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gravity of countenance and demeanour, a bald head most accurately powdered, and a very graceful bow-quite the pattern of an elderly man of fashion. His conversation was in excellent keeping with the calm imperturbability of his countenance and the sedate gravity of his manner,-smooth, dull, commonplace, exceedingly safe, and somewhat imposing. He spoke so little, that people really fell into the mistake of imagining that he thought; and the tone of decision with which he would advance some second-hand opinion, was well calculated to confirm the mistake. Gravity was certainly his chief characteristic, and yet it was not a clerical gravity either. He had none of the generic marks of his profession. Although perfectly decorous in life and word and thought, no stranger ever took Mr. Sidney for a clergyman. He never did any duty any where, that ever I heard of, except the agreeable duty of saying grace before dinner; and even that was often performed by some lay host, in pure forgetfulness of his guest's ordination. Indeed, but for the direction of his letters, and an eye to *** Rectory, I am persuaded that the circumstance might have slipped out of his own recollection.

hear certain airs of Mozart and Handel without seeming to catch an echo of that sweetest voice in which I first learnt to love them. Pretty often, however, the point of association is less elegant, and occasionally it is tolerably ludicrous. We happened to-day to have for dinner a couple of wild-ducks, the first of the season; and as the master of the house, who is so little of an epicure that I am sure he would never while he lived, out of its feathers, know a wild-duck from a tame,-whilst he, with a little affectation of science, was squeezing the lemon and mixing Cayenne pepper with the gravy, two of us exclaimed in a breath," Poor Mr. Sidney !"—" Ay," rejoined the squeezer of lemons, poor Sidney! I think he would have allowed that these ducks were done even to half a turn." And then he told the story more elaborately to a young visiter, to whom Mr. Sidney was unknown; -how, after eating the best parts of a couple of wild-ducks, which all the company prorounced to be the finest and the best dressed wild-ducks ever brought to the table, that judicious critic in the gastronomic art limited the too sweeping praise by gravely asserting, that the birds were certainly excellent, and that the cookery would have been excellent also, had they not been roasted half a turn too much. Mr. Sidney has been dead these fifteen years; but no wild-ducks have ever ap-ishness, the little whims, the precise habits, peared on our homely board without recalling that observation. It is his memorable saying; his one good thing.

Mr. Sidney was, as might be conjectured, an epicure; he was also an old bachelor, a clergyman, and senior fellow of ** College, a post which he had long filled, being, although only a second son, so well provided for that he could afford to reject living after living in expectation of one favourite rectory, to which he had taken an early fancy from the pleasantness of the air. Of the latter quality, indeed, he used to give an instance, which, however satisfactory as confirming his prepossession, could hardly have been quite agreeable, as preventing him from gratifying it; namely, the extraordinary and provoking longevity of the incumbent, who at upwards of ninety gave no sign of decay, and bade fair to emulate the age of old Parr.

His quality of old bachelor was more perceptible. There lurked under all his polish, well covered but not concealed, the quiet self

the primness and priggishness of that disconsolate condition. His man Andrews, for instance, valet, groom, and body-servant abroad; butler, cook, caterer, and major d'omo at home; tall, portly, powdered and blackcoated as his master, and like him in all things but the knowing pig-tail which stuck out horizontally above his shirt-collar, giving a ludicrous dignity to his appearance;-Andrews, who, constant as the dial pointed nine, carried up his chocolate and shaving water, and regular as "the chimes at midnight," prepared his white-wine whey; who never forgot his gouty shoe in travelling, (once for two days he had a slight touch of that gentlemanly disorder,) and never gave him the newspaper unaired; to whom could this jewel of a valet, this matchless piece of clock-work belong, but an old bachelor? And his little dog Viper, unparagoned of terriers, black, sleek, sharp, Whilst waiting for the expected living, Mr. and shrewish; who would beg and sneeze Sidney, who disliked a college residence, built and fetch and carry like a Christian; eat himself a very pretty house in our neighbonr- olives and sweetmeats and mustard, drink hood, which he called his home; and where coffee and wine and liqueurs;-who but an he lived, as much as a love of Bath and Brigh-old bachelor could have taught Viper his multon and London and lords would let him. He tifarious accomplishments? counted many noble families amongst his near connections, and passed a good deal of his time at their country-seats-a life for which he was by character and habit peculiarly fitted.

