356 PORTRAIT-GALLERY OF OLD BACHELORS. 



fall the " fringed curtains" of her eye-lids, till she is roused from 

 her trance by the recollection that it is only Mr. Tickler, an old 

 bachelor of sixty : she however gives him her hand, which she holds 

 tenderly, while pointing to the evening-star just glimmering in the 

 hour of early twilight, and recites 



** Hail, golden star ! of ray serene, 

 Thou fav'rite of the Cyprian queen. 

 O Hesper! glory of the night, 

 Diffusing rays of blissful light; 

 Bright star of Venus, mayst fhou prove 

 The gentle harbinger of love !" 



These exquisite lines he repeats sotto voce, which the smiling nymph 

 begs he will write down in her album ; he then starts oft into the 

 Sapphic strain : 



" Bless'd as the immortal gods is he 

 Who fondly sighs and sits by thee, 

 And hears and sees thee all the while 

 Softly speak and sweetly smile;" 



till, fearing the old gentleman's vivacity, she invites him to sing her 

 a song of his younger years. The complacent bachelor at once lifts 

 up his voice, and warbles his best, as follows : 



" Unless with my Amanda bless'd, 

 In vain I twine the woodbine bower; 



Unless to deck her sweeter breast, 

 In vain 1 rear the breathing flower. 



" Awaken'd by the genial year, 



In vain the birds around me sing, 

 In vain the freshening fields appear ; 



Without my love there is no spring : " 



and having thus served for her amusement and the momentary in- 

 dulgence of a deeper feeling, he accompanies her to the drawing- 

 room, flourishing his lily-white pocket-handkerchief, which diffuses 

 " sabsean odours," and resigns her to one anxiously awaiting her 

 coming, and then transfers his attentions to her mother. 



The amorous old bachelor is perhaps even more useful to the 

 married ladies than to either old or young maidens. Husbands, after 

 the honeymoon, generally show a strange antipathy to attending 

 their wives in their shopping and morning calls : here then the 

 amorous old bachelor becomes a capital walking-stick, and he is quite 

 in his element ; and as he is known far and wide, and is deep in the 

 secrets of the sex, his presence is no check upon the tittle-tattle 

 current on such occasions : he may thus be considered as a circu- 

 lating medium between husbands and wives and the rest of the sex ; 

 and in this capacity he hears a prodigious quantity of scandal, but 

 he is a prudent man, and wisely holds his tongue, treasuring up his 

 knowledge for his own private advantages. If business or pleasure 

 have taken a married man away from his family, no sooner are 

 candles placed on the sitting-room table, and the curtains drawn, 

 but straightway the veteran enters in full dress, thus affording a 



