XXIV.

THE POOR RELATION.

BY CHARLES LAMB.'

A POOR RELATION is the most irrelevant thing in nature-a piece of impertinent correspondency-an odious approximation—a haunting conscience-a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity— an unwelcome remembrancer-a perpetually recurring mortification—a drain on your purse-a more intolerable dun upon your pride-a drawback upon success— a rebuke to your rising-a stain in your blood-a blot on your 'scutcheon-a rent in your garment-a death'shead at your banquet-Agathocles's' pot-a Mordecai 10 in your gate-a Lazarus' at your door-a lion in your path-a frog in your chamber-a fly in your ointment-a mote in your eye-a triumph to your enemyan apology to your friends—the one thing not needful-the hail in harvest--the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet.

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He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr." A rap between familiarity and respect; that demands, and at the same time seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling and-em-20 barrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and -draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-time when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company-but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are 25

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will drop in to-day." He professeth he is fortunate He declareth against fish, suffereth himself to be im

accommodated at a side table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says, with some complacency, "My dear, perhaps Mr. remembereth birthdays-and to have stumbled upon one. the turbot being small—yet portuned into a slice, against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port-yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful 10 of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think "they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition, and the most part take him to be—a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with 15 your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more 20 state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rentyet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanor, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist table; refuseth on the score of poverty, andresents being left out. When the company break up,26 he proffereth to go for a coach—and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather, and will thrust in some mean and quite unimportant anecdote of-the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what he calleth-favorable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of congratulation he will inquire the price of your furniture, and insults you with

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a special commendation of your window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old teakettle-which you must remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a car- 5 riage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on vellum yet; and did not know, till lately, that such-andsuch had been the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable; his compliments perverse; his talk a 10 trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances.

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There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is-a female Poor Relation. You may do something with thes other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is an old humorist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling."She is plainly related to the L-'s; or what does she at their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes—aliquando sufflaminandus erat-but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped-after the gentlemen. Mr. requests the honor of taking wine

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with her; she hesitates between port and madeira, and chooses the former-because he does. She calls the servant Sir, and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's governess takes upon herself to correct her, when she s has mistaken the piano for the harpsichord.

Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play,' is a notable instance of the disadvantages to which the chimerical notion of affinity constituting a claim to acquaintance may subject the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is all 10 that is betwixt him and a lady with a great estate. His stars are perpetually crossed by the malignant maternity of an old woman who persists in calling him "her son Dick." But she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his indignities, and float him again upon the 15 brilliant surface under which it had been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink him.

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This theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic associations that it is difficult to keep the account distinct without 20 blending. The earliest impressions which I received on this matter are certainly not attended with anything painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my father's table (no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his words few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presI had little inclination to have done so-for my cue was to admire in silence. A particular elbow-chair 30 was appropriated to him, which was in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I used to think him a prodigiously rich

ence.

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man. All I could make out of him was that he and my father had been school-fellows, a world ago, at Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all the money was coined—and I thought he was the owner of all that money. Awful ideas of 5 the Tower twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort of melancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a captive-a stately being led 10 out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an habitual general respect which we all in common manifested towards him, would venture now and then to stand up against him in some argument touching their youthful days. The houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the dwellers on the hill and in the valley. This marked distinction formed an obvious division between the boys who lived above (however brought together in a common school) 20 and the boys whose parental residence was on the plain; à sufficient cause of hostility in the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading mountaineer, and would still maintain the general superiority, in skill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) over 25 the Below Boys (so they were called), of which party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this topic-the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought out— and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the recom-30 mencement (so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the conversation upon some adroit by-commendation of the old minster; in the gen

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