But was it likely that Mr. Quiddy would, in his own person, accommodate either of the young expectants? Not in the least. The potion (as he called it) which the father would give, was hardly worth having if a wife was to be taken along with it; and then, should he take the money, although with its encumbrance, he might still be expected to do something for one of those boys. Again, he did not much like either of the "gals," though that circumstance would have gone for nothing had the main article been satisfactory to him. Notwithstanding all this, he never hesitated to accept their dinner invitations, which (as from four or five other families similarly circumstanced) for many months past had been as frequent as once in a week at least: nor, though he well knew (as he could not but know) the motives which dictated them, did his delicacy ever take the liberty to advise him to reject that which tended so greatly to his pleasure and convenience.

But, agreeable as this might be to our gentleman, his state of neutrality did not suit the purpose of the mammas. It was high time to understand what were Mr. Quiddy's intentions; and in the case of the Cheshires it had been resolved to come to that understanding upon the present occasion.

66

Things mustn't go on in this way much longer, Cheshire," said her ladyship to Sir Gog. "Jane will be twenty-six on the 13th of February, Eliza has turned twenty-two, and even Clara is nineteen. Mr. Quiddy ought to know himself well enough to be aware that it cannot be for the mere pleasure of such company as his we are so very attentive to him, and I am resolved to put the question to him this very after

noon."

"Right, my dear, quite right," replied the knight; "anything is better than shilly-shallying.”

66

Shilly-shallying? Fiddlesticks!" said the lady; "there has not yet been even as good as that, not a word nor a hint."

"Then you can't say whether he has a preference?" inquired Sir Gog.

It would be hard to tell; but, if for any, I should say Clara,” replied Lady Cheshire.

"Clara! what! my darling Clara ?" exclaimed he: "my pet, the flower of the flock? I'm sorry for that. They are all good girls, bless 'em! but she is too good for him. She's so amiable, so gentle, SO Bless her pretty pale face! I'm sorry-in short, I'm d-'d sorry for it, my lady.'

"But," continued her ladyship, "she can't endure him; and I verily believe no power on earth would force her to have him were he made all of gold."

"Indeed! Now for that I'm glad—in short, I'm d-'d glad. As to forcing her, and breaking her poor little heart, we won't do thatno-in short, we'll be d-'d if we do, my lady."

"What are Eliza's feelings concerning him, I can't exactly say," said Lady Cheshire, not heeding her husband's customary little expletive; "I don't think she cares much about him one way or the other; but if he should propose for her, I do think she would make but little difficulty about accepting him."

"So think I: very little difficulty: in short, d-'d little, my dear, And as to Jane-?"

"Why, Jane, I think, rather likes him—that is to say enough for the purpose; but then she is six-and-twenty, and a sensible girl.'

"Come now, Susan, my dear," said Sir Gog, laughing; "tell me candidly-in short, d-'d candidly, how should you like him for a husband?"

"Don't make such an old fool of yourself, my dear Gog, as to ask me such a question," said my lady, laughing with him. "How should I like him, indeed! I, who am forty upwards."

"Forty upwards," exclaimed the knight; "forty upwards indeed— -in short, d-'d upwards, my lady. Why, our Dick is thirtytwo."

Here the conversation was interrupted by a knock at the street-door. This announced the arrival of our hero; but some minutes elapsed ere he made his appearance in the drawing-room; for (to save a shilling), having walked through a smart shower of rain, he had (after depositing his hat and streaming umbrella) to take off the splashed Hessian boots which he wore over his black-net tights, and replace them by a pair of shoes which he brought with him in his pocket. This done, he drew on a pair of reddish-yellow Woodstock gloves (for he had walked bare-handed through the streets), from which, as he thrust his fingers into them, flew a cloud of powder, the material with which they had, for the fourth time, been renovated. While this process was being performed, the young ladies and the two younger sons joined mamma and papa in the drawing-room.

Quiddy was received at the drawing-room door by. Lady Cheshire and her eldest daughter Jane, whom she dragged along with her by the The gentleman dropped his chin to each, and, with solemn po

arm.

liteness, said,

"How d'ye do, my lady? hope you feel yourself tolerable well today, my lady?-How do you do, miss? hope you feel yourself tolerable well to-day?" Each of the other daughters he addressed in the same words. To the boys it was merely," How do you do, Master Bill? How do you do, Master Harry?" While to Sir Gog he said, "And how are you, Sir G?" accompanying the inquiry with a slap of his outspread hand on the knight's back, which left on his brightgreen coat a very fine impression of the speaker's dusty glove.

