Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

high; he would undoubtedly have entered Blue Beard's closet, although certain to share the fate of his wives; and has had serious thoughts of visiting Constantinople, just to indulge his taste by stealing a glimpse of the secluded beauties of the seraglio-an adventure which would probably have had no very fortunate termination. Indeed our modern peeping Tom has encountered several mishaps at home in the course of his long search after knowledge: and has generally had the very great aggravation of being altogether unpitied. Once, as he was taking a morning ride, in trying to look over a wall a little higher than his head, he raised himself in the saddle, and the sagacious quadruped, his gray poney, an animal of a most acommodating and congenial spirit, having been, for that day, discarded in favour of a younger, gayer, less inquisitive, and less patient steed, the new beast sprang on and left him sprawling. Once when, in imitation of Ranger, he had perched himself on the topmost round of a ladder, which he found placed beneath a window in Upper BerkeleyStreet, he lost his balance, and was pitched suddenly in through the sash, to the unspeakable consternation of a house-maid, who was rubbing the panes within side. Once he was tossed into an open carriage, full of ladies, as he stood up to look at them from the box of a stage-coach. And once he got a grievous knock from a chimney sweeper, as he poked his head into the chimney to watch his operations. He has been blown up by a rocket; carried away in the strings of a balloon; all but drowned in a diving-bell; lost a finger in a mashing-mill; and broken a great toe by drawing a lead pin-cushion off a worktable. N. B. This last mentioned exploit spoilt my worthy old friend, Miss Sewaway, a beautiful piece of fine netting, "worth," as she pathetically remarked, "a thousand toes."

These are only a few of the bodily mischiefs that have befallen poor Mr. Lynx. The moral scrapes, into which his unlucky propensity has brought him, are past all count.

In his youth, although so little amorous that, I have reason to think, the formidable interrogatory which is emphatically called "popping the question" is actually the only question which he has never popped;-in his youth, he was very nearly drawn into wedlock by the sedulous attention he paid to a young lady, whom he suspected of carrying on a clandestine correspondence. The mother scolded; the father stormed; the brother talked of satisfaction; and poor Mr. Lynx, who is as pacific as a quaker, must certainly have been married, had not the fair nymph eloped to Gretna Green, the day before that appointed for the nuptials. So he got off for the fright. He hath undergone at least twenty challenges for different sorts of impertinences; hath had his ears boxed and his nose pulled; hath been knocked down and horsewhipped; all which casualities he bears with an exemplary patience. He hath been mistaken for a thief, a bailiff, and a spy, abroad and at home; and once, on the Sussex coast, was so inquisitive respecting the moon, and the tide, and the free trade, that he was taken at one and the same time, by the different parties, for a smuggler and a revenue officer, and narrowly escaped being shot in the one capacity, and hanged in the other.

age.

The evils which he inflicts bear a tolerable fair proportion to those which he endures. He is simply the most disagreeable man that lives. There is a curious infelicity about him which carries him straight to the wrong point. If there be such a thing as a sore subject, he is sure to press on it-to question a parvenu on his pedigree, a condemned author on his tragedy, and an old maid on her Besides these iniquities, his want of sympathy is so open and undisguised, that the most loquacious egotist loses the pleasure of talking of himself, in the evident absence of all feeling or interest on the part of the hearer. His conversation is always more like a judicial examination than any species of social intercourse, and often like the worst sort of examination-cross-questioning. He demands,

[ocr errors]

like a secretary to the inquisition, and you answer (for you must answer) like a prisoner on the rack. Then the man is so mischievous! He rattles old china, marches over flower-beds, and paws Urling's lace. The people at museums and exhibitions dread the sight of him. He cannot keep his hands from moths and humming-birds; and once poked up a rattle-snake to discover whether the joints of the tail did actually produce the sound from which it derives its name; by which attack that pugnacious reptile was excited to such wrath, that two ladies fell into hysterics. He nearly demolished the Invisible Girl by too rough an inquiry into her existence, and got turned out of the Automaton Chess-player's territories, in consequence of an assault which he committed on that ingenious piece of mechanism. To do Mr. Lynx justice, I must admit that he sometimes does a little good to all this harm. He has, by design or accident, in the ordinary exercise of his vocation, hindered two or three duels, prevented a good deal of poaching and pilfering, and even saved his own house, and the houses of his neighbours from divers burglaries; his vigilance being, at least, as useful, in that way, as a watchman or an alarm-bell.

