selves taken prisoners when the gates are closed at ten

o'clock at night; and many a fair one has been helped | is the true toleration of catholicity, and the catholicity of over the garden wall, and compelled to show her ankles toleration. In this respect, New York and London are to her lover, in order to save her character at home. It very similar, and it is a similarity which does essential. is but justice to the ladies to remark, however, that in honor to both cities, as the pioneers of civil and religious England, at midsummer, the approach of night is scarce- liberty. ly noticeable until ten o'clock, even to those who are not 'courting.'

THE RICHMOND COUNTY MIRROR:

A WEEKLY PAPER PRINTED ON STATEN ISLAND, DEVOTED TO SCIENCE, LITERATURE, & NEWS.

THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

TALES OF HUMOR.

THE MODEST MAN.

BY MR. QUIZLEY.

HANNIBAL, we are told, succeeded in melting the Alps with vinegar; but I should like to know what rocks of adversity a man can hope to get rid of with a vinegar aspect? No, a blush is the sun-beam that dissolves the snow of fixed indifference, and the ice of contumelious scorn-it is oil on the troubled waters-it is the manna, or rather the manner, in the wilderness of society. A multitude of captious objections rise in array against the modest man-they are overwhelmed by a deprecatinp suffusion; an army of inimical remarks stalks before the ingenuous youth—they are overflowed with a mantling blush. Pharaoh and his host, let it be remembered, were drowned in the Red Sea.

The foregoing remarks have been suggested to me by a remembrance of circumstances that came under my notice at the house of my friend, Sir Harry Goodere, at whose country seat I was staying for a few days. Sir Harry is one of the best fellows in the world-the type of benevolence—the symbol of satisfaction-the picture of good humor. Would you fain draw a mental likeness of the man? Behold then a rotund individual whose angular points have long ago been softened down and converted into curvatures by the acquisition of benignant flesh, which attaches itself to him and glows with the compact ruddiness of a Rubens, and yet with the softness of a Correggio. Imagine an eye with a wink constantly at its side-conceive a mouth with a smile ever at its elbow-fancy a chin with an infinite number of chinlings, that supersede the use or defy the confinement of a neck-cloth. Above all, figure to yourself an immense bald expanse of forehead, principally constructed, it might be presumed, for the convenience and solace of flies, with which, in the summer season, it is a most agreeable and popular promenade.

Hypocrates was a tedious proser compared with her.- | mantle around him. I shuddered as I beheld this per

His finger on his lip is an impertinence. She needs no
such digital exhortations. Like Juliet,

"She speaks, yet she says nothing-what of that?"
Her face is a vocabulary of compendious phrases, intel-
ligible to the meanest capacity. She carries on her part
of a long conversation with a smile, and a simper from
her has often disposed of the argument. She does not
consider speech a gift, but a loan, which she is bound to
return to the lender unimpaired and undiminished.
Sir Harry and his lady have been blessed with one
daughter, a young lady of whom it is not my present dint
to speak. I may, however, let fall that Miss Aurelia
was a little more of the rogue than, from her compressed
lips and demure dejection of the eyes, might have been
positively affirmed of her. I mean to say that there was
an occasional wicked twinkle and folding down of the
corners of the mouth that indicated pretty plainly the fate
of any luckless person who, from a desire to please, or
from any other cause, might haply draw his inspiration
from the "silly buckets" of folly, rther than from the
golden urn of wisdom.

But to return. It was at the house of my friend Sir
Harry that I first met the modest man. The modest
man, when I entered the parlor, was not yet come, and
the question was, now that I had come, whether dinner
should be kept back any longer. Sir Harry having de-
cided that another quarter of an hour should be extend-
ed to the culprit, lest an intimation that he had been the
cause of retarding the repast should fairly destroy him
with confusion worse confounded, I had leisure to pay
my respects to the three gentlemen composing the com-
pany upon this occasion, all of whom I had frequently
met before.

ambulating black draught, and would have fled immediately, but the sight of my friend Waver somewhat restored me.

Waver is one of the most excellent creatures breath

ing. There is a quiet amiability about him which endears him to all his acquaintance. But Waver's mind is to this day a sheet of blank paper-not of foolscap, but of tissue, or, as it is termed, silver paper. No impression could be made upon it that would not be a blot, a disfigurement. Ais head is a kind of intellectual posting-house, where ideas stop to change horses, or rather an inn where the first visitor is welcomed till a second arrives, when the former is left in the blue parlor utterly forsaken by host, landlady, waiter, chambermaid, ostler and boots.

