SIR PETTRONELL FLASH. 31 



hair, is the "glory of the possessor." A punless name* — a 

 liquidly seductive musical name — like a beautiful face, "muta 

 commendatio est," is the sum of good fortune. *'Ah! Lucy, 

 what a pretty name is Clementina," said Miss Byron. f Was 

 ever heroine with a vile monosyllabic name. In the creation of 

 Eve, there existed no artificial scale of sounds, no " harmonious 

 discord," no cacophonic words — name was lost in the music of 

 pure tones, and melody diffused itself, like light, around the world. 

 Once more the little publisher bowed. Sir Pettronell quietly 

 inclined himself into a chair. Kind reader, hast thou ever had 

 the misfortune to be mistaken for a gentleman, when thy 

 solicitations were about to give the lie to thine address, to deceive 

 a rich, low, man into obsequious ceremony, and humiliate him 

 by the condescension, oh then pity the gentle Sir Pettronell, and 

 apply to thy own sensibilities the agitation of his, when even the 

 advantages of poverty were denied him, and the thread-bare coat 

 ominously buttoned close up to the chin, was perfectly unob- 

 servable in the cimerian darkness of this Trophonian cave. Sir 

 Pettronell was a fine, tall, soldier-like man, one *' that would not 

 flatter Neptune for his Trident ;" but there was in that mystical 

 eye, a dove-like beaming, that would have once become a " ladies 

 bower." Once — for Sir Pettronell had seen many winters, and 

 long since must it have been when the " singing birds" awakened 

 his young heart. His nose was well formed, advancing boldly 

 from the forehead, but either naturally or by the habit of snuffing, 

 the alse nasi were expanded a line or so too widely — his mouth 

 rather large and voluptuous — his forehead — and here let me 

 pause — 'twas not the "jutty and impendious brow" of the 

 mathematician, nor the corrugated front of the logician, " one 

 glance was as good as a thousand," broad, clear, and unclouded, 

 " Frons ubi vivit honor" — poor he might be, but like Sir Lucius, 

 " he was too poor to do a mean action." 



No one would have called Sir Pettronell old, though the white 

 hairs could hardly be numbered. Sir Pettronell would have 

 called himself young — his small white hand played with the said 

 eye-glass, which seemed, judging by the vividness of his eyes, to 

 have been merely an outlet for physical irritability, like Cole- 

 ridge's frill, which he twisted and screwed as the " winged words," 

 verba alata, escaped from his vibrating lip — the hands instantly 

 sympathise with the tongue ; there is a mototary sympathy. Sir 

 Charles Bell has forgotten the chief glory of the hand ; the 

 mechanism is curious, but it is the moral expression of the hand 

 which is the theme of its praise, the spirit of motion, which gives 

 grandeur and sublimity to the eloquence of a Demosthenes, which, 

 as an electrical rod, touches the inmost soul and awakens the 

 echoes of its passions. 



* SheDston solemnly thanked God that his name was not liable to a pun.— See 

 " Curiosities of Literature." 

 f Sir Charles Grandison. 



