134 My Christmas Dinner ! [FEB. 



Christmas. As I approached, a porter brought a large hamper to the 

 door. " A present from the country," thought I ; " yes, they do dine 

 at home ; they must ask me ; they know that I am in town." Imme- 

 diately afterwards a servant issued with a letter : he took the nearest 

 way to my lodgings, and I hurried back by another street to receive the 

 so-much- wished-for invitation. I was in a state of delirious delight. 



I arrived but there was no letter. I sate down to wait, in a spirit of 

 calmer enjoyment than I had experienced for some days ; and in less 

 than half an hour a note was brought to me. At length the desired 

 dispatch had come : it seemed written on the leaf of a lily, with a pen 

 dipped in dew. I opened it,- and had nearly fainted with disappoint- 

 ment. It was from a stock-broker, who begins an anecdote of. Mr. 

 Rothschild before dinner, and finishes it with the fourth bottle and who 

 makes his eight children stay up to supper and snap-dragon. In Maca- 

 damizing a stray stone in one of his periodical puddings, I once lost a 

 tooth, and with it an heiress of some reputation. I wrote a most irritable 

 apology, and dispatched my warmest regards in a whirlwind. 



December the twenty-fourth. I began to count the hours, and uttered 

 many poetical things about the wings of Time. Alack ! no letter came ; 

 yes, I received a note from a distinguished dramatist, requesting the 

 honour, &c. But I was too cunning for this, and practised wisdom for 

 once. I happened to reflect that his pantomime was to make its appear- 

 ance on the night after, and that his object was to perpetrate the whole 

 programme upon me. Regret that I could not have the pleasure of 

 meeting Mr. Paulo, and the rest of the literati to be then and there 

 assembled, was of course immediately expressed. 



My mind became restless and agitated. I felt, amidst all these invi- 

 tations, cruelly neglected. They served, indeed, but to increase my 

 uneasiness, as they opened prospects of happiness in which I could take 

 no share. They discovered a most tempting dessert, composed of for- 

 bidden fruit. I took down "Childe Harold," and read myself into a 

 sublime contempt of mankind. I began to perceive that merriment is 

 only malice in disguise, and that the chief cardinal virtue is misan- 

 thropy. 



I sate " nursing my wrath" till it scorched me ; when the arrival of 

 another epistle suddenly charmed me from this state of delicious melan- 

 choly and delightful endurance of wrong. I sickened as I surveyed, 



and trembled as I opened it. It was dated from , but no matter ; 



it was not the letter. In such a frenzy as mine, raging to behold the 

 object of my adoration condescend, not to eat a custard, but to render it 

 invisible to be invited perhaps to a tart fabricated by her own ethereal 

 fingers ; with such possibilities before me, how could I think of joining 

 a " friendly party" where I should inevitably sit next to a deaf lady, 

 who had been, when a little girl, patted on the head by Wilkes, or my 

 Lord North, she could not recollect which had taken tea with the 

 author of " Junius," but had forgotten his name and who once asked 

 me " whether Mr. Munden's monument was in Westminster Abbey or 

 St. Pauls ?" I seized a pen, and presented my compliments. I hesi- 

 tated for the peril and precariousness of my situation flashed on my 

 mind ; but hope had still left me a straw to catch at, and I at length 

 succeeded in resisting this late and terrible temptation. 



After the first burst of excitement I sunk into still deeper despon- 

 dency. My spirit became a prey to anxiety and remorse. I could not 

 eat ; dinner was removed with unlifted covers. I went out. The world 

 seemed to have acquired a new face ; nothing was to be seen but raisins 



