146 Dick Denlap. [Frs. 
2 furlong towards any point of the compass, without having my mental 
swallow choked withmy own substance. Confound them! I wish they were 
obliged to swallow their own jokes, and found them as hard of diges- 
tionas I do. Not that I care a button about it (making at the moment 
a desperate but fruitless effort to fasten the two lower ligatures of his 
surtout); the women don’t object to me as I am, and men are too 
envious to express their real sentiments. Don’t you observe,” added he, 
“ that women as seldom think a man too fat, as men do awoman? The 
most intolerant critics on this point are sure to be of the sex of the cor- 
pulent beauty, male or female, though such critics have no right toa 
vote in the matter ; while the opposite gender (whom alone it concerns) 
will no more object ‘to an extra stone or two of loveliness, than they 
would to the liberality of the goldsmith, who should sell them plate at 
avoirdupois weight, instead of paltry troy. However, let men say 
what they will, I’ve this solid consolation, that three of the cleverest 
fellows of our time, have also been three of the plumpest—Charles 
Fox, Byron, and Napoleon—there was a podgy triumvirate! I fancy 
they'll go floating down the stream of time, with their heads buoyant, 
as long as it is natural for a fat man to swim better than a lean one! 
Besides, what does Hamlet’s mother say of him?—‘ My son is fat, and 
scant of breath.’ Shakspeare, who knew every thing, knew perfectly 
well that a fine tender-hearted philosopher, like Hamlet, could not be 
otherwise. I have often thought of playing Hamlet myself: depend 
upon it, that character can never be done to perfection by any man under 
fifteen stone—a performer of at least that weight, who had also the other 
requisites, would make the indolence, philosophy, good nature, and 
irritability of Ophelia’s ‘glass of fashion and mould of form’ (an inte- 
resting creature that Ophelia!) all appear quite natural separately, and 
perfectly harmonious in combination.” 
Finding that Dick had talked himself into good humour, I took the 
‘opportunity of telling him they were ladies whom I was going to meet 
—the two Misses Lightfoot and their mamma—whose amiable manners, 
I flattered myself, he would find nicely conformable to his ideas of 
female taste and politeness. Dick brightened up at this intelligence, 
and immediately inquired, with an air of interest (having, I believe, for 
some time cherished the notion of getting himself well off his hands), 
« whether the mother was a widow, and what might be her age?” I 
informed him she was the relict of the late Commissioner Lightfoot, well 
dowered, and extremely genteel. ‘The young ladies,” added I, “ are 
respectively seventeen and nineteen” (Dick shrugged his shoulders) ; 
“« they have learned—at least professors have been paid for teaching 
them—as many languages, arts, and sciences, as, to have known tho- 
roughly, would have made a man illustrious half a century ago; but 
‘such is the fashion of the day ; and my aunt Lightfoot does not choose 
that her daughters should be left behind in this forced march of intel-— 
lect, whatever valuable time they may have thrown away in order to— 
make a show of keeping up with it. , 
« A short time since (continued I) the damsels seemed likely to be 
sighing, like female Alexanders, for fresh realms of knowledge to sub-— 
due ; but the introduction of calisthenics has, I should think, happily 
furnished them with employment for the rest of their lives, if they 
actually mean to make themselves mistresses of all the postures pre- 
ecribed in the book from which they study. You are a humane man, 