But by the time I had completed a survey of my excellent host, his family and friends, the door opened, and the modest man made his appearance. In my life I never beheld embarrassment so painful as extended itself on the expressive countenance of Mr. Alfred Peony. The observant reader has, perhaps, seen the eccentric eldest | born of his particular friend intent on swallowing every cherry-stone on the dessert-table; he has remarked that one will inevitably stop half-way in its passage; and he has, perhaps, contributed very considerably to the relief of the juvenile delinquent by bestowing certain digs on the dorsal settlements of the lad's fleshy universe; if he has beheld this phenomenon-and who has escaped the sight?—he will have seen a face resembling in hue, and not unlike in expression, that of the modest man on his first entrance into the presence of Sir Harry and his friends. I could not but observe the hieroglyphical manner (so to speak) in which he paid his respects to Sir Harry; the crocodile snap with which he grasped the tips of Miss Aurelia's fingers, and the alligator rigidity of back with which he accomplished a bow, which he was polite enough to make to the window curtains, and in which, like a tirade against human nature, present company was excepted.

Nor was his first movement less unhappy it its effect. Making steps forward, he contrived to fix his heel with such emphatic force upon the toe of the Doctor, as caused that individual to invent a grimace not unlike what may be conceived of one of Dante's demons under the influence of sulphuric acid; and gently pushing Mr. Dashwood aside, the modest man succeeded in appropriating to himself the seat of the former between the two ladies,

Mr. Dashwood was a young country gentleman having an estate in the neighborhood, remarkable for nothing so much as the possession of a large pair of whiskers, and a considerable attachment toward Miss Aurelia, which he contrived to make sufficiently manifest on But I would not have you to imagine that his laugh- every occasion. Accordingly, when I entered, I found ter is boisterous or his mirth unruly. Quite the contra- the young gentleman seated between Lady Goodere and ry. You see, you do not hear him laugh. You might her daughter, paying such assiduous attention to the defy the most assiduous eaves-dropper, were he pricking younger lady as his somewhat limited stock of gallantry up his own auricular appendages in the ear of Dionysi- and paucity of invention enabled him to offer. Between us, to catch a cachinnatory sound from Sir Harry's lips. ourselves, Dashwood was hardly a desirable match for It is only by the occasional bursting of a waistcoat but- Miss Aurelia; for, not to speak it maliciously, if one ton, that an indication is extended to you of his mirth were to leave out of the question his good estate and his having become in motion. But Sir Harry is a philoso- good nature, (two very good concomitants I admit) the pher in the truest sense of the word. His motto is 'car-young squire was but a poor creature. His well-culti-while the squire mumbled unintelligible complaints to pe diem,' and he has abundant diurnal crops. Nothing vated whiskers were a type of the productiveness of his the frame of the painting that hung immediately above interferes with his enjoyments. Were his wife sudden-estate; and the regions of the forehead might be consid- his head. ly to become an underground tenant of the family vault, ered expressive of the waste lands in the immediate I question whether he would breathe a wish to eject her neighborhood, which no extent of cultivation would suffrom the premises; still less would he desire to become fice to render of any value. part occupant of the property; and yet, when Death at Seated opposite the door in his accustomed chair-halast arrives, I do not doubt that he will exercise his ac-bited in the same eternal sables-the very tie to the customed hospitality, and shake hands with the "grim neck-cloth, with his initials marked with red silk in one feature," most cordially. And when summoned to des-corner-the same silk stockings (the clocks too truly cend into the well of eternity, depend upon it, he will "kick the bucket" more in sorrow than in anger. But I mentioned his lady. There is an intelligible pattern of a country gentlewoman. Silence is her calling, her vocation. She is a great miser of words, and parts with her syllables as discreetly as though, like the princess in the fairy tale, she spoke pearls and diamonds.

told the time they had been worn)-the identical thin
shoes or pumps-I could swear to their identity-thus
circumstanced, I beheld Dr. Polysyllable Prosy. The
doctor is an inveterate diner out-hence the locality of
his seat-hence the eternal sameness of his gear. He
is a direful infliction on the inexperienced visiter-hence
the triumphant air of superiority which he flings like a

Neither were the modest man's proceedings less worthy of observation on the announcement of dinner.While I d'd myself the honor of extending my arm to Lady Goodere to hand her down stairs, Dashwood was no less active in protruding his agricultural fin for escorting Miss Aurelia; but the modest man, waiting, as though purposely, till the young lady should indicate her acceptance, drew her offered arm within his own, very coolly, and following my descending footsteps, left the squire to exchange curses, not loud but deep, with the Doctor, who in like manner had been anticipated by myself in his designs upon the other lady.

