distilled from his prostrate heart, his friends,
to their astonishment, discovered that he had
alluded to the bequest in question in the most
contemptuous strain:—

Why leave to one thy velvet and thy dross,
Whose wealth is boundless, and whose velvet's
     moss?

So ran his poetic commentary. His boundless
wealth consisted of intellectual treasures
exclusively, and the sweet declaration that
moss was his velvet, was meant to convey to
the reader the simplicity and Arcadian nature
of his habits. The relation who had the
assurance to leave him a fortune, was dragged
remorselessly through fifty lines as a punishment
for his temerity. Yet, in a fit of
abstraction, Mr. Blackbrook hurried to Doctors'
Commons to prove the will; hereby displaying
his resignation to the horrible degree of
comfort which the money assured to him. It
was not for him, however, to forget that life
was chequered with woe, that it was a vale of
tears— a brief, trite, contemptible matter.
The gaiety of his house and relations horrified
him; they interfered, at every turn, with
his melancholy mood. He sighed for the fate
of Byron or Chatterton! Why was he
doomed to have his three regular meals per
diem; to lie, at night, upon a feather-bed, and
the recognised layers of mattresses; to have
a new coat when he wanted one; to have
money continually in his pocket, and to be
accepted when he made an offer of marriage?
The fates were obviously against him. One
of his sisters fell in love. How hopefully he
watched the course of her passion! How
fondly he lingered near, in the expectation—
the happy expectation— of a lovers' quarrel.
But his sister had a sweet disposition a
mouth made to distil the gentlest and most
tender accents. The courtship progressed
with unusual harmony on both sides. Only
once did fortune appear to favour him. One
evening, he observed that the lovers avoided
each other, and parted coldly. Now was his
opportunity; and in the still midnight, when
all the members of his household were in bed,
he took his seat in his chamber, and, by the
midnight oil, threw his soul into some
plaintive lines " On a Sister's Sorrow." He
mourned for her in heart-breaking syllables;
likened her lover to an adder in an angel's
path; dwelt on her quiet grey eyes, her stately
proportions, and her classic face. He doomed
her to years of quiet despair, and saw her
fickle admirer the gayest of the gay. He
concluded with the consoling intelligence, that
he would go hand in hand with her along the
darkened passage to the grave. His sister,
however, did not avail herself of this proffered
companionship, but chose rather to be
reconciled, and to marry her lover.

Mr. Blackbrook found some consolation for
this disappointment in the composition of an
epithalamium of the most doleful character on
the occasion of his sister's marriage, in the
course of which he informed her that Jove's
thunderbolts might be hurled at her husband's
head at any period of the day; that we all
must die; that the bride may be a widow on
the morrow of her nuptials; and other equally
cheerful truths. Yet at his sister's wedding-
breakfast, Mr. Blackbrook coquetted with the
choice parts of a chicken, and drowned his
sorrow in a delectable jelly.

When for a short time he was betrayed into
the expression of any cheerful sentiment, if
he ever allowed that it was a fine day, he
quickly relapsed into congenial gloom, and
discovered that there might be a thunderstorm
within the next half-hour. His only comfort
was in the reflection that his maternal uncle's
family were consumptive. Here he anticipated
a fine field for the exercise of his poetic gifts,
and, accordingly, when his aunt was gathered
to her forefathers, her dutiful nephew laid a
sheet of blank paper upon his desk, and
settled himself down to write " a Dirge." He
began by attributing all the virtues to her—
devoting about six lines to each separate
virtue. Her person next engaged his attention
and he discovered, though none of her
friends had ever remarked her surpassing
loveliness, that her step was as the breath of
the summer wind on flowers (certainly no
gardener would have trusted her upon his
box-borders); that she was fresh as Hebe (she
always breakfasted in bed); that she had pearly
teeth (her dentist has maliciously informed
us that they were made of the very best ivory);
and, finally, that her general deportment
was most charming— so charming that Mr.
Blackbrook never dared trust himself in her
seductive presence. Having proceeded thus
far with his melancholy duty, the poet
ate a hearty supper of the heaviest cold
pudding, and—we had almost written—went
to bed—but we remember that Mr. Blackbrook
always " retired to his solitary couch."
He rose betimes on the following morning,
looking most poetically pale. His dreams
had been of woe, and darkness, and death;
the pudding had had the desired effect. Again
he placed himself at his desk, and having
read over the prefatory lines which we have
endeavoured to describe, he threw his
fragrant curl from his marble forehead, and
thought of the funeral pall, the darkened hall,
—of grief acute, and the unstrung lute. He
put his aunt's sorrowing circle in every
possible position of despair. He represented
his surviving uncle as threatening to pass the
serene portals of reason; he discovered that
a dark tide rolled at the unhappy man's feet;
that the sun itself would henceforth look
dark to him; that he would never smile again;
and that, in all probability, the shroud would
soon enwrap his manly form. He next
proceeded to describe minutely the pearly tears
of his cousins, and the terrible darkness that
had come over their bright young dreams.
An affecting allusion to his own unfathomable
grief on the occasion, was concluded by the