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Mrs. Conrady has done you a service, her face remains the same; when she has done you a thousand, and you know that she is ready to double the number, still it is that individual face. Neither can you say of it, that it would be a good face if it were not marked by the small pox-a compliment which is always more admissive than excusatory-for either Mrs. Conrady never had the small-pox: or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it stands upon its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her mark, her token; that which she is known by.

IN THE MOUTH.

NOR a lady's age in the parish register.

be exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance that it would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The tout-ensemble defies particularising. It is too complete-too consistent, as we may sayto admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had picked out here a lip-and there a chin-out of the collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the countenance in question; to XI-THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT HORSE say that this, or that, is improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is affirmed of true beauty, is the result! of harmony. Like that, too, it reigns without, We hope we have more delicacy than to do | a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to have seen it-like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in such a parlour it first struck you like a bust. You wondered where the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it began to move its lips-so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart, which, once seen, can never be out of it. It is not a mean face either; its entire originality precludes that. Neither is it of that order of plain faces which improve upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people, by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat upon our eyes; juggle our senses out of their natural impressions; and set us upon discovering good indications in a countenance, which at first sight promised nothing less. We detect gentleness, which had escaped us, lurking about an under lip. But when

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either; but some faces spare us the trouble
of these dental inquiries. And what if the i
beast, which my friend would force upon
my acceptance, prove, upon the face of it, a
sorry Rosinante, a lean, ill-favoured jade, |
whom no gentleman could think of setting
up in his stables? Must I, rather than not
be obliged to my friend, make her a com-
panion to Eclipse or Lightfoot! A horse-
giver, no more than a horse-seller, has a
right to palm his spavined article upon us
for good ware. An equivalent is expected
in either case; and, with my own good will,
I would no more be cheated out of my
thanks than out of my money. Some people
have a knack of putting upon you gifts of
no real value, to engage you to substantial
gratitude. We thank them for nothing.
Our friend Mitis carries this humour of
never refusing a present, to the very point!
of absurdity-if it were possible to couple
the ridiculous with so much mistaken deli-
cacy, and real good-nature. Not an apart-
ment in his fine house (and he has a true
taste in household decorations), but is stuffed
up with some preposterous print or mirror

the worst adapted to his panels that may be-the presents of his friends that know his weakness; while his noble Vandykes are displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched artist of 'is acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here gratis. The good creature has not the heart

to mortify the painter at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour, surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God knows whom, while the true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys of his own honourable family, in favour to these adopted frights, are consigned to the stair-case and the lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one by one stripped of his favourite old authors, to give place to a collection of presentation copiesthe flour and bran of modern poetry. A presentation copy, reader-if haply you are yet innocent of such favours-is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which, if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author, he expects from you a book of yours, which does sell, in return. We can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death-we are willing to acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a friend's library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author) is intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary—a thing not fit to be hinted at among gentlemen-which confer as much grace upon the acceptor as the offerer; the kind, we confess, which is most to our palate, is of those little conciliatory missives, which for their vehicle generally choose a hamper -little odd presents of game, fruit, perhaps wine though it is essential to the delicacy of the latter, that it be home-made. We love to have our friend in the country sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect reflects to us his "plump corpusculum;" to taste him in grouse or woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately such participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it. For these considerations we should be sorry if certain restrictive regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the peasantry of this country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands, makes many

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friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his goût) with a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them) passes them to Lucius; who, in his turn, preferring his friend's relish to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever-widening progress, and round of unconscious circummigration, they distribute the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well-disposed to this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken by those little airy tokens-impalpable to the palate-which, under the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship.

XII. THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY.

HOMES there are, we are sure, that are no homes; the home of the very poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded places of cheap entertainment, and the benches of alehouses, if they could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the very poor man resorts for`an image of the home, which he cannot find at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty firing, that is not enough to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering children with their mother, he finds in the depths of winter always a blazing hearth, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he can afford to spend. He has companions which his home denies him, for the very poor man has no visitors. He can look into the goings on of the world, and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics stirring, but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect him to a sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the absorbing consideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price of bread, news is senseless and impertinent. At home there is no larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty, and while he cooks his lean scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or munches

