48 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



possible, nay, it is extremely probable, that it will rest 

 upon these pans with a very mitigated admiration. 

 Even I will confess they are not strictly ornamental. 

 Without having read " Price on the Picturesque/' one 

 may be startled, on walking up an elegant garden to 

 an elegant villa, if the eye falls upon yellow pie-dishes 

 and white foot-pans symmetrically insolent under a 

 verandah. As to Gillow of Oxford Street, be sure he 

 would feel his hair turning grey at such a sight. And 

 I know many persons of irreproachable drawing-rooms, 

 liberal in opinions, affable in demeanour, and glad to 

 own me among their visiting acquaintances, who would 

 cut me at once after seeing the proprieties thus out- 

 raged. But look inside my pans and pie-dishes, and 

 if you are not pleased with the beauty of those exqui- 

 site animals, and those charming weeds, I set you 

 down as one who judges of books by their binding, 

 not by their contents. Observe, I do not take my 

 stand on these pie-dishes. I should greatly prefer a 

 tank, either of glass or stone ; but one can't imj)rovise 

 a tank at sea-side lodgings, whereas pie-dishes ai^e 

 attainable. 



From the glimpse just given of my before-breakfast 

 occupation, you begin to suspect something of what 

 was meant by the intermediate episodes between the 

 capture and the scalpel ; you see that the mere keep- 

 ins: and watching; of these animals will be a source of 

 pleasures unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. One 

 gets interested in anything which solicits attention, 

 and in proportion to the solicitation ; hence our fond- 



