THE BYRONS. 93 



with the merry-thought of a chicken and a glass of brown sherry, 

 or better still, a potatoe sliced thin and accompanied with vinegar. 

 Be curious in your cigar, and, if possible, smoke the genuine 

 Latakea through a hookah of amber, partially immersed in a bowl 

 of rose-water, which you may order from Delcroix. Sherbet must 

 with this be your beverage. Speak but seldom, sigh frequently, 

 profoundly, and often abruptly, contradict moodily, smile sarcas- 

 tically as often as occasion may serve, and at distant intervals you 

 may even try your hand at a swoon. N. B. Let it be known that 

 you keep a journal 3 and drop mysterious " snatches of poesy" 

 from your pocket. 



A rigid attention to these particulars will, with certain coteries, 

 very speedily estabhsh you in the enviable character of " a young 

 man of extraordinary genius" in the enjoyment of undisputed 

 wretchedness. Of course you can easily recompense yourself in 

 solitude for the privations enforced in society. Do as your neigh- 

 bours do, throw down the mask when at home, but, reversing the 

 consequence, be amiable where they are otherwise j eat, drink, sing, 

 laugh and be merry when nobody is by to whisper the appalling 

 reality to the world. But in doing this take heed that you do not 

 unwittingly contract a sleek and comely rotundity, suspiciously 

 paradoxical when coupled with your despair and abstinence. A 

 mulberry nose, an unhappy degree of corpulence, and " tout est 

 perdu r Grief has been known to assume a hundred appearances ; 

 but it is an admitted opinion that it never yet put on the guise of 

 a Bardolph or Falstaff. The moment, therefore, that you begin to 

 degenerate into the em-bon-po'mt, you may set it down as a positive 

 result that nine tenths of the boarding-school belles, who before 

 commiserated your " broken heart," will waver in their faith, 

 and as the evil increases, discard you as counterfeit entirely, and 

 unworthy of sympathy. Some chance might offer in your promul- 

 gating a report that sorrow had at length swollen you into ana- 

 sarca, but it may be questioned whether the remedy would not be 

 worse than the ill : few ladies, I fear, would look upon a dropsical 

 hero in a point of view either complimentary or engaging. The 

 idea is, however, thrown out as a plank to a drowning man. 

 Vinegar and Castile soap must be your refuge, if you persist in 

 maintaining the Byron degree, but perhaps a graceful slide into 

 the Anacreon Moore, or (though still further removed) into the 

 Burns, would be an agreeable exchange, and present no barrier to 

 any future gastronomic indulgence. 



NO. II. 



