Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

ing? If Miss Tracey be a bravura song, you are a balladnot showy, nor brilliant, but touching, interesting, and-"

"Oh, pray say no more!" cried Julia, blushing, and hastening to join the company; but it was a blush of pleasure; and as she rode home she amused herself with analysing all the properties of the ballad, and she was very well contented with the analysis.

That evening, Julia, all herself again, and dressed with exquisite and becoming taste, danced, smiled, talked, and was universally admired. But was she particularly so? Did the man of her heart follow her with delighted atten

tion?

"Julia," said her happy father, as they went home at night, "you will have the velvet pelisse and Sir Frederic, too, I expect."

Nor was he mistaken. The pelisse was hers the next day, and the baronet some months after. But Julia to this hour preserves with the utmost care the faded pelisse, which Sir Frederic had pronounced to be "a robe of honour."

DESCRIPTION OF A FINE GENTLEMAN.

AS many females seem passionately fond of the name of a fine gentleman, it may not be improper to give a description of so fascinating a person, in order to guard them against the delusion.

When we are at a loss to describe any uncommon phenomenon, we commonly attempt to say what it is not, and so give an idea of a something to which we can affix no name. The physician is called to a patient in a particular disorder -he knows not what to call it. It is not the gout-it is not the rheumatism-there are no symptoms of a fever-as few of inflammation-ergo, it is an inward complaint, something nervous.

The naturalist finds a substance lying on the ground. It is not a stone, nor a stick; it is not an animal, nor an ore; it is not a plant, nor a root; at length, after looking over Linnæus's arrangements, and finding it to be like nothing there, he pronounces it a lusus nature. To apply this to the Fine Gentleman:

A Fine Gentleman is not a learned gentleman, for looking into books would spoil his eyes, and a knowledge of elegant writing unfit him for polite conversation.

A Fine Gentleman is not an ignorant gentleman, for he knows the name of every article of fashionable apparel, and can with extraordinary precision mark the distinctions of Carmelite, Emperor's Eye, Vestris Blue, Feu de l'Opera, &c. and other niceties, which knowledge requires to be something more than merely learned in the primary colours.

A Fine Gentleman is not a pious gentleman, for to him nothing can be so insupportable as seriousness. The sight of a parson operates upon him as the smell of rotten cheese upon the nerves of a fine lady.

A Fine Gentleman is not a rational creature, for he avoids nothing so much as thinking.

A Fine Gentleman is not an industrions man, for his whole life is spent in idleness, and at the end of it, it is impossible for him to recollect one hour in which he was well employed.

A Fine Gentleman is not an idle gentleman, for from morning to night he is in perpetual motion from one place of amusement to the other; from the breakfast to the gaming-table; from the gaming-table to the coffee-house; from the coffee-house to the Park; from the Park to dinner and the bottle; from the bottle to tea; from tea to the play; from the play to supper; from supper to the bagnio; from the bagnio to the street; from the street to the roundhouse; from the round-house to the justice; from the justice home again-Da Capo.

The Fine Gentleman is not an ingenious gentleman, for during a long existence, he is never once able to discover the real purpose for which he was sent into the world, endued with a head, tongue, eyes, hands, feet, &c.

The Fine Gentleman is not an honourable gentleman, because he discharges no debts lawfully contracted, and unlawfully contracts debts which he does not mean to pay.

The Fine Gentleman is an honourable gentleman, for no man can call him rogue without being called to an account for it, although the proof be as clear as the blade of his sword.

Since a Fine Gentleman includes so many contradictory characters, to what class of mortals must we consign him? He is, in fact, an animal sui generis, of his own engendering; there is nothing like him on earth. Nature has no share whatever in his composition. Men are sometimes born fools, geniuses, dunces, deformed, &c. but no man is by nature a Fine Gentleman. It is to the tailor and hairdresser we are to look for the creation of this strange ani

mal. In ancient times, perhaps, some attempts may have been made to construct a Fine Gentleman; but that perfection to which the machine is now brought, is the work of many centuries. Before the flood we are sure there were none; wicked as the world then was, we believe not one Fine Gentleman was drowned at the flood; indeed had there been any then on the earth, Noah must certainly have mistaken them for a species of monkey, and put a couple of them into the ark. After the flood, even when the Egyptians were a great flourishing people, I do not find any mention of Fine Gentlemen; nor when the Romans conquered them, do their historians give any account of Fine Gentlemen.

Be the controversy concerning their origin decided in what manner it may, we have the creatures now among us, and they appear in the army, the law, and the church; but most of all in the army, as no abilities are required; less in the church, where something of abilities is looked for; and least of all at the bar, for there nothing but abilities can do. Any man may read prayers, and steal sermons; and any man may go through the exercise of the fusee and spontoon; but it is not every man who can combat the difficul ties of a criminal case, or a civil plea.

The late Lord Chesterfield has been the making of many a Fine Gentleman. With him, clean teeth, and nails well pared, were greater accomplishments than a pure heart and an enlightened understanding; and he who adopts his lordship's refined sentiments of duplicity and dress, must inevitably turn out an arrant coxcomb, if he escape being a professed profligate.

THE STORY OF LAVINIA.

SOON as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv'd, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripen'd field the reapers stand,
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.

At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,

Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,

And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.
Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think!
How good the GOD of HARVEST is to you:
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder-that your sons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint ye give.
The lovely young LAVINIA once had friends;
And Fortune smil'd, deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years deprived of all,
Of every stay, save INNOCENCE and HEAVEN,
She, with her widow'd mother, feeble, old,
And poor, liv'd in a cottage far retir'd
Among the windings of a woody vale;
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty, conceal'd.
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride:
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning-rose,
When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and
pure
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:
Or when the mournful tale her mother told,
Of what her faithless fortune promis'd once,
Thrill'd in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportion'd on her polish'd limbs,
Veil'd in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the poinp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,

But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Appenine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild:
So flourish'd blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet LAVINIA; till, at length compell'd
By strong necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean PALEMON's field. The pride of swains
PALEMON was, the generous, and the rich;
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian song
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times;
When tyrant custom had not shackled man,
But free to follow nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanc'd beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor LAVINIA drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
That very moment love and chaste desire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown;
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field;
And thus in secret to his soul he sigh'd.

"What pity! that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enliv'ning sense
And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell,
Should be devoted to the rude embrace
Of some indecent clown! She looks, methinks,
Of old ACASTO's line, and to my mind
Recalls that patron of my happy life,
From whom my lib'ral fortune took its rise:
Now to the dust gone down; his houses, lands,
And once fair spreading family, dissolv'd.
"Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat,
Urg'd by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
Far from those scenes which knew their better days,
His aged widow and his daughter live,

« AnteriorContinua »