1827.] Some Account of a Lover. 263 



beheld my intemperate companion lying involved in his chair, with a most 

 cruel distortion of feature ; his whole appearance betraying what it had 

 been more prudent than ingenuous to conceal ; namely, that he was, " in 

 vino," very drunk a new adaptation of the well-known laconic axiom 

 which he forthwith began to illustrate. 



For, having effected a transition of his body into the street, this " beastly 

 pagan" began shouting forth hymns to Diana, accompanying the same by 

 saltatory motions, and recommending himself to her goddess-ship's notice 

 as her Endymion, while he protested his intention of meeting her in a 

 submarine apartment an engagement, the completion whereof was a little 

 facilitated by the fact that he was considerably more than "half seas over." 

 For my own part, I found it very shortly expedient to relinquish a personal 

 attendance upon him ; for, by reason of these unnatural upspringings, I 

 expected nothing less than the instant destruction of his frame " in toto," 

 or his rapid disappearance through one of the coal-holes in the pavement ; 

 to say nothing of a difference of opinion that might arise between us, and 

 that worthy Diogenes of the night, who makes it his business to look after 

 honest men with a lantern, and who was now approaching, dressed in a drab- 

 coloured great-coat. By this peripatetic professor of moral philosophy was 

 he eventually " reprehended," and by him conducted and introduced to the 

 interior of an agreeable but small mansion, where he passed the night. 



In pursuance of a resolution, approved and adopted by us the preceding 

 evening, I sallied forth the next morning to reconnoitre the residence of 

 his charmer, with the view to the completion of a plan of elopement, in 

 which I profess my entire skill my attention through life having been par- 

 ticularly turned to flights of all description from the gently abrupt injec- 

 tion of the personal identity into a shop, upon the sudden appearance of 

 an incipient dun, to the superhuman scramble from the outstretched palm 

 of a full-grown fingerer .of shoulder-blades. But I wander. 



The possibility of completing this rather premature arrangement having 

 been ascertained by a minute survey of the house by which I perceived 

 that Diaper could, in case of emergency, escape through the iron railings, 

 and delighted to observe, that the discharge of a pistol from the street-door 

 by the alarmed father, or any of his domestics, must infallibly lodge its 

 contents in the os frontis of the watchman opposite ; having ascertained, 

 I say, these things, I was preparing to depart, when a figure at the window 

 attracted my observations the fair cause of my friend's disquiet ! " Oh ! 

 call her pale not fair!" Not to flatter, her's might be said to be 



" Beauty, which, whether sleeping or awake, 

 Shot forth peculiar graces." 



And yet, 1 know not, her style of countenance was neither in the Grecian 

 nor the Roman mould, but might be more aptly termed the Gorgonic. I 

 was more than ever convinced of the truth of the line, 



" None but the brave deserve the fair," 



and hurried away with some precipitation to reveal to Diaper what I 

 could not say whom I had seen. 



This recital was listened to by him with intense satisfaction ; and, upon 

 its conclusion, he produced a parcel, which, with sundry winks, and dozens 

 of self-satisfied smirks, he delivered into my hands, enjoining me to bear it 

 suddenly according to its direction. Sanguine of success, he would take no 

 denial, but thrust me forth, instructing me to meet him at the corner of 

 the street. 