his humbler cold vianda, his relishing bread nurses, it was a stranger to the patient and cheese with an onion, in a corner, where fondle, the hushing caress, the attracting no one reflects upon his poverty, he has a novelty, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper sight of the substantial joint providing for off-hand contrivance to divert the child; the the landlord and his family. He takes an prattled nonsense (best sense to it), the wise interest in the dressing of it; and while he impertinences, the wholesome lies, the apt assists in removing the trivet from the fire, story interposed, that puts a stop to present he feels that there is such a thing as beef sufferings, and awakens the passions of young and cabbage, which he was beginning to for-, wonder. It was never sung to—no one ever get at home. All this while he deserts his told to it a tale of the nursery. It was wife and children. But what wife, and what › dragged up, to live or to die as it happened. children? Prosperous men, who object to It had no young dreams. It broke at once this desertion, image to themselves some into the iron realities of life. A child exists clean contented family like that which they not for the very poor as any object of dalligo home to. But look at the countenance of ance; it is only another mouth to be fed, the poor wives who follow and persecute a pair of little hands to be betimes inured their good-man to the door of the public- to labour. It is the rival, till it can be the house, which he is about to enter, when co-operator, for food with the parent. It is something like shame would restrain him, if stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, ground by want, in which every cheerful, every con versable lineament has been long effaced by misery,—is that a face to stay at home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It can smile no longer. What comforts can it share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine thing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle of his children takes out the sting of a man's poverty. But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that condition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor people, said a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a premature reflecting person. No one has time to dandle it, no one thinks There is yet another home, which we are it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to constrained to deny to be one. It has a toss it up and down, to humour it. There is larder, which the home of the poor man none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, it wants; its fireside conveniences, of which can only be beaten. It has been prettily the poor dream not. But with all this, it is said, that "a babe is fed with milk and no home. It is the house of a man that is praise." But the aliment of this poor babe infested with many visitors. May we be was thin, unnourishing; the return to its branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our little baby-tricks, and efforts to engage at- heart to the many noble-hearted friends tention, bitter ceaseless objurgation. It that at times exchange their dwelling for never had a toy, or knew what a coral our poor roof! It is not of guests that meant. It grew up without the lullaby of we complain, but of endless, purposeless

never his mirth, his diversion, his solace: it never makes him young again, with recalling his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid beings which we have been contemplating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of praised sufficiency at school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It has come to be a woman,-before it was a child. It has learned to go to market; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say that the home of the very poor is no home?

MY DOG.

visitants; droppers in, as they are called. the moment you have just sat down to a We sometimes wonder from what sky they book. They have a peculiar compassionate fall. It is the very error of the position of sneer, with which they "hope that they do our lodging; its horoscopy was ill calcu- not interrupt your studies." Though they lated, being just situate in a medium-a flutter off the next moment, to carry their plaguy suburban mid-space-fitted to catch impertinences to the nearest student that idlers from town or country. We are older they can call their friend, the tone of the than we were, and age is easily put out of book is spoiled; we shut the leaves, and its way. We have fewer sands in our glass with Dante's lovers, read no more that day. to reckon upon, and we cannot brook to see It were well if the effect of intrusion were them drop in endlessly succeeding imperti- simply co-extensive with its presence, but it nences. At our time of life, to be alone mars all the good hours afterwards. These sometimes is as needful as sleep. It is the scratches in appearance leave an orifice that refreshing sleep of the day. The growing closes not hastily. "It is a prostitution of infirmities of age manifest themselves in no- the bravery of friendship," says worthy thing more strongly, than in an inveterate Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent dislike of interruption. The thing which we people, who are, it may be, loads to their are doing, we wish to be permitted to do. families, but can never ease my loads." This We have neither much knowledge nor de- is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, vices; but there are fewer in the place to and morning calls. They too have homes, which we hasten. We are not willingly put which are-no homes. out of our way, even at a game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had vast reversions in time future; we are reduced to a present XIII.-THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME AND LOVE pittance, and obliged to economise in that article. We bleed away our moments now as hardly as our ducats. We cannot bear to have our thin wardrobe eaten and fretted into by moths. We are willing to barter our good time with a friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter takes your good time, and gives you his bad in exchange. The guest is domestic to you as your good cat, or household bird; the visitant is your fly, that flaps in at your window, and out again, leaving nothing but a sense of disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior functions of life begin to move heavily. We cannot concoct our food with interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be solitary. With difficulty we can eat before a guest; and never understood what the relish of public feasting meant. Meats have no sapor, nor digestion fair play, in a crowd. The unexpected coming in of a visitant stops the machine. There is a punctual generation who time their calls to the precise commencement of your dining-hour-not to eat-but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively, and we feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel. Others again show their genius, as we have said, in knocking