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In person he was a tall stout gentlemanly man, "about fifty, or by'r lady, inclining to threescore," with fine features, a composed

Little Viper was a most useful person in his way; for although Mr. Sidney was a very creditable acquaintance to meet on the King's highway, (your dull man, if he rides well, should never think of dismounting,) or even on the level ground of a carpet in the crowd of a large party; yet when he happened to drop in to take a family dinner-a pretty fre

quent habit of his when in the country-then feelings. His genuine and unfeigned veneraViper's talents were inestimable in relieving tion was reserved for him who played a good the ennuï occasioned by that grave piece of rubber, a praise he did not easily give. He gentility his master, "not only dull in him- was a capital player himself, and held all his self, but the cause of dullness in others." Any country competitors, except one, in supreme thing to pass away the heavy hours, till whist and undisguised contempt, which they endured or piquet relieved the female world from his to admiration. I wonder they did not send intolerable silence. him to Coventry. He was the most disagreeable partner in the world, and nearly as unpleasant an adversary; for he not only enforced the Pythagorean law of science, which makes one hate whist so, but used to distribute quite impartially to every one at table little disagreeable observations on every card they played. It was not scolding, or grumbling, or fretting; one has a sympathy with those expressions of feeling, and at the worst can scold again; it was a smooth polite commentary on the errors of the party, delivered in the calm tone of undoubted superiority with which a great critic will sometimes take a small poet, or a batch of poets, to task in a review. How the people could bear it!—but the world is a good natured world, and does not like a man the less for treating it scornfully.

In other respects these visits were sufficiently perplexing. Every housewife can tell what a formidable guest is an epicure who comes to take pot-luck-how sure it is to be bad luck, especially when the unfortunate hostess lives five miles from a market-town. Mr. Sidney always came unseasonably, on washing-day, or Saturday, or the day before a great party. So sure as we had a scrap dinner, so isure came he. My dear mother, who with true benevolence and hospitality cared much for her guest's comfort and nothing for her own pride, used to grieve over his discomfiture, and try all that could be done by potted meats and omelettes, and little things tossed up on a sudden to amend the bill of fare. But cookery is an obstinate art, and will have its time; however you may force the component parts, there is no forcing a dinner. Mr. Sidney had the evil habit of arriving just as the last bell rang; and in spite of all the hurryscurry in the kitchen department, the new niceties and the old, homely dishes were sure to disagree. There was a total want of keeping. The kickshaws were half raw, the solids were mere rags; the vegetables were cold, the soup was scalding; no shallots to the rump-steaks; no mushrooms with the broiled chicken; no fish; no oysters; no ice; no pineapple. Poor Mr. Sidney! He must have had a great regard for us to put up with our bad dinners.

Perhaps the chance of a rubber had something to do with his visits to our house. If there be such a thing as a ruling passion, the love of whist was his. Cards were not merely the amusement, but the business of his life. I do not mean as a money-making speculation; for although he belonged to a fashionable club in London, and to every card-meeting of decent gentility within reach of his countryhome, he never went beyond a regular moderate stake, and could not be induced to bet even by the rashest defier of calculation, or the most provoking undervaluer of his play. It always seemed to me that he regarded whist as far too important and scientific a pursuit to be degraded into an affair of gambling. It had in his eyes all the dignity of a study; an acquirement equally gentlemanly and clerical. It was undoubtedly his test of ability. He had the value of a man of family and a man of the world, for rank, and wealth, and station, and dignities of all sorts. No human being entertained a higher respect for a king, a prince, a prime minister, a duke, a bishop, or a lord. But these were conventional

So passed six evenings out of the seven with Mr. Sidney, for it was pretty well known that, on the rare occurrence of his spending a day at home without company, his fac-totum Andrews used to have the honour of being beaten by his master in a snug game at double dumby; but what he did with himself on Sunday occasioned me some speculation. Never in my life did I see him take up a book, although he sometimes talked of Shakspeare and Milton, and Johnson and Burke, in a manner which proved that he had heard of such things; and as to the newspaper, which he did read, that was generally conned over long before night; besides he never exhibited spectacles, and I have a notion that he could not read newspaper type at night without them. How he could possibly get through the aftercoffee hours on a Sunday puzzled me long. Chance solved the problem. He came to call on us after church, and agreed to dine and sleep at our house. The moment tea was over, without the slightest apology or attempt at conversation, he drew his chair to the fire, set his feet on the fender, and fell fast asleep in the most comfortable and orderly manner possible. It was evidently a weekly habit. Every sense and limb seemed composed to it. Viper looked up in his face, curled himself round on the hearth-rug, and went to sleep too; and Andrews, just as the clock struck twelve, came in to wake him that he might go to bed. It was clearly an invariable custom; a settled thing.

His house and grounds were kept in the neatest manner possible. There was something even disagreeable in the excessive nicety, the Dutch preciseness of the shining gravel walks, the smooth shaven turf of the

lawn, and the fine-sifted mould of the shrubberies. A few dead leaves or scattered flowers, even a weed or two, any thing to take away from the artificial toy-like look of the place, would have been an improvement. Mr. Sidney, however, did not think so. He actually caused his gardener to remove those littering plants called roses and gum cistuses. Other flowers fared little better. No sooner were they in bloom, than he pulled them up for fear they should drop. In doors, matters were still worse. The rooms and furniture were very handsome, abounding in the luxurious Turkey carpets, the sofas, easy chairs, and Ottomans, which his habits required; and yet I never in my life saw any house which looked less comfortable. Every thing was so constantly in its place, so provokingly in order, so full of naked nicety, so thoroughly old-bachelorish. No work! no books! no music! no flowers! But for those two things of life, Viper and a sparkling fire, one might have thought the place uninhabited. Once a year, indeed, it gave signs of animation, in the shape of a Christmas party. That was Mr. Sidney's shining time. Nothing could exceed the smiling hospitality of the host, or the lavish profusion of the entertainment. It breathed the very spirit of a welcome, splendidly liberal; and little Viper trisked and bounded, and Andrew's tail vibrated (I was going to say wagged) with cordiality and pleasure. Andrews, on these occasions, laid aside his "customary black" in favour of a blue coat and a white silk court waistcoat, with a light running pattern of embroidery and silver spangles, assumed to do honour to his master and the company. How much he enjoyed the applause which the wines and the cookery elicited from the gentlemen; and how anxiously he would direct the ladies' attention to a MS. collection of riddles, the compilation of some deceased countess, laid on the drawing-room table for their amusement between dinner and tea. Once, I remember, he carried his attention so far as to produce a gone-by toy, called a bandalore, for the recreation of myself and another little girl, admitted by virtue of the Christmas holidays to this annual festival. Poor Andrews! I am convinced that he considered the entertainment of the visiters quite as much his affair as his master's; and certainly they both succeeded. Never did parties pass more pleasantly. On those evenings Mr. Sidney even forgot to find fault at whist.

At last, towards the end of a very severe winter, during which he had suffered much from repeated colds, the rectory of *** became vacant, and our worthy neighbour hastened to take possession. The day before his journey he called on us in the highest spirits, anticipating a renewal of health and youth in this favourite spot, and approaching nearer than I had ever heard him to a jest on the

subject of looking out for a wife. Married or single, he made us promise to visit him during the ensuing summer. Alas! long before the summer arrived, our poor friend was dead. He had waited for this living thirty years; he did not enjoy it thirty days.

A VILLAGE BEAU.

THE finest young man in our village is undoubtedly Joel Brent, half-brother to my Lizzy. They are alike too; as much alike as a grown-up person and a little child of different sexes well can be; alike in a vigorous uprightness of form, light, firm, and compact as possible; alike in the bright, sparkling, triumphant blue eye, the short-curled upper lip, the brown wavy hair, the white forehead and sunburnt cheeks, and, above all, in the singular spirit and gaiety of their countenance and demeanour, the constant expression of life and glee, to which they owe the best and rarest part of their attractiveness. They seem, and they are two of the happiest and merriest creatures that ever trod on the greensward. Really to see Joel walking by the side of his team, (for this enviable mortal, the pride of our village, is by calling a carter), to see him walking, on a fine sunny morning, by the side of his bell-team, the fore-horse decked with ribbons and flowers like a countess on the! birth-day, as consciously handsome as his driver, the long whip poised gracefully on his shoulder, his little sister in his hand, and his dog Ranger (a beautiful red and white spaniel

every thing that belongs to Joel is beautiful)| frisking about them:-to see this group, and to hear the merry clatter formed by Lizzy's tongue, Joel's whistling, and Ranger's delighted bark, is enough to put an amateur of pleasant sounds and happy faces in good humour for the day.

It is a grateful sight in other respects, for Joel is a very picturesque person, just such an one as a painter would select for the foreground of some English landscape, where nature is shown in all her loveliness. His costume is the very perfection of rustic coquetry, of that grace, which all admire and few practise, the grace of adaptation, the beauty of fitness. No one ever saw Joel in that wretched piece of deformity a coat, or that still wretcheder apology for a coat a docktailed jacket. Broad-cloth, the "common stale" of peer and peasant, approaches him not; neither does " the poor creature," fustian. His upper garment consists of that prettier jacket without skirts, call it for the more grace a doublet, of dark velveteen, hanging open over his waistcoat, giving a Spanish or an Italian air to his whole appearance, and setting off to great advantage his trim yet manly shape. To this

he adds a silk handkerchief, tied very loosely round his neck, a shirt-collar open so as to show his throat, as you commonly see in the portraits of artists, very loose trowsers, and a straw hat. Sometimes in cold weather, he throws over all a smock-frock, and last winter brought up a fashion amongst our lads, by assuming one of that blue hight Waterloo, such as butchers wear. As soon as all his comrades had provided themselves with a similar piece of rustic finery, he abandoned his, and indeed generally sticks to his velveteen jacket, which, by some magical influence of cleanliness and neatness, always looks new. I cannot imagine how he contrives it, but dirt never hangs upon Joel; even a fall at cricket in the summer, or a tumble on the ice in the winter, fails to soil him; and he is so ardent in his diversions, and so little disposed to let his coxcombry interfere with his sports, that both have been pretty often tried; the former especially.

Ever since William Grey's secession, which took place shortly after our great match, for no cause assigned, Joel has been the leader and chief of our cricketers. Perhaps, indeed, Joel's rapid improvement might be one cause of William's withdrawal, for, without attributing any thing like envy or jealousy to these fine young men, we all know that "two stars keep not their motion in one sphere," and so forth, and if it were absolutely necessary that either our "Harry Hotspur, or the Prince of Wales," should abdicate that fair kingdom the cricket-ground, I must say that I am content to retain our present champion. Joel is in my mind the better player, joining to William's agility, and certainty of hand and eye, all the ardour, force, and gaiety of his own quick and lively spirit. The whole man is in the game, mind and body; and his success is such as dexterity and enthusiasm united must always command. To be sure he is a leetle over-eager, that I must confess, and does occasionally run out a slow mate; but he is sure to make up for it by his own exertions, and after all what a delightful fault zeal is! Now that we are on the subject of faults, it must be said, not that Joel has his share, which is of course, but that they are exceedingly venial, little shades that become him, and arise out of his brighter qualities as smoke from the flame. Thus, if he sometimes steals one of his active holidays for a revel or a cricket-match, he is sure to make up the loss to his master by a double portion of labour the next day; and if now and then at tide-times, he loiters in the chimney-corner of the Rose, rather longer than strict prudence might warrant, no one can hear his laugh and his song pouring through the open door, like the very voice of "jest and youthful jollity," without feeling certain that it is good fellowship, and not good liquor, that detains him. Indeed so much is he the delight of the country lads, who frequent that wellaccustomed inn, so much is his company sought

after in all rustic junketings, that I am only astonished at the strength of resolution, and power of resisting temptation, which he displays in going thither so seldom.

If our village lads be so fond of him, it is not to be doubted that our village maidens like him too. The pretty brunette, Sally Wheeler, who left a good service at B., to take in needlework, and come home to her grandmother, she being, to use Sally's phrase, "unked for want of company," (N. B. Dame Wheeler is as deaf as a post, a cannon would not rouse her,) is thought, in our little world, to have had an eye to Joel in this excess of dutifulness. Miss Phoebe, the lass of the Rose, she also, before her late splendid marriage to the patten-maker, is said to have becurled and beflounced herself at least two tiers higher on club-nights, and Sundays, and holidays, and whenever there was a probable chance of meeting him. The gay recruiting sergeant, and all other beaux were abandoned the instant he appeared; nay, it is even hinted, that the patten-maker owes his fair bride partly to pique at Joel's indifference. Then Miss Sophia Matthews, the schoolmistress on the lea, to whom in point of dignity Miss Phoebe was nothing, who wears a muff and a veil, walks mincingly, and tosses her head in the air, keeps a maid,-a poor little drab of ten years old; follows, as she says, a genteel profession,-I think she may have twenty scholars at eight-pence a week; and when she goes to dine with her brother, the collar-maker, hires a boy for a penny to carry her clogs; Miss Sophia, it is well known, hath pretermitted her dignity in the matter of Joel; hath invited the whole family to tea (only think of Joel at a tea-party ?) hath spoken of him as "a person above the common: a respectable young man; one, who with a discreet and accomplished wife, a woman of reading and education," (Miss Sophia, in the days of her father, the late collar-maker of happy memory, before she taught the young idea how to shoot," had herself drunk deeply at that well of knowledge, the circulating library of B.) "not too young," (Miss Sophia calls herself twenty-eight-I wonder what the register says!) "no brazen-faced gipsy, like Sally Wheeler," (Miss Sophia's cast of countenance is altogether different from Sally's dark and sparkling beauty, she being pink-eyed, redhaired, lean, pale, and freckled)" or the jillflirt Phœbe"- -but to cut short an oration which in spite of the lady's gentility, began to grow rather scurrilous, one fact was certain,— that Joel might, had he so chosen, have worn the crown matrimonial in Miss Sophia's territories, consisting of a freehold-cottage, a little the worse for wear, a good garden, a capital orchard, and an extensive right of common; to say nothing of the fair damsel and her school, or, as she is accustomed to call it, her seminary.

Joel's proud bright eye glanced, however, carelessly over all. There was little percepti

ble difference of feeling in the gay distant smile, with which he regarded the coquettish advances of the pretty brunette, Sally Wheeler, or the respectful bow with which he retreated from the dignified condescension of Miss Sophia. He fluttered about our village belles like a butterfly over a bed of tulips; sometimes approaching them for a moment, and seeing them ready to fix, but oftener above and out of reach, a creature of a sprightlier element, too buoyant and volatile to light on an earthly flower. At last, however, the rover was caught; and our damsel, Harriet, had the glory of winning that indomitable heart.

Now Harriet is in all things Lucy's successor; in post, and favour, and beauty, and lovers. In my eye she is still prettier than Lucy; there is something so feminine and so attractive in her loveliness. She is a tall young woman, finely, though, for eighteen, rather fully formed; with a sweet child-like face, a fair blooming complexion, a soft innocent smile, and the eye of a dove. Add to this a gentle voice, a quiet modest manner, and a natural gentility of appearance, and no wonder that Harriet might vie with her predecessor in the number of her adınirers. She inherited also a spice of her coquetry, although it was shown in so different a way that we did not immediately find it out. Lucy was a flirt active; Harriet was a flirt passive: Lucy talked to her beaux; Harriet only listened to her's; Lucy, when challenged on the number of her conquests, denied the thing, and blushed, and laughed, and liked to be laughed at; Harriet, on a similar charge, gave no token of liking or denial, but said quietly that she could not help it, and went on winning hearts by dozens, prodigal of smiles but chary of love, till Joel came," pleased her by manners most unlike her own," and gave to her delicate womanly beauty the only charms it wantedsensibility and consciousness.

regular and melodious call, the note, as he averred, of a sky-lark. That a sky-lark should sing in front of our house, at seven o'clock in a December evening, seemed, to say the least, rather startling. But our ornithologist happening to agree with Mr. White, of Selborne, in the opinion, that many more birds sing by night than is commonly supposed, and becoming more and more confident of the identity of the note, thought the thing possible; and not being able to discover any previous notice of the fact, had nearly inserted it, as an original observation, in the Naturalist's Calendar, when running out suddenly one moonlight night, to try for a peep at the nocturnal songster, he caught our friend Joel, whose accomplishments in this line we had never dreamt of, in the act of whistling a summons to his lady-love.

For some weeks our demure coquette listened to none but this bird-like wooing; partly from pride in the conquest; partly from real preference; and partly, I believe, from a lurking consciousness that Joel was by no means a lover to be trifled with. Indeed he used to threaten, between jest and earnest, a ducking in the goose-pond opposite, to whoever should presume to approach his fair intended; and the waters being high and muddy, and he at all points a formidable rival, most of her former admirers were content to stay away. At last, however, she relapsed into her old sin of listening. A neighbouring farmer gave a ball in his barn, to which both our lovers were invited and went. Now Harriet loves dancing, and Joel, though arrayed in a new jacket, and thin cricketing pumps, would not dance; he said he could not, but that, as Harriet observes, is incredible. I agree with her that the gentleman was too fine. He chose to stand and look on, and laugh, and make laugh, the whole evening. In the meantime his fair betrothed picked up a new partner, and a new beau, in the shape of a freshly-arrived carpenThe manner in which we discovered this ter, a grand martial-looking figure, as tall as new flirtation, which, unlike her others, was a grenadier, who was recently engaged as concealed with the pretty reserve and mystery foreman to our civil wheeler, and who, even that wait on true love, was sufficiently curi-if he had heard of the denunciation, was of a ous. We had noted Joel more frequently than size and spirit to set Joel and the goose-pond common about the house: sometimes he came at defiance, - David might as well have atfor Lizzy; sometimes to bring news of a tempted to goose-pond Goliath! He danced cricket-match; sometimes to ask questions the whole evening with his pretty partner, about bats and balls; sometimes to see if his and afterwards saw her home; all of which dog Ranger had followed my May; sometimes Joel bore with great philosophy. But the to bring me a nosegay. All this occasioned next night he came again; and Joel approachno suspicion; we were too glad to see Joel to ing to give his own sky-lark signal, was starthink of inquiring why he came. But when tled at seeing another lover leaning over the the days shortened, and evening closed in dark wicket, and his faithless mistress standing at and cold before his work was done, and cricket the half-open door, listening to the tall carand flowers were over, and May and Lizzy safe in their own warm beds, and poor Joel's excuses fairly at an end; then it was, that in the after-dinner pause about seven, when the clatter of plates and dishes was over, that the ornithological ear of the master of the house, a dabbler in natural history, was struck by a

penter, just as complacently as she was wont to do to himself. He passed on without speaking, turned down the little lane that leads to Dame Wheeler's cottage, and in less than two minutes Harriet heard the love-call sounded at Sally's gate. The effect was instantaneous; she discarded the tall carpenter at once

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