524 The Malcontent. [Nov. 



experiments in that line are, as we all know, proverbial. And so, 

 because I am not cut down from the bed-post every fortnight because 

 I am not discovered lying supine beneath a tearful willow, with my head 

 upon a clod, and my feet left to cool in the meandering stream because 

 I desire yet a while longer to walk this common earth, and am unwilling 

 to change this my personal presence, and, as it were, individual currency, 

 into the flimsy equivalent of a ghost ; which is, so to speak, a most ridi- 

 culous, and unfortunately not-to-be-cudgelled vapour ; because, in short, 

 I am not ghost-convertible, nor lending an ear to ghosts (my wife has 

 appeared to me several times by way of spectral illusion !), because of 

 these things, I am considered a mere heartless stoic. Be it so. 



But wherefore did they impeach the integrity of my brain ? where- 

 fore insinuate, that through lunar interstices that subtle jelly had eva- 

 porated. Monstrous fable ! 



" By yonder blessed moon I swear" 



there is not a fissure, however small, through which the moonbeams may 

 intrude unbiddenthrough which the intellectual mass may have incon- 

 tinently escaped. 



Shall I be tamely slain by the jawbones of these asses ? Shall 

 these Sampsons of controversy bring the house about my ears in their 

 blind fury? Wherefore am I deserted by them? I am cut every day 

 fifty times like a cucumber, by people as cool as that vegetable. Well, 

 they have " cut," and have not " come again," nor have I the eternity 

 of their rounds of beef ; no matter. A fierce reprisal is in store for them 

 when it shall please God to take my excellent aunt, who has flourished 

 for so incredible a period upon her annuity, in spite, and to the horror, 

 and, of late, perfect incredulity of the Equitable Assurance, who, upon 

 the worthy creature's demise, will be constrained to amend their average 

 tables ; when, I say, that honoured relative shall expire (she cannot last 

 much longer !) then am I, by virtue of my propinquity to the deceased, 

 installed in the possession of her goods and chattels, whatsoever and 

 wheresoever, &c. a blest expectancy ! let them look to it. 



I derive a melancholy pleasure from a retrospection of my military 

 career, before our service in the Peninsula, when we were all, brave as 

 lions, in country quarters. Oh ! that it might have lasted for ever ! 

 those parade days shall I ever cease to remember them ? such storm- 

 ing of hearts such marryings and givings in marriage such assigna- 

 tions with nursery-maids under pretext of caressing the children ! Ah ! 

 these were remarkably agreeable points yet I have sufficient ground of 

 complaint in the ridiculous preferences shewn by the women (poor pre- 

 judiced creatures !) to many of my brother officers, whose personal ac- 

 complishments vanity apart were poor compared to mine : fellows, 

 trust me, " with Atlantean shoulders fit to bear the weight of mightiest" 

 luggage ; with a plebeian development of calf and an intricate wil- 

 derness of whisker. These were sought after, yea, held in requisition, 

 while I was laughed to scorn positively sneered at left a prey to 

 ravenous spinsters, who were glad to cling to me as a forlorn hope, and 

 made desperate efforts to snatch me up. There was one record it, ye 

 furies ! who by dint of a bran new wig, and repairs done to her imme- 

 morial countenance in short, with hair and plaister, had so morticed 

 herself to my affections, that I should inevitably have fallen a victim, 

 had it not been that I was providentially delivered out of her hands. 