He makes but small use of his intelligence, however come by, which is perhaps occasioned by a distinctive difference of sex. A woman only half as curious would be prodigal of information—a spendthrift of news. Mr. Lynx hoards his like a miser. Possession is his idol. If I knew any thing which I particularly wished the world not to know, I should certainly tell it to him at once. A secret, with him, is as safe as money in the bank; the only peril lies in the ardour of his pursuit. One reason for his great discretion seems to me to be his total incapacity of speech-in any other than the interrogative mood. His very tone is set to that key. I doubt if he can drop his voice at the end of a sentence, or knows the meaning of a full stop. Who? What? When? Where? How? are his catchwords; and Eh? his only interjection.

Children and poor people, and all awkward persons who like to be talked to, and to talk again—but do not very well understand how to set about it, delight in Mr. Lynx's notice. His catechetical mode of conversation enchants them, especially as he is of a liberal turn, and has generally some loose silver in his pocket, to bestow on a good answerer. To be sure the rapidity of his questions sometimes a little incommodes our country dames; who, when fairly set in to a narrative of grievances, do not care to be interrupted, but the honour of telling their histories and the histories of all their neighbours to a gentleman, makes ample amends for this little alloy.

Travelling is much to his taste; as are also stagecoaches, and steam-packets, and diligences, and generally all places where people meet and talk, especially an inn, which is capital questioning ground, and safer than most other. There is a license, a liberty, a freedom in the very name, and, besides, people do not stay long enough to be affronted. He spends a good deal of his time in these privileged abodes, and is well known as the Inquisitive Gentleman on most of the great roads, although his seat of Lynx Hall is undoubtedly his principal residence, It is most commodiously situated, on a fine eminence, overlooking three counties; and he spends most of his time in a sort of observatory, which he has built on a rising ground, at the edge of the park, where he has mounted a telescope, by means of which he not only commands all the lanes and bye-paths in the neighbourhood, but is enabled to keep a good look-out, on the great northern road, two miles off, to oversee the stage-coaches, and keep an eye on the mail. The manor lies in two parishes— another stroke of good fortune!-since the gossiping of both villages seems to belong to him of territorial right. Vestries, work-houses, schools, all are legitimate ground of inquiry. Besides, his long and intimate acquaintance with the neighbourhood is an inestimable advantage, to a man of his turn of mind, and supplies, by detail and min

uteness, what might be wanting in variety and novelty. He knows every man, woman, and child, horse, cow, pig, and dog, within half-a-dozen miles, and has a royal faculty of not forgetting, so that he has always plenty of matter for questions, and most of the people being his tenants, answers come quickly. He used

As I live, here he is! just alighting from the gray poney, asking old Dame Wheeler what makes her lame on one side, and little Jemmy White why his jacket is ragged on the other-bawling to both-Dame Wheeler is deaf, and Jemmy stupid; and she is answering at cross purposes, and he staring with his mouth open, and not answering at all, and Mr. Lynx is pouring question on question as fast as rain drops in a thunder-shower.-Well I must put away my desk, and my papers, especially this, for I should not quite like him to have the first benefit of the true and faithful likeness, which I have been sketching;-I must put it away; folding and sealing will hardly do, for though I don't think—I can scarcely imagine, that he would actually break open a sealed packet,—yet man is frail! I have a regard for my old friend, and will not put him in the way of temptation.

A SOLDIER'S EPITAPH.

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. POET LAUREATE.

STEEP is the soldier's path; nor are the heights

Of glory to be won without long toil

And arduous efforts of enduring hope,

Save when death takes the aspirant by the hand,

And, cutting short the work of years, at once

Lifts him to that conspicuous eminence.

Such fate was mine.-The standard of the Buffs

I bore at Albuhera, on that day

When, covered by a shower, and fatally
For friends misdeemed, the Polish lancers fell
Upon our rear. Surrounding me, they claimed

« AnteriorContinuar »