( 353 ) 



PORTRAIT- GALLERY OF OLD BACHELORS. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF < OLD MAIDS/ 



No. I. THE AMOROUS OLD BACHELOR. 



" Love various minds does variously inspire, 

 He stirs in gentle natures, gentle fire/ 7 



Dry den. 



NOTHING is more remarkable about Thomas Tickler, Esq., who 

 sits for our portrait of an amorous bachelor, than the fact, that he 

 remains in a state of celibacy at the reverend age of sixty ; for, to 

 judge from his pursuits, language, and pleasures, we should at once 

 pronounce that his blood was very " lovebroth ; " yet so it is a 

 bachelor he is, and a bachelor he will remain, even should he live to 

 be as old as Methuselah. Now this is a singularity; for, according to 

 his own account, he has been constantly in love since he numbered 

 eighteen years. Let us look at him why, he is as likely a man to 

 please a woman's eye as you will see in a summer's day; rather 

 diminutive but none the worse for that " ingentes animos exercent, 

 in corpore parvo : " dressed quite ^ la mode, save and excepting that 

 the skirts of his claret-coloured coat are a little, a very little broader 

 than common, and the points of his low-quartered shoes somewhat of 

 the broadest; his cravat is unexceptionable, his linen white as snow, 

 and carved like an apple-pie ; the cut of his vest, and the fit of culo- 

 tins admirable, and setting off to advantage a reasonably good 

 pair of legs, little the worse for wear ; his manners the very pink of 

 courtesy and, take him altogether, he may be safely declared, point 

 device a gentleman ! 



The walls of his private sitting-room present a goodly show of 

 beauties, " scorning the veil of dress ; " here a Naiad sporting in the 

 transparent element with golden hair and blue eyes, that gaze upon 

 you as if in consciousness of your presence; there a " wood-nymph 

 wild," half-hidden, yet wishful to be seen ; and a hundred other 

 splendid and delicate creatures, that seem to live and blush on the 

 canvass the production of 



" Rare artisans, whose pencils move 

 Not our delight alone, but love. " 



The shelves of his library are filled with a good selection of works, 

 handsomely bound and gilt, the burden of which is ' Oh, 'tis love, 

 'tis love, 'tis love ; " and yet Mr. Tickler is a chaste bachelor ! 



Nor have his attentions been confined to canvass and letter-press 

 beauties : for the last forty- four years he has been indefatigable in fall- 

 ing in love with the handsomest women of his day, whether maids, 

 wives, or widows. Nor are his anxieties a whit abated : watch him 

 seated beside that lovely girl with dark meaning eyes and heaving 

 bosom: why the man is in an ecstacy ! his eyes glance, his legs 



M.M. No. 4. 2 Z 