It was, methought, with a mischievous smile that Sir Harry committed the anatomical amputation of a couple

of fowls to the skill of the modest man. It was sheer sir,” repeated he, softly; and suddenly letting off his
embar rassment, I feel convinced, that caused him to voice like a bull-dog shot from a twenty-four pounder,
appropriate to his own tooth a wing and the breast, to-he roared, "A first rate player, by Heaven! Hoyle
ward which Dr. Prosy had projected his fascinated eye- was not fit to shuffle the cards for him, sir-Oh Lord!"
balls—and a pardonable error of extreme confusion that and the doctor wiped the perspiration from his brow.
moved him to present the doctor with a withered drum- "Well, but, my dear sir," said I, soothingly, "let me
stick, over which that excited person moaned impreca- hope that you have not lost?"
tions of direst vengeance. But while I was, with well-
pleased exultation and triumph, perusing the counten-
ance of Doctor Polysyllable Prosy,

"The study of revenge-immortal hate," was it the elbow of Fancy that visited my side with such a wicked nudge, or was it rather the elbow of the modest man? Did mine eyes deceive me, or was the crimson cheek of Mr. Alfred Peony really rising before my vision by the force of that internal lever, his tongue?—I cannot say.

It must be a dreadful infirmity of constitution or temperament that causes modest men to stifle their reserve by quaffing so liberally as, when the cloth was drawn, Mr. Peony was observed to do; but he appeared happily unconscious of the extent of his imbibations, and retired to the company of the ladies in the drawing room with all the frigid indifference of a wine cooler with a magnum of claret in its inside.

"That is a fine young fellow," observed Sir Harry, as the door closed after the modest man; but the worst of him is, he's so confoundedly bashful-don't you think so, Waver?"

"Think! Sir Harry," cried Waver, casting a profile eye at his host, like an Egyptian outline on a tomb,"why, I can't say but think he is very modest."

"I opine, on the contrary," interrupted the doctor, "that, were we to take a comprehensive glance at his idiosyncrasy, we should eliminate that fanciful proposition, and collocate the individual in question under a less laudatory category-"

"We might so, indeed," said Waver. "But then,” cried I, in extenuation, "every body must have perceived the young gentleman blush in a very painful manner."

“Nothing, nothing," laughed the doctor, hysterically, "only twenty pounds;" and he drifted away from my presence like a coal barge at flood tide, to recount his disaster to the lady of the mansion.

"I have been talking to Sir Harry," said Waver, as
he drew his chair near mine, "of the modest young
gentleman, Mr. Peony; I was thinking"

"That he is a very high fellow, eh, my friend.”
"Yes, I was thinking so," cried Waver; "do you see
how he's monopolising the ear of Miss Aurelia; do you
mark how his color changes? a pity he is so modest.—
By the by, the poor Doctor, I am really quite concern-
ed that our friend should have so imprudently risked his
money."

"So am not I, Mr. Waver," cried I, "I shall love the
young fellow for ever, for adroitly turning the card tables
on the old hunks.”

"Shall you?" said Waver, rubbing his hands and
chuckling; so shall I, my dear fellow, I assure you."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Quizley," deferentially ejac-
ulated John Jones, the butler, as I came down stairs on
the following morning, "but that handsome young gen-
tleman, Mr. Peony—who is so very modest-do you
know, sir," and Jones drew near, scratching his yellow
wig that it might be mistaken for his own head of hair,
do you know, sir, he's a deuce of a fellow after the
maid servants. I caught him just now kissing our Jen-
ny; he blushed when he saw me, and gave me poke in
the ribs with his fore-finger, as much as to say-Mum's
the word, old boy.'-Strange! wasn't it, sir?'

"Not at all, my old friend; we were young once, you know; and you, Jones, you are a perfect Juan, eh?' "Ah! sir," chuckled the butler, borrowing a blush from the modest man, and endeavoring to hop away from "He did so," remarked Waver, seizing upon the re- the imputation of the crow's foot at the corner of his miniscence with avidity.

“But he took my chair very coolly," said Dashwood, in a querulous tone.

"That's true," said the other, burying his chin in his waistcoat.

