THE TABLE D'HOTE. 



now; sure, I'm not for doubting any thing that lady says eh, me'em ! 

 am I right then, now?" " Oh dear, sir!" said the simpering Mrs. B., 

 who had taken a sufficiency of the Lyaean to feel the courage to rebel 

 against a jealous and inforced authority " I'm sure, sir, what you says 

 is, howsomever Mr. Blunt may take it " " Hold your tongue, Mrs. 

 B.," said Blunt ; whose directions, like those of Mrs. Glasse, were always 

 given in the plump imperative " I protest, you're half an idiot " 

 " Ods blood, now, Mr. Blunt, remember, man and wife is one," resumed 

 O'Sullivan ; " and therefore yourself must be the other half." " Sir \" 

 said the uneasy spouse, " your interposition is becoming somewhat 

 meddling " " By this book then," said O'Sullivan, as he kissed a 

 carving-knife, " and I never could help that, when there was ladies in 

 the case." " Oh the creature!" said Mrs. B., delighted with the unfaded 

 gallantry of the elated officer " My dear, you're next an idiot/' said 

 Mr. Blunt, reproachfully. Cf Ah! and is it that lady by your side, sir? 

 by the powers ! and I wished she was not. Would you allow me, if 

 that place is disagreeable, to offer you a sate ?" And accordingly the 

 ensign offered to transfer the charms of Mrs. Blunt from her unpleasant 

 juxta position to her spouse, to a space unoccupied, immediately beside 

 himself. " A tanner on the captain !" said one of the Oxonians ; which 

 Blunt retorted with a sneer ; and, turning to O'Sullivan with an impor- 

 tant and authoritative air " I, sir, am that lady's lord and master." 

 " Mighty bad and ugly terrems (terms), Mr. Blunt: is it master, sir, 

 you said ? and as for lord oh ! that exprission never should be used, 

 excipt in worship. By the vartue of your oath, me'em, are you now that 

 same idolater that gentleman pretends ? indeed and you are not, now !" 

 " A tizzy on the captain \" said the other student. Mr. Blunt per- 

 ceived, by the suppressed laughter of the company, and by a still more 

 faithful index, the irritation of his temper, that he was disadvantageously 

 engaged ; and therefore, to cover his defeat, if possible, with dignity, 

 he resolved to treat his adversary with mute contempt, and rose abruptly 

 to depart. My uncle, feeling for his embarrassment, and desirous of 

 aiding his escape, by way of a diversion, addressed himself to the 

 Oxonians, who had been talking largely on the wonders and the plea- 

 sures of the chase. " I doubt not," said my uncle, te as you have so 

 recently left college, and are so enthusiastically fond of hunting, you 

 are well acquainted, gentlemen, with Oppian." The students stared at 

 one another. At length, one of them said, " Oh ! yes, I think I must 

 have met him with Sir Thomas Mostyn's hounds : he wore a wig, if I 

 remember rightly, and always came to cover on a chestnut cob." My 

 uncle thought no topic barren or repulsive, that involved the truths of 

 science, or admitted of the illustrations of the muse ; and would wil- 

 lingly have prosecuted the discourse of the Oxonians, had it flowed into 

 the channels of Oppian, Grotius, or Nemesian ; but, when he found the 

 youths so eminently destitute of common learning, as to mistake the 

 erudite Cilician of the second century, for a midland fox-hunter in 

 England, as to endue his classic head with one of Mr. Truefitt's wigs, 

 and mount him on a chestnut cob, in company with Sir Thomas Mostyn, 

 in the nineteenth century, he curtly answered, that both the gentleman 

 and the baronet to whom they had alluded, must be infinitely older than 

 he had thought ; and recoiling from such intolerable ignorance, observed, 

 for the remainder of the day, as much retirement as good breeding would 

 allow : though he supplied them previously with a parallel to their chro- 



