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True,"
"said the lady.

"I tell you what, Bella," said Fieldlove; "I'll drive over to Woodleigh Park to-morrow and leave a card upon the Squire. Indeed I think it is the least one country-gentleman can do to another. And why not upon Sir Charles Haughton? And-and, I say, Bella, whilst one is about it, why not upon Lord Lofty too? We are all neighbours, you

know."

Mrs. Fieldlove seeing no objection to this proceeding, it was next morning put into execution.

On the evening of that same day, Lord Lofty and Squire Woodleigh were dining, with a large party, at the Priory.

"Pray, Haughton," said the Squire, "do you, or does any one present, happen to know anything about one Greenfield, or Fieldgreen, who has lately bought that tumble-down place at the corner of Hog

wash Lane ?"

"Nobody knows him," replied one of the party; "but they say he is a retired sugar-baker. But, Fieldlove, I believe, is the man's

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"What!" exclaimed Lord Lofty: "why, confound his impudence! he left his card upon me this morning."

"That is why I made the inquiry," said Woodleigh; "he has done me the same honour."

"But he was not a

"And me also," said the Baronet, laughing. sugar-baker; he merely dealt in sugar, and coffee, and pepper, and treacle, and things of that kind: at least so one of my keepers told me on passing the place the other morning."

"O, a grocer!" said Lord Lofty: "what the plague can the man want with us! However, I suppose he meant to be civil, so the impertinence is hardly worth notice."

"I'll answer for it he meant no offence," said another of the guests. "Most likely he has but fallen into the error-not an uncommon oneof supposing that simply coming to live in the country at once constitutes a country-gentleman." And here the conversation turned upon other subjects.

""Tis an ill wind, &c." Two days, five, eight, ten passed away after Mr. Fieldlove had made the neighbourly calls which provoked those remarks, when, at length!the pleasure of their company at dinner, on the following Wednesday, at Humdrummie House, was requested of the curate and the apothecary of Dumbleditch.

On the following Wednesday, the apothecary and the curate, each mounted on his nag, made their appearance. They praised the dinner, and gave unquestionable proof of the sincerity of their commendations. The beef was the best beef in the world; the turkey still better than the beef, and only inferior to the plum-pudding. Physic declared ("between ourselves") he preferred a good plain dinner, like that, to all the kickshaws at the Priory; Divinity asseverated (" between ourselves") that the foreign fal-lals at Lord Lofty's were not to be compared with it; and each asked Fieldlove whether (" between ourselves") he did not think so too? Fieldlove, in reply, mumbled something that was quite unintelligible, and perfectly satisfactory. Both the guests praised the port, and both (but always "between ourselves") were of opinion that the Madeira beat the Squire's. The host being appealed to as to whether they were not in the right on the latter point, eva

sively answered that " he was rather proud of his Madeira, as he had given it three voyages to the West Indies."

"You, Mr. Fieldlove," said the apothecary, " you, I see, are a man after my own heart: you are a port-drinker. A bottle of such port as this is worth a hogshead of claret." [There was no claret upon table.] Now, at Sir Charles's, as you must know, one seldom sees a drop of port."

"True, Doctor," said the curate; "claret is a pretty tipple to wind up with; but it requires a monstrous quantity to make one comfortable, unless one has laid a good foundation of port. Now, at the Priory, or at Lord Lofty's, as you must know, Mr. Fieldlove, one can get nothing but claret-except, indeed, a few glasses of Champagne, and Hock, and Moselle, and Sauterne, and Hermitage, and-that sort of thing. Now, you being a port-drinker, how do you contrive when you dine with

them?"

There was no parrying this question.

"Why, Sir," replied Fieldlove, with considerable hesitation, "the fact is, 1-1 do not visit them. The fact is, Mrs. Fieldlove and I are here for the sake of quiet-of retirement; and, the fact is, we have made up our minds neither to pay, nor receive, visits; and the fact is, we dislike company, except in a family-a friendly-a quiet way, as at present; for the fact is, we-we-in short, we resolved upon that point before we came down here.-Ahem!-Pray, gentlemen, do you frequently dine with those families?"

"O, regularly," said the curate, filling his glass with an air of importance" regularly every Sunday-that is to say, every Easter Sunday, and Christmas-day, with one or other of them."

"And very often, indeed," said the apothecary, "whenever an election is coming on for Bobston."

