PORTRAIT -GALLERY OF OLD BACHELORS. 



BY THE AUTHOR OF < OLD MAIDS.' 



No. III. THE GOUTY OLD BACHELOR. 



" Disease ! thou ever most propitious power, 

 Whose kind indulgences we taste each hour, 

 Thou well canst boast thy numerous pedigree, 

 Begot by sloth, maintained by luxury." 



GARTH. 



ONE of the penances to which celibacy is peculiarly subject is 

 that earthly purgatory denominated gout. If a married man, with 

 his limbs and senses perfect, will visit a gouty old Bachelor, he will 

 thank Heaven for having given him a wife, and thus saved him from 

 such an unpleasant congregation of humours. Whatever pathu- 

 logists or physiologists may say on the matter, gout is a disease 

 arising, in the first instance, from simple repletion ; and who so 

 likely therefore to have it as a self-indulgent Bachelor? Ay, it is 

 really a pleasure to an unlucky husband, to witness the tortures of a 

 man whose life he has envied for the last dozen years. The comparison 

 truly told against him. Here was his friend plump as a partridge 

 with ruddy cheeks, laughing eyes, and free as the wind. He could 

 play his pranks, and nobody say him nay while the longing hus- 

 band, lank as a starved otter, was kept in tight surveillance. Was 

 he overcome with wine " Beast sot filthy creature !" were his 

 welcome ; then to be tumbled into bed, and condemned the following 

 morning to listen to a curtain-lecture, whilst his head felt ready to 

 burst, and his throat was so parched, that the very water he swal- 

 lowed to quench his thirst went bubbling down his oesophagus, like 

 the singing of a tea-kettle ; and, worse and worse, forced to be civil 

 and loving, though, in his heart, he is wishing his monitress in the 

 Red Sea. Did he venture to stretch a point, and remain out all 

 night "death and fury I where has he been? what has he been 

 doing?" No explanation is sufficient a new gown, or a fit of 

 lovingness is the least atonement : is he detected smiling at a 

 pretty girl, however innocently, suspicion is immediately roused, and 

 all the vengeance of a slighted woman, fierce as ten thousand tigers, 

 is let loose upon his unhappy head ; and he leads a dog's life till the 

 nonsense is evaporated, knowing well that if he strives to coax her 

 into good-humour, he must submit to such a train of inquiries as 

 would weary and perplex Job ; he sits down therefore like 



" Patience on a monument, smiling at grief," 



and inwardly sighs when he reflects on friend Bachelor, who lives 

 cureless alike of every thing but his own momentary whim. But 

 no\v the tables are turned to some purpose. Here is our Benedict. 



