1831.] "Ml/ Wife!" 163 



wish to dream of me, you'll take this — unless you expect to find For- 

 tunatus's." 



I reasoned and romanced — smiled, scolded, and humoured : but I 

 persisted in adhering to my principles, and rejected the nightcap in dis- 

 dain. At last the point was given up ; my wife threw her arms round 

 me, and assured me that her anxiety was only for my good — I repeated 

 the usual affectionate phrases in such cases made and provided — and we 

 separated with a world of protestation on my part, and a universe of 

 advice upon hers. 



When I arrived at my place of appointment I found a pleasant party. 

 Everybody was in high spirits. The ladies listened to our compliments 

 as if they had never heard them before, and we all laughed at each 

 other's jokes as if we had never told them ourselves. We sat down to 

 dinner. 



Among the company was one of that class of females who may be 

 designated languishing ladies. She was young, handsome, possessed 

 extreme sensibility, an ardent fancy, and refined nerves. A whisper 

 affected her like an earthquake, and a hint threw her into hysterics. It 

 was necessary, in addressing her, to speak with profound caution, in case 

 of giving alarm to her sensibilities, or treading upon a spring-gun. It 

 was impossible to keep out of danger, unless every sentence had been a 

 safety-lamp. I felt, in offering a compliment, as if I were presenting a 

 spark to a barrel of gunpowder ; and was obliged to extinguish its mean- 

 ing before it was fit for use. 



We were seated in a circle of elegant enjoyment, not dreaming of 

 disaster, when the genius of this sensitive plant — she wrote poetry, just 

 by way of escaping the imputation of singularity — was served up as a 

 subject for discussion. Unlucky theme for me ! I Avas sitting opposite 

 to her, and was appealed to, in a manner that rendered it impossible to 

 escape, for my opinion upon the merits of an unpublished poem, which 

 she had a little time before sent me to read, and which I had returned, 

 (having read three lines of the three thousand,) with the usual flourish 

 about an " admiring world," and " Mr. Murray's good-fortune" in ob- 

 taining so extraordinary a production. Of course, nothing is so ea.sy 

 as to give an opinion — jnme was, that the poem could not fail of becom- 

 ing a dangerous rival to the " statue that enchants the world," and that 

 it was, in short, nothing less than a miracle in manuscript. I hate 

 your bit-and-bit eulogists, and like to do the thing handsomely when I 

 do begin. This was all very satisfactory ; but when I was asked to de- 

 scribe the poem — the stanza, the scene, the subject — I was puzzled. All 

 I knew was, that it was written with a light hand and a new pen, and 

 stitched in a pink wrapper. But to describe it ! — I was confident, of 

 course, that the heroine died broken-hearted, because that's a rule with- 

 out a single modern exception — but that was not enough. My hesitation 

 already, I perceived, began to affect the aspen nerves of the fair author. 

 She was beginning to suspect — while those who had barbarously driven 

 me into the dilemma, were beginning to titter. Something must be 

 done — and so I determined upon venturing on the last resource in these 

 cases, and on trusting to candour to help me out. I confessed that I 

 could not satisfactorily describe the poem, as I had not been able to 

 read it quite through. At about the two hundred and fifty-third page 

 an accident, which I could not particularly describe, had prevented my 

 reading farther, and I had never after been able to complete it. The 

 nature of this mysterious accident, was then inexorably demanded, by 