Simultaneously with the dessert, three little children-two girls and a boy-made their appearance. The apothecary instantly looked at the children's tongues, and set them squalling by recommending their mamma to allow him to send them a little physic; but the reverend guest speedily restored them to good humour by making for himself a set of false teeth of orange-peel, sticking a raisin on the tip of his nose, and imitating Punch in a show-box. "In the course of the evening," as the playbills have it, the curate sang" Old Towler," "The tight little Island," and "What joy in the bottle is found;" whilst the apothecary beguiled the intervals by talking theology to Mrs. Fieldlove. At ten o'clock the lady retired; and coffee was, shortly afterwards, sent in. The curate happening, by the merest accident in the world, to praise the excellence of Squire Woodleigh's cook at broiling a bone, the host took the hint; and broiled bones, with their usual concomitant, the liqueur-case, were produced. At midnight, the guests were lifted up on their nags, and departed; but not till Fieldlove had assured them that he should be happy to see them in the same friendly way as often as they might find it convenient-an invitation of which they subsequently availed themselves much oftener than he found it agreeable.

The whole of the next day Fieldlove was confined to his bed by a racking headache-his wishes, in consequence, for the bestowal hereafter of all country parsons and apothecaries being not the most charitable. When he rose on the following morning (it being then the middle of January) it was blowing, snowing, hailing, raining, sleeting-in short, it was doing

everything which the most disreputable weather could dare do, even in such a "merry month of May" as that which has lately gladdened us. Fieldlove could not stir out of the house: nay, a dog of common spirit and understanding would have resented it as a personal insult had any one proposed to him to go the length of his tail beyond the door-way. And thus, with few variations, generally for the worse, seldom for the better, did the weather continue for a whole, eternal, ten days.

The condition of poor Fieldlove during this time cannot be adequately described. He could not settle himself down to any in-door occupations, for the reason that he had none. He paced the house from room to room; walked from window to window, looking out at each, and beating the devil's tattoo upon it with his fingers for three minutes at a time; impatiently scratched his head; desperately blew his nose; looked at his guns and sighed; looked at his fishing-tackle and groaned; and once, indeed-awful to relate!-did he even look at his pistols! "I shall go out of my mind!" exclaimed Fieldlove; and he might easily have been as good as his word, for the precincts from which he threatened to escape were not very extensive. But his wife, with that power of comforting and consoling which is the angelic attribute of woman, succeeded in soothing him into a stupid acquiescence in his fate. "0 Harry!" she said; "O, Harry, love! for Heaven's sake don't take on so! I dare say the case is the same just now with all country-gentlemen!" At last, the weather cleared; and our country-gentleman being once more in the field, he was himself again.

The shooting-season was now at an end. Fieldlove had a spring and a long summer before him, " with nothing in the world to do but go a-fishing." Thus was the other of the most earnest wishes of his life about to be gratified : and, now, by the pond, the river, or the stream, was he constantly to be found.

But somehow (from what cause he could not tell) this summer did seem to him as long as any six years of his existence had been. It had never occurred to him that that which has served for the recreation, loses its charm when it is made the business of life. Besides, his notions of country amusements were limited to the two he had been in the habit of indulging in; and he fondly imagined that those would be allsufficient to his enjoyment of a country life. Lord Lofty kept a pack of fox-hounds, and Squire Woodleigh a pack of harriers: but Fieldlove did not hunt, because (and be it not spoken to his discredit, for we know of some worthy persons who are in the same predicament) he could not ride; nor, for the same reason, did he (to use his own excusatory phrase when questioned on the subject) "care much for coursing." And when once he was told that, on the ensuing Thursday, there was to be a steeple-chase four miles right on end, he stared as though he thought that some one such recreant appendage to a church had actually bolted, and that the posse comitatis had been ordered out in pursuit. Of rural matters, he knew an oak from an elm only by its acorns; and one fruit-tree from another only by the unquestionable evidence of its fruit.

It is told of a certain person that, for nine years, during which he was engaged in paying his addresses to a lady, he spent every evening in her delightful society. She, at length, blessed him with her hand. The marriage ceremony over, "Ah!" cried he, "I am now the happiest of men. But where the devil am I to go to spend my evenings ?"

Fieldlove, somewhat in like manner, after living for two years at Humdrummie House, thought to himself, "I have accomplished all I desired in the world: I am a country-gentleman, with nothing to do but go a-fishing or a-shooting: but what am I to do for recreation ?"

"Really, now, does the Squire live here all the year round?" said he to the curate, one day.

"Yes," replied the curate; "except for a few weeks, when he goes up for the London season."

"And how does he contrive to get through his time?" inquired Fieldlove.

