got brilliant in their conversation he smiled
upon them with a deferential modesty and
polite Grandisonian admiration that froze the
blood of " us youth" in our veins. When he
spoke it was like reading a passage from
an elegant moral writer—the words were so
beautifully arranged, the sentences were turned
so musically, the sentiment conveyed was
so delightfully well regulated, so virtuously
appropriate to nothing in particular. At such
times he always spoke in a slow, deep, and
gentle drawl, with a thrillingly clear emphasis
on every individual syllable. His speech sounded
occasionally like a kind of highly-bred foreign
English, spoken by a distinguished stranger who
had mastered the language to such an extent that
he had got beyond the natives altogether. We
watched enviously all day for any signs of
human infirmity in this surprising individual.
The men detected him in nothing. Even the
sharper eyes of the women only discovered that
he was addicted to looking at himself affectionately
in every glass in the house, when he
thought that nobody was noticing him. At
dinner-time we all pinned our faith on Sir John's
excellent wine, and waited anxiously for its
legitimate effect on the superb and icy stranger.
Nothing came of it; Mr. Smart was as carefully
guarded with the bottle as he was with the
English language. All through the evening, he
behaved himself so dreadfully well that we quite
began to hate him. When the company parted
for the night, and when Mr. Smart (who was
just mortal enough to be a bachelor) invited us
to a cigar in the Bedroom, his highly-bred
foreign English was still in full perfection; his
drawl had reached its elocutionary climax of
rich and gentle slowness; and his Grandisonian
smile was more exasperatingly settled and composed
than ever.

The Bedroom door closed on us. We took off
our coats, tore open our waistcoats, rushed in a
body on the new bachelor's cigar-box, and summoned
the evil genius of the footman's tray. At
the first round of the tumblers, the false Mr.
Smart began to disappear, and the true Mr.
Smart approached, as it were, from a visionary
distance, and took his place among us. He
chuckled—Grandison chuckled—within the hearing
of every man in the room! We were surprised
at that, but what were our sensations
when, in less than ten minutes afterwards, the
highly-bred English and the gentle drawl mysteriously
disappeared, and there came bursting
out upon us, from the ambush of Mr. Smart's
previous elocution, the jolliest, broadest, and
richest Irish brogue we had ever heard in our
lives! The mystery was explained now. Mr.
Smart had a coat of the smoothest English varnish
laid over him, for highly-bred county
society, which nothing mortal could peel off but
bachelor company and whisky-and-water. He
slipped out of his close-fitting English envelope,
in the loose atmosphere of the Bachelor Bedroom,
as glibly as a tightly-laced young lady
slips out of her stays when the admiring eyes of
the world are off her waist for the night. Never
was man so changed as Mr. Smart was now.
His moral sentiments melted like the sugar in
his grog; his grammar disappeared with his
white cravat. Wild and lavish generosity suddenly
became the leading characteristic of this
once reticent man. We tried all sorts of subjects,
and were obliged to drop every one of
them, because Mr. Smart would promise to
make us a present of whatever we talked about.
The family mansion in Ireland contained everything
that this world can supply; and Mr. Smart
was resolved to dissipate that priceless store in
gifts distributed to the much-esteemed company.
He promised me a schooner yacht, and made a
memorandum of the exact tonnage in his pocket-book.
He promised my neighbour, on one side, a
horse, and, on the other, a unique autograph letter
of Shakespeare's. We had all three been talking
respectively of sailing, hunting, and the British
Drama; and we now held our tongues for fear
of getting new presents if we tried new subjects.
Other members of the festive assembly took up
the ball of conversation, and were prostrated
forthwith by showers of presents for their pains.
When we all parted in the dewy morning, we
left Mr. Smart with dishevelled hair, checking
off his voluminous memoranda of gifts with an
unsteady pencil, and piteously entreating us, in
the richest Irish-English, to correct him instantly
if we detected the slightest omission
anywhere.

The next morning, at breakfast, we rather
wondered which nation our friend would turn
out to belong to. He set all doubts at rest the
moment he opened the door, by entering the
room with the old majestic stalk, saluting the
ladies with the serene Grandison smile, trusting
we had all rested well during the night, in a
succession of elegantly-turned sentences, and
enunciating the highly-bred English with the
imperturbably-gentle drawl which we all imagined,
the night before, that we had lost for ever. He
stayed more than a fortnight at Coolcup House;
and, in all that time, nobody ever knew the true
Mr. Smart except the guests in the Bachelor
Bedroom.

The fourth Bachelor on the list deserves
especial consideration and attention. In the
first place, because he presents himself to the
reader, in the character of a distinguished
foreigner. In the second place, because he contrived,
in the most amiable manner imaginable,
to upset all the established arrangements of
Coolcup House—inside the Bachelor Bedroom,
as well as outside it—from the moment when
he entered its doors, to the moment when he
left them behind him on his auspicious return to
his native country. This, ladies and gentlemen,
is a rare, probably a unique, species of bachelor;
and Mr. Bigg, Mr. Jollins, and Mr. Smart have
no claim whatever to stand in the faintest light
of comparison with him.

When I mention that the distinguished guest
now introduced to notice is Herr von Müffe, it
will be unnecessary for me to add that I refer to
the distinguished German poet, whose far-famed
Songs Without Sense have aided so immea-