622 My Nerv Lodgings. JuNE, 



eyes, had, with the co-operation of a buxom wife, augmented the popu- 

 lation of the country by seven male and female " innocents," who, I 

 verily believe, had escaped small-pox, measles, chin-cough, and all the 

 other maladies of infancy, for the sole purpose of murdering my repose, 

 and defrauding society of the fruits of my studies and lucubrations. 

 Seven devils incarnate could not have plagued me more efficiently. Their 

 fond parents called them " their little angels ;" and such certainly they 

 were, according to the literal acceptation of that passage in the Liturgy 

 ; ft cherubim and seraphim continually do cry ;" for a perpetual concert 

 it truly was of mewling, piping, sobbing, bawling, and all the melodies 

 of the nursery, with more variations than Beethoven and Rossini between 

 them ever composed. They managed never to be all asleep at the same 

 time ; two or three were always on duty ; and most effectively did the 

 pretty little ones perform it. In the course of a short month, the literary 

 world sustained damage, in consequence of the life I led at the tailor's, 

 to the amount of ten sonnets, fifteen epigrams, seven serious, six comic, 

 and five serio-comic prose essays, with three political articles, some of 

 which I never trusted out of my desk ; while those which were " cast 

 upon the waters" returned invariably to their author, after having ob- 

 tained for themselves and him such flattering notices as the following : 



" ' Fortunatus' is not fortunate enough to please us." " The writer 

 who subscribes himself * * *, is not sufficiently starry for our pages." 

 " The author of the paper against Taxes upon Knowledge is unreason- 

 able ; it will be some time before the collector calls upon him" 



That I was indebted for these editorial urbanities to the tailor's pro- 

 geny, I am prepared to verify by affidavit; nay, I could actually appor- 

 tion to each of the " little dears" the share he or she had in occasioning 

 my disasters. All the time I was composing the verses signed " For- 

 tunatus," one of the young gentlemen was blowing a penny trumpet, 

 and his charming sister trying a new skipping-rope, in the room imme- 

 diately over mine. I only wonder the verses were not attributed to Mr. 



R. M y. Another pair was struggling and screaming under the 



operation of the comb and towel, just at the precise moment the unfor- 

 tunate article with the three stars was on the anvil : it was an ill-starred 

 production as a matter of course. The failure of my political specula- 

 tions is to be divided equally amongst the remaining trio, whose never- 

 ceasing contests about the property of an unlucky kitten led to the 

 cat-astrophe of my " Taxes upon Knowledge." In fact, the only compo- 

 sition of any merit that came from my pen during this unhappy period, 

 was an Essay on Infanticide, in which I think I have rested the defence 

 of that practice upon grounds that it will not be easy to impugn. But 

 the time is not yet come for promulgating so bold a doctrine to the 

 world. 



There is nothing I hate so much as the trouble of changing my domi- 

 cile ; but the dread of having my swan again mistaken for a goose, pre- 

 vailed over my inhabitive propensity ; so, having given the man of the 

 shears due notice, I struck my camp in the midst of a full chorus, which 

 the infant Stentors seemed to have set up on purpose for the occasion I 

 suppose to send me on my way rejoicing ; and a few hours saw me regu- 

 larly installed in My Nerv Lodgings, where I had previously assured 

 myself, by the most rigorous investigation, that there was not a child, 

 either in esse, or in posse, upon the premises my landlady being a 

 maidenly dame of threescore and ten years, and no other lodger in the 