"And precipitated himself with extraordinary physical determination, without enunciating a satisfactory apology, upon my pedal extremities," bellowed the Doc

“An accident, ha! ha!" groaned the doctor, with a mouth like the entrance to Avernus; "no, no, it was no fortuitous or unavoidable mishap, but a bona-fide, premeditated experiment. I will tell you, sir. I was witnessing a game at billiards between that respectable and truly ingenuous youth, Mr. Dashwood; and Mr. Peony, who is neither-but I say nothing. Well, sir, the balls were thus close under the cushion; and the difficulty, as it presented itself to me, the magnum opus, was to put both balls into the pocket. With a culpable, and yet perhaps, a pardonable curiosity, to ascertain the consummation of the feat, about to be either accomplished or unachieved, I advanced to the foot of the table, and placing my eye directly above the horizon, awaited the result. It was Mr. Peony's play. Will mortal faith believe it? that, whether reckless or malignant individual, I shall not determine, succeeded in his object—and in what beside? in lodging, sir, in lodging the point of the instrument which I think is denominated a cue, on the extremity of my nose, where he detained it with an unfeeling pressure on my nasal organ till he had perorated a confused, and, I cannot but retain the conviction, an insincere apology."

At this recital, Sir Harry fell into a trance of inextinguishable but inward laughter.

eye, as he smiled demurely: "you are pleased to be face- It was a lovely evening in August; twilight was be-
tious; but then, Mr. Peony is such a very modest young ginning to wrap the surrounding objects in an uncertain
man, isn't he, sir?"
gloom; and silence gathered round, broken only by the
"He is indeed a very modest young man," I replied, grating harshness of my new shoes as they moved along
with much gravity.

"Ha! ha! ha! od's bodkins, Mr. Quizley, but you're such a funny gentleman," cried the butler, wrenching his mouth asunder with a sort of ready-made laughter which he had always at command. "Well, I declare, I "That also is an undoubted fact," exclaimed Waver, never heard a better joke in my life;" and he retired to in a positive tone.

tor.

his apartment, shaking and heaving like bale of woollen "Well, well,” said Sir Harry, "but that was purely cloth under the influence of galvanic power. accidental."

The tedium of a morning in the country when visit"It was so," remarked Waver, with decided empha- ers are left to their own devices, whether of pastime or sis, and we retired to the drawing-room.

Depend upon it Mr. Quizley," cried the doctor, approaching me and besieging my button, "depend upon it, that Mr. Peony, the modest man, as he is designated, is a corpuscular counterfeit—a snake in the grass. It is a most veritable incident that I am about to give utterance to: Mr. Peony undoubtedly intimated to my satisfaction that he was but an indifferent player at whist, upon which understanding I consented to take Mr. Waver as a partner.-Well, sir—”

the gravel path. I was pondering upon old times, and
recalling ancient memories of antiquated jilts, of post-
meridian coquettes, of virgins who had become venera-
ble, of wives converted into widows, of widows trans-
formed into wives. Thence I turned to the considera-
tion of jolly bachelors who had deviated into solemn
bores, of sober husbands metamorphosed into sardonic
sots, of amiable widowers twisted into incorrigible quid-
nuncs. Then again my mind misgave me of my own
estate. Why had I remained so long single? Why
was I still without incumbrances? Why compelled to
go life's dreary round without a magic family circle to
step into? Why enforced to be gathered to my fathers,
without children to gather round their father at his last
gasp? I projected myself into futury. I beheld myself
ten years hence a single man, bent double, without
kith or kin, without any thing-but rheumatism. I fore-
told my fate. I saw that I was destined not
"To point a moral or adorn a tale,"

pleasure, is too well known to justify a repetition of it in this place. Suffice it, that I was yawning over a new fashionable novel, the most remarkable incident in which was the perpetual fracture of Priscian's head; while Miss Aurelia was "printing her thoughts in lawn," or, in other words, plying her needle at the window. Our attention, however, was diverted from the respective employments in which we were engaged, by the unceremonious entrance of Dr. Polysyllable Prosy, followed by Harry and Waver, the latter two endeavoring, in some but to point a paragraph and adorn a newspaper. "Dis"Well, sir?" echoed I, for Prosy paused in his dis- measure, to allay a paroxysm of rage which appeared to tressing suicide," or Melancholy affair." My only be agitating that corpulent personage even unto apop-doubt was under which head I was doomed to figure.— lexy. In fact, a detachment of the blues had billeted themselves upon my spirits.

course.

"Would you believe it?" resumed the Doctor, and he drew in his breath, and looked me earnestly in the face with the pair of grey peas with which nature had supplied him in lieu of eyes. "Would you believe it,

"Now I appeal to you, Mr. Quizley," roared the doctor, "whether that modest young gentleman be not of a verity one of the most truculent and inexcusable of hu

46

While in this pleasant reverie, the sound of voices from an adjoining arbor recalled me to myself. Curiosity is