"He has plenty to do," replied the curate. "He has a vast estate, upon which he was born, the management of which is in his own hands; he has a large tenantry, who, from his long residence among them, look up to him as their guardian and protector; then, he is a magistrate, and has to attend quarter-sessions, besides doing justice-business here; then, he has a large circle of acquaintance about him; then, in the way of field-sports, he is up to all in the ring; then

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"That will do," said Fieldlove. With a sigh, he bethought him of the words of his uncle Urby: "To be a Country Gentleman' one must be to the Manor born; it is a trade which one cannot, with much prospect of pleasure or profit, set up in late in life. To enjoy a country life, or a town life, or any particular mode of life, you must be bred to it."

Fieldlove now began to fancy that the place was too cold for his wife, or too warm for himself, or too dry for the girls, or too damp for the boy. So the Humdrummie estate was sold.

Behold him, now, established in a comfortable house in Bloomsbury-square; visiting, or receiving the visits of, his old friends and acquaintance; indulging sometimes at the Opera, a concert, or a play; and passing his life agreeably, because in the manner for which habit had qualified him. His great pleasure is a morning's stroll into the city, to talk of cottons and coffee, and see how things are going on amongst his old associates in Mincing-lane; but, still, his greatest is an occasional week's shooting or fishing at some friend's in the country. And he has been heard to declare that, upon striking the balance, he is convinced that that is the only mode in which a confirmed Londoner can truly enjoy the life of a COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.

P*

THE

FINISHED PICTURE;

A MILITARY SKETCH.

Ir is not my intention to name the absolute locale of the fine old-fashioned mansion into which I am about to introduce my reader, but simply to state it was one of those within a convenient dining distance of the place in which I was then quartered, nor am I about to dilate on the excellence of the cheer so profusely offered within its walls; my object is to describe what I beheld during a visit, conceiving that so unique and curious a specimen of the fine arts as that of which I am about to speak, is deserving of mention.

It will be necessary, however, in describing this Family picture, to say somewhat of the Family history; I shall therefore, without further preface, proceed to state, that Sir Geoffrey Wedderburn married early

in life to the beautiful daughter of a neighbouring baronet; four children blessed their union, and Sir Geoffrey, taking advantage of the visit of a portrait painter to the county town, determined on possessing the likenesses of his lady, himself, and their offspring, in one interesting group.

The painter attended at Matchwood Hall. A fortnight's close attention to the easel sufficed to complete his task. With a complacent smile of satisfaction he looked upon his labours. Sir Geoffrey, portrayed in all the glories of brocade and lace, a wig and bag adorning his youthful head, stood on one side; his lady, in a hoop, the drapery of whose damask was ornamented with tufts of ostrich feathers, a tête of imposing altitude was to be seen on the other, whilst the four little Masters and Misses, in Arcadian costume, occupied the centre, each playing with some pet animal, whose likenesses were as rigidly adhered to as those of the Wedderburn family.

Hardly had the paint dried upon the canvas, and before the fiery carmines and vermilions had mellowed into something like human complexions, when Lady Wedderburn was gathered to her fathers.

The worthy Baronet was anxious to obtain a female guardian for his bereaved children; and at the expiration of his year's mourning, married again. His second wife soon produced more arrows to his quiver, a fresh supply of olive branches to adorn his table; and in the space of eleven years from the time she was led all blushes to the altar, seven sweet children were added to the family.

The artist, who had given token of his talent on a former occasion, revisited the neighbourhood with an established reputation; and Lady Wedderburn secundus thought her children and self had just as much right to be painted as the four eldest, whom she regarded with the affection of a mother in law. Yet how to manage the affair? She could not affront her Lord, by proposing to efface the resemblances of his first family, but that her own charming cherubs should have their portraits taken she was determined.

Sir Geoffrey, whose constant aim was to keep peace at home, suggested a plan which would obviate all difficulty. The seven scions of his house, brought him by his present adored partner, could be represented in the foreground, which was now only a large patch of grassplot, commodious enough to exercise a troop of dragoons upon (at least so he said out of the painter's hearing), and anxious to meet the wish of his much-loved spouse-the four eldest would form a sort of living back-ground, and the features of the late lady should be translated to the clouds, where, with the addition of a pair of wings, and flowing white drapery, she would appear as the guardian spirit of the two families, whilst his beloved partner could be drawn on the spot originally occupied by the departed angel.

This arrangement, which satisfied the two seniors, caused numerous dissensions amongst the young folks. The four eldest did not relish the notion of having their becoming and fanciful dresses almost hidden by the frocks and flowing sashes of their half-sisters, or the red jackets, garnished with innumerable buttons, of their half-brothers, added to which, Ponto, their playmate and favourite, whose bones had long mouldered in the earth, and the pet fox, which Harry was represented to be holding by a chain and collar, must be brushed out to make room for these cubs. However, the parents were positive; the angel in violet

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