"Q.," said Sir Gog, good-humouredly, "you are rather late. You know our five means five, and it is nearly a quarter-past. Our cook is punctual: she prides herself on doing everything to a turn; and if the fish should be overdone, she'll wish you where you would find yourself rather the reverse of comfortable-in short, d-'d the reverse."

66

Come, Sir G.," said Quiddy (clapping his huge hands one on each of Sir Gog's shoulders), “ come, I flatter myself you can't often strike a balance against me on that account. P. Q., as I'm sometimes called for short, is generally in pudd'n-time,-eh, ladies?"

When he turned away from his host to make this playful appeal, the girls tittered and the boys burst into a loud laugh.

"I say, papa," cried Harry (the younger of the boys), “do but look in the glass! Mr. Quiddy has given you such a beautiful pair of shoulder-knots with the stuff they clean dirty gloves with."

Papa did as he was desired to do, and with his pocket-handkerchief

rubbed from his shoulders the marks which his guest had imprinted on them and which very much resembled what Master Harry had compared them to. While doing this he cautioned Master Harry to behave himself if he wished to be allowed to dine in the parlour. At the same time Lady Cheshire uttered an admonitory "Girls!" to her daughters, whose renewed titter at their brother's allusion to Mr. Quiddy's gloves she feared might be taken offensively by that gentleman.

But Quiddy, being in one of his very best humours, pretended to join in the laugh, though he suspected it to be against him; while, with his hands behind him, he drew off their offending coverings and put them into his pocket.

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Come, Mr. Quiddy," said her ladyship, abruptly, and in the same breath with the admonitory monosyllable; "come, have you anything new to tell us?"

"Why, my lady, nothing very particular. Oh-yes-there is expected to be a great demand for slops for the navy-sailors' trousers and that sort of thing, you know; and I'm not sorry for it, as I happen to have a large stock by me; and as—”

66

But," said her ladyship, interrupting him, "I mean anything going on in the world ?"

"O-ay-oh-Why, I was at the play last night; and who do you think, Sir Gog, I happened to meet there?"

But ere Sir Gog could reply, dinner was announced.

"Give your arm to her ladyship, Q.," said Sir Gog.

"Oh, never mind me," said Lady Cheshire, laughing; "I'm an old woman. Take one of the girls, Mr. Quiddy: come, give your arm to your favouite."

While Quiddy, somewhat perplexed by this command, and, rubbing his ear with a finger, was endeavouring to hit upon something pretty to say; and Clara, absconding to one of the windows, was stooping to look for a something which she had neither lost nor mislaid, her ladyship just said

66

Now, Jane, my love." Hereupon the "great what-do-they-call it," awkwardly held out his arm to that young lady.

66 Now," said the good mamma to the pair, "do you young people lead the way."

And the party descended to the dining-room.

P*.

A SKETCH ON THE ROAD. '

"All have their exits and their entrances."

Ir is a treat to see Prudery get into an omnibus. Of course she rejects the hand that is held out to her by male Civility. It might give her a squeeze. Neither does she take the first vacant place; but looks out for a seat, if possible, between an innocent little girl and an old woman. In the mean time the omnibus moves on. Prudery totters— makes a snatch at Civility's nose-or his neck-or anywhere-and missing her hold rebounds to the other side of the vehicle, and plumps down in a strange gentleman's lap. True Modesty would have escaped all these indecorums. H.

March.-VOL. LXIV. NO. CCLV.

Z

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF THAT REMARKABLE CHILD

THE LATE MISS MARGARET DAW.

AUTHORESS OF "SIGHS, SMILES, SENTIMENTS, AND OTHER POEMS," &c. &c. &c. &c. &c.

Non sine Diis animosus infans.—HORAT.

It is not in these days of polite and refined sentiment, that an appeal to an enlightened British public is necessary, in behalf of literary genius. The Roman poet has well observed that" a studious cultivation of the ingenious arts softens the manners, and does not suffer men to become brutes:" and the second great orator of antiquity, with equal force, remarked, that "the belles lettres delight us at home, and are no impediment abroad." On this account, literature is justly held in esteem by all nations claiming for themselves the epithet of civilized. For myself, from my earliest youth I was a devoted admirer of all who have made themselves a name by their printed productions; and to tell the whole truth, at ten years old, was, however unworthy, myself enrolled among those

Condemned their father's soul to cross,

Who pen a stanza when they should engross.

