1830.J The Ugly Man. 253 



the sentimental and the impassioned ; all sects and parties, from the 

 grave dowager to the graceful damsel. Mind, I am not hired like a 

 genius or a juggler, who is expected to amuse in proportion to the 

 honours that are paid him. I am not employed either to attract visitors 

 or to frighten them away. My face is not my fortune. And yet I am 

 hunted as a curiosity, and carried about like a new poet or a new shawl, 

 and shewn to every body. But for what ? I do not write songs nor 

 have I made any useless discovery in science. Of art, I am too ignorant 

 even to talk fashionably upon it ; nor am I sufficiently acquainted with 

 the names of the old masters to pretend to admire them. " To be able 

 to dance well," says some great author, " requires a good understand- 

 ing;" it also requires legs which the articles that assist me in walking 

 cannot with correctness be called. Of music I know little : I used to 

 play on the flute j but a superstitious lady having been thrown into 

 hysterics by the expression of my face during the performance, I have 

 since thought proper to desist. As for my singing it would only 

 remind you of a frog imitating a blackbird, or affecting to hum " I'd be 

 a butterfly !" There is some secret, then, by which ugliness may be 

 made fascinating, and the absence of every accomplishment eminently 

 profitable ? There is and I shall at once give this secret to the world, 

 for the benefit of the ordinary and the uninvited. It consists simply in 

 this singular fact that I never in my life happened to read any one of 

 the Scotch novels ! This forms my character j I am known as " the 

 gentleman who never read ( Waverley' !" I live upon the nil admirari 

 I flourish upon nothing. I do not know " Salathiel" from " Pelham," 

 and my popularity is consequently prodigious. I am the first person 

 singular the curiosity of the hour. Every body is contending who shall 

 get me into a corner to describe to me Amy Robsart or Mac Ivor. I am 

 like the New World all are anxious to cultivate me. My ignorance is 

 universally coveted to know is to be nothing. People are dying for 

 the delight that awaits me on the first reading. How I am envied ! All 

 leave me with an impression that I am exceedingly well informed, 

 because they have communicated to me every thing that they happen to 

 know up to that period. I am locked into boudoirs and private rooms. 

 Consultations are held as to which novel I am to read first, and at what part 

 I am to begin to be enchanted. At one visit they unfold to me the entire 

 plot ; at another, they are all impatience to know how far I have read, 

 and what my sensations were when I came to a particular chapter ; at 

 the third, they meet me on the stairs, to ask if I had the least idea of its 

 being so interesting, and whether I am not perfectly enraptured. 



Amidst these flattering successes, I am of course exposed to some 

 annoyances. There are those that take a pride to gird at me as men 

 did at Falstaff. But my triumph is no less complete I have captivated 

 the loveliest of her sex. She writes romances, and I have promised to 

 read none but hers. I am to furnish her with perpetual ideas for her 

 corsairs and bandits : she will never want a demon while I live. But 

 having accomplished my first object, by introducing myself at full length 

 to the reader, I will proceed to my story. 



My hopes of happiness just alluded to had not yet received a confir- 

 mation. I was in hourly expectation of a decision, and flattered myself 

 except when I happened to be standing near a mirror that it would be 

 favourable. My anxiety increased to the highest pitch, when I was 

 informed that my fate would be decided as soon as the sentiments of a 



