causes us to gape and yawn; he that splutters while talking, or speaks close under one's nose, inspires us with disgust; he that bawls, overwhelms us more by the power of his voice than the force of his arguments; he who jumps from one subject to another, forces us to laugh, or else excites our anger; he that constantly laughs at whatever he describes, may amuse us for the moment, but becomes tiresome in the end; he who never laughs, makes us fearful and cautious; and, finally, he that continually loses the thread of his discourse, and often repeats, "Well, you know," "As I was saying," "Let me see whereabouts was I?" makes us heartily wish the fellow at Old Nick. Speaking is an art which many clever men do not naturally possess, but which some fools have instinctively: this often makes us revoke, at a second interview, the judgment we had pronounced at the first. The speaker who accompanies his discourse with varied and natural gestures, is frequently of a ready and sparkling wit; whilst he that holds forth, with a countenance totally void of expression, is even more frequently of a dull, heavy turn of mind. There is a certain species of social simpleton, to whom no conventional appellation, that we are aware of, has ever been assigned, but who is full of extravagant gesticulation. He is at once a vain, presumptuous, empty, and arrogant babbler, who, not satisfied with the natural expression of his countenance, opens and shuts his eyes, grins widely and vacantly, and assumes a melancholy or laughing air, as he presumes the subject of his discourse requires. He further assists the expression of his physiognomy by movements of his head, his body, his arms, and his legs. He leans first upon one haunch, then upon the other; then curves his body from one side to the other; then brings it straight again :-in short, gives way to an infinity of postures, which he imagines to be necessary and graceful, but which really are contortions and grimaces. Amongst the gestures and attitudes, the most annoying are those of the ignoramus, who, having stopped you in the street, unbuttons and buttons up your waistcoat, plays with your watch-guard, and passes his fingers through the button-holes of your coat; then shakes it to and fro; or draws you closer to him, to impress upon you the importance of the twaddle he is retailing. If you endeavour to get rid of him by proceeding onwards he will not quit his hold, but add to the annoyance by stopping every three steps, and causing you to do the same to preserve your coat from his injurious fangs. Another time, he will mark the emphasis and pauses of his oration, by continual taps upon your arm, holding your hand enclosed within his all the while, and rendering escape next to impossible. The attitude of the coxcomb is as offensive as it is ridiculous. With one hand tucked in his waistcoat, and tapping his boots with his cane with his head thrown proudly back, or feignedly leant forwards, as though he were short-sighted, he ogles and peers at you, while speaking or listening to you, in a manner that seems to say-" How very little you are! so very little compared to me! 't is quite a trouble to look at you!" The man who is insincere, stammers,-weighs and examines his phrases before he risks uttering them, and never looks you firmly and fully in the face. A Very Black Romance (SLIGHTLY TINGED WITH BLUE), By Miss Indiana Inkle. posing him to be a vellers' Club, or, what have journeyed from LONDON TO SCHLANGEN BAD remark, that the former with chimney-pots, and turesque. In this sinbona fide trees, and brooks, melancholy and doubtless from having The eye of the reader, but one, and that it tra velled in the direction indicated by the post above, at the precise moment of which we write otherwise we beg he will direct it to the following drawing-could not have helped remarking the existence of a noble addition to the landscape-a large white bull; which, by the way, seems to have strayed there most à propos, enabling our artist to fill up his foreground after nature; and ourselves to introduce to the reader one of the chief characters of this sable tale -the innocent cause of endless woe. Heigh ho! never was a bull more innocent than he. No, not even the holy Pope's. He was pure in heart as the natural whiteness of his skin-but not white-livered withal. His countenance (which we must not fail to add, although the artist has turned it from us)-his noble countenance beamed with joy, whilst a smile you would have been puzzled to decide as belonging to the ironical or the pitiful (supposing them not to be synonymous) played around his aristocratically turned mouth, giving increased animation to his features, and perhaps slightly expressing the zest with which he placidly grazed on the fresh herb. Nothing could equal the mental quietude, the repose of soul, which this unsophisticated brute enjoyed. To him, science and the self-lighting sealing-wax, luxury and the new Poor Law, Photography and India-rubber pavement, Mr. Dickens's "Notes" and the American currency, the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and Prize Cattle, the meetings of the British Association and Female Chartists, were each and all unknown. Neither the new Income Tax nor the new Tariff affected him. He was not surprised at Sir Robert Peel's promises, and, like Sir Robert, never dreamt of his fulfilling them. In short, nothing disturbed, nothing astonished him. Our bull was a complete child of nature (like John Bull perhaps, a little overgrown). Had you inquired of him the way to any town, his reply would simply have consisted of one ingenuous smile, proving at least he was not the dupe of your facetiousness. who all the world knows came in with the Conqueror, and (but for the sequel) would in all human probability only have gone out with the Pension List. On looking further into the carriage, it would have been found to contain more than the noble family, by two portmanteaus and a bonnet-box, a fact which no faithful chronicler could omit, inasmuch as they were part of the personal property of the De Cringeys. Two horses were attached by rope traces to the vehicle, for no other traces existed of their attachment. Black they were (horses and traces both) as Newcastle adamant, and melancholy black was the outward expression of their inward feelings; for judging, as Lavater would have done, by their physiognomies, we are safe in concluding they drew with regret their noble burthen. MEM. Never have black horses put to your travelling carriage; they are mostly in the habit of taking passengers a step further than they wish. See the sequel of our tale. Place aux Dames! One of the De Cringeys who sat in the rumbling carriage was a lady, about-no matter, a lady's age should be respected-a lady who, having nothing but her husband to divert her, gazed with intense relief upon our friend the bull. She was in stature slightly * The most dramatic writers generally explain their plots beforehand NOTE OF THE EDITOR. above the middle size, and her countenance, which cannot be compared with either we have described, was melancholy as the moon's-the full moon's, be it understood, for the crescent presents anything but a melancholy phiz. Had the rumbling carriage stopped but one halfhour for your accommodation, between each revolution of the wheels around their axles, you might have scanned this fair creature's features till, like a poet, you believed your rapturous gaze transfixed upon an ethereal being-an angel, but with this algebraic typification, was -2 wings 3 petticoats, which is anything but poetical. Judging from her complexion, you might possibly have guessed the beauty's name Blanche ; but no, 't was Constance. Was constancy her nature? Nous verrons. In this same rumbling carriage was a little man, whose hair had obviously fallen off from using Rowland's Macassar, but which defect was remedied by the united skill of Truefitt, and his valet Nicholas (not a Swiss). We have said he was little in person: was he less in politics, |