Forced by the decrees of an inscrutable Providence to pass my youth in the obscurity of a country town, I may still boast that my life was not wasted in a solitude wholly unknown to the Muses; and that among my companions might be counted more than one mute" inglorious Milton," and (stranger still), more than one silent Madame de Staël, who if they had not fallen on the Barbara tellus, et inhospita litora Ponti, might have added another sprig to the myrtle-branch of British talent, and thrown an halo of glory round their native birthplace, to redeem it from a dark and oblivious obscurity. But alas! Nec vos, Pierides, nec stirps Latonia, vestro Docta sacerdoti turba tulistis opem.

It is needless to add that our small coterie of blues (as we are invidiously called by our neighbours), is merely an oasis in the desert; and that it is chiefly from among the softer sex that our society has recruited its strength, while the love of an elegant refinement in literature, has found in them its best representatives. I mention this circumstance as best explaining the poetical turn which has been given to the literary propensities of the place, and more especially the decided preference we have shown for those departments of poetic composition which bear the true imprint or Hall-mark of the court of Apollo-the simple and the mystic.

These tendencies were also very much encouraged and fostered by the circumstance of our possessing, in the person of Dr. Drowsy's first curate, one, whom melancholy and the Muses have alike marked for their own one whose sermons required nothing but rhyme to have

made them exquisite poems; and whose occasional trifles in verse (which he with unwonted modesty published with the title of "Poor attempts at Rhyme") wanted only reason and an unmeasured gait to have passed for the most delightful specimens of pure British prose. He was known to his parishioners as the clergyman "much bemused in" tea; and there is scarcely a personage of holy writ, mythical or historical, from the Deity to the Demon, to whom he had not dedicated at least the scantlings of an heroic poem. Under his direction was founded our book-club, or, as we termed it, our "Literary Association for the dissemination of Song and Sobriety:" and I think our library might boast of a larger collection of works which have escaped the research of the general public, and which will be read when Shakspere, Pope, and Milton, shall be forgotten, than can be found in any other town of the like dimensions, within the Queen's dominions. The productions of unknown genius, the effusions of lowly merit, were ever among the objects of our primary research; and it will long remain a matter of boast to our circle, that we have been instrumental more than once in drawing from obscurity neglected talent, and fostering into distinction the mechanic poet, whose uneducated strains had been overlooked or despised, by self-interested booksellers, and moneyhunting publishers.

But among the various manifestations of the divine afflatus, which appeal to the sympathies of those quiis meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan, we have chiefly affected precocious talent. Infantile genius is like green peas at Christmas; and as the sons of Croesus prefer the untimely pulse before “ every delicacy in season," more in consideration of their rarity than their flavour, so the refined and the sentimental have precocity of mind in estimation, as exhibiting in a stronger degree the power and the beneficence of Providence, and the inscrutability of his ways.

The remark which has been hazarded by a certain Scotch Esculapius of our town, that precocious genius is malady, and an infantile poetic temperament no better than water in the brain, is the grovelling and impious blasphemy of a shallow sciolist; but has not the pearl, the appropriate emblem of maiden purity, likewise been aspersed by the same individual, as "the morbid exostosis of that love-crossed bivalve, the oyster"; and ambergris, which perfumes the escrutoire of many a poetic annualist, has been liable to a similar censure. What matters it whence we come? much more important to our weal here and hereafter, is the consideration of what we are; and nothing is more certain than that genius is genius, and precocity is precocious.

It has accordingly been a custom among us to bear a wary eye in our visits to the workhouse and the parish-school, that no latent talent should be suffered to rot in dull oblivion; and more than once we have been honoured in imping the wings of genius, when it had been overlooked by the material apprehensions of matter-of-fact overseers and pedantic pedagogues. On this head, it is needful merely to hint at our connexion with that illustrious ornament of the modern Parnassus, who first manifested the spirit within him, by a couplet scrawled" with desperate charcoal" on the newly whitewashed walls of the town gaol. This spirited outpouring, it is well known, began as follows: