374 OLD MAIDS. 



brooding over the love springing in her young heart, and robbing her of 

 her fresh beauty, who but Miss P., kind and gentle Miss P., can be 

 selected for a confidante ? and thus you restore peace and joy to the 

 anxious maiden. If a parent is obdurate, or a lover perverse who but 

 Miss P. is the agent of reconciliation? and thus you are become a 

 * ministering angel' to all within your sphere, diffusing happiness around 

 you, and presenting an example to all your sisterhood, while many of 

 them are ever representing their ' beauty and their bliss 7 as a shadow of 

 the past, and singing with poor Sheridan, 



* No more shall the spring my lost pleasure restore, 



Uncheer'd I still wander alone, 

 And, sunk in dejection, for ever deplore 

 The sweets of the days that are gone. 

 When the sun as it rises, for others shines bright, 



I think how it formerly shone 

 While others cull blossoms, I find but a blight, 



And sigh for the days that are gone. 

 I stray where the dew falls through moon-lighted groves, 



And list to the nightingale's song ; 

 The plaints still remind me of long-banished joys, 



And the sweets of the days that are gone. 

 Each dew-drop that steals from the dark eye of night r 



Is a tear for the bliss that is flown. 

 Where others cull blossoms, I find but a blight, 



And sigh for the days that are gone/ 

 You are a 



' summer bird, 



Which, even in the lap of winter, sings 

 The lifting up of day/ 



And having taken a proper estimate of your condition, your life is a 



* great essential good, 

 With every blessing understood P 



The chapter on "Literary Old Maids" abounds in trutb and quiet 

 laughter. The author's explanation as to the why and how these 

 misunderstood beings escape the assaults of Cupid is exceedingly 

 graphic, and full of arch and delicate humour. It is excellently 

 conceived. 



" There are, amongst Literary Old Maids, some whom intellectual pur- 

 suits have so far purified from the calls of passion, that they would 

 scorn the intrusion of Cupid, and spoil for ever the beauty of his 



* Imped wings with speckled plumes all dight/ 



by emptying their ink-stand upon him did he so much as dare to whisper 

 in their ear, or draw his 'ebon bow 7 within arm's length of them ; and 

 there are others so fearful of their sex's weakness, that they would, 

 had they a chance, transfix his little majesty with their steel pen, and try 

 whether his immortality was proof against cold iron. 



Others there are too who have levelled the * tiny god ' by a well- 

 aimed blow with a ponderous folio, and others who keep him in check by 

 a continued discharge of chubby duodecimos ; others who guard their 

 chastity by a shield of old calf-skin binding, and others who trust their 

 virgin honor to gilding and morocco leather ; others who constantly 

 flatter the rosy boy, and so prevent him stringing his good bow, or who 

 blind him by sugared compliment, and thus escape his darts ; others who 

 steal their hearts and freeze their blood by cold philosophy ; others who 

 coagulate life's genial current by swallowing doses of political economy, 