“Good sir, or madam—as it may be-we most willingly embrace the offer of your friendship. We have long known your excellent qualities. We have wished to have you nearer to us; to hold you within the very innermost fold of our heart. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble nature. The frankness of your humour suits us exactly. We have been long looking for such a friend. Quick

let us disburthen our troubles into each other's bosom-let us make our single joys shine by reduplication—But yap, yap, yap ! what is this confounded cur? he has fastened his tooth, which is none of the bluntest, just in the fleshy part of my leg." "It is my dog, sir. You must love him for my sake. Here, Test-Test-Test!" "But he has bitten me."

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Ay, that he is apt to do, till you are better acquainted with him. I have had him three years. He never bites me." Yap, yap, yap !—“He is at it again.”

Oh, sir, you must not kick him. He does not like to be kicked. I expect my dog to be treated with all the respect due to myself."

"But do you always take him out with you, when you go a friendship-hunting?"

"Invariably. "Tis the sweetest, prettiest, uncorresponding dwarfishness of observation. best-conditioned animal. I call him my test -the touchstone by which to try a friend. No one can properly be said to love me, who does not love him."

"Excuse us, dear sir-or madam, aforesaid-if upon further consideration we are obliged to decline the otherwise invaluable offer of your friendship. We do not like dogs,"

Mighty well, sir,—you know the conditions-you may have worse offers. Come along, Test."

,

The above dialogue is not so imaginary, but that, in the intercourse of life, we have had frequent occasions of breaking off an agreeable intimacy by reason of these canine appendages. They do not always come in the shape of dogs; they sometimes wear the more plausible and human character of kinsfolk, near acquaintances, my friend's friend, his partner, his wife, or his children. We could never yet form a friendship-not to speak of more delicate correspondence-however much to our taste, without the intervention of some third anomaly, some impertinent clog affixed to the relation― the understood dog in the proverb. The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture; like a schoolboy's holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it. What a delightful companion is * ***, if he did not always bring his tall cousin with him! He seems to grow with him; like some of those double births which we remember to have read of with such wonder and delight in the old "Athenian Oracle," where Swift commenced author by writing Pindaric Odes (what a beginning for him!) upon Sir William Temple. There is the picture of the brother, with the little brother peeping out at his shoulder; a species of fraternity, which we have no name of kin close enough to comprehend. When **** comes, poking in his head and shoulder into your room, as if to feel his entry, you think, surely you have now got him to yourself what a three hours' chat we shall have! but ever in the haunch of him, and before his diffident body is well disclosed in your apartment, appears the haunting shadow of the cousin, overpeering his modest kinsman, and sure to overlay the expected good talk with his insufferable procerity of stature, and

Misfortunes seldom come alone. 'Tis hard when a blessing comes accompanied. Cannot we like Sempronia, without sitting down to chess with her eternal brother; or know Sulpicia, without knowing all the round of her card-playing relations? - must my friend's brethren of necessity be mine also ? must we be hand and glove with Dick Selby the parson, or Jack Selby the calico-printer, because W. S., who is neither, but a ripe wit and a critic, has the misfortune to claim a common parentage with them? Let him lay down his brothers; and 'tis odds but we will cast him in a pair of ours (we have a superflux) to balance the concession. Let F. H. lay down his garrulous uncle; and Honorius dismiss his vapid wife, and superfluous establishment of six boys: things between boy and manhood—too ripe for play, too raw for conversation-that come in, impudently staring their father's old friend out of countenance; and will neither aid nor let alone, the conference; that we may once more meet upon equal terms, as we were wont to do in the disengaged state of bachelorhood.

It is well if your friend, or mistress, be content with these canicular probations. Few young ladies but in this sense keep a dog. But when Rutilia hounds at you her tiger aunt; or Ruspina expects you to cherish and fondle her viper sister, whom she has preposterously taken into her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your constancy; they must not complain if the house be rather thin of suitors. Scylla must have broken off many excellent matches in her time, if she insisted upon all, that loved her, loving her dogs also.

An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of Della Cruscan memory. In tender youth he loved and courted a modest appanage to the Opera—in truth a dancer,— who had won him by the artless contrast between her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native violet, that had been transplanted by some rude accident into that exotic and artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was she less genuine and sincere than she appeared to him. He wooed and won this flower. Only for appearance' sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she craved that she might have the attendance

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