1831.3 The Steam-Boat ; a Paper of my Ujicle's. 279 



every jest, and a glass of wine to each. Repetition had conferred on 

 him peculiar volubility, and I know few of his acquaintances who can- 

 not relate, in word and gesture, the greater portion of his superlative 

 extravaganzas. 



The rare endowment of so much memory, such complying aptitude, 

 and indefatigable loquacity, had fairly conferred on IVIr. Guy Botherby, 

 the well-known distinction of a man of " infinite anecdote, and a fund of 

 inexhaustible amusement." Few will be surprised that such a " host 

 within himself," should be selected by a numerous and vulgar party, 

 wliich delighted in the attentions of a gentleman of notoriety, as the lion 

 of their party, at the least — if not, of the extensive crew. 



The pretensions of JMr. Botherby were, however, somewhat lowered, 

 or, at all events, approached, by the appearance of an Irish major, who 

 rejoiced in the indicative denomination of O'Gorraan ; a name of most 

 inflammable and deadly import ; for the major, in the sportive recrea- 

 tions of his youth, had killed a man or two, and triumphed in the 

 reputation of a fire-eater. This was an imposing circumstance. An 

 unlimited acquaintance with all peers, from the dukes of Horam, Edom, 

 and the IMidianites, dowTi to the last creations of the Ca9ique of Poyais, 

 invested the gallant officer with a reverend importance j to which the 

 vulgar, with all their affectation of contempt, attach the meanest, most 

 absurd, and most infatuated homage. This distinguished intimate of all 

 the greatness of our sphere, had leai-ned the coifee-house decorum of 

 calling peers by an abbreviated designation, to mark the freedom which 

 existed between him and his superb acquaintance ; though he usually 

 appended, lest his own importance should be underrated, the titular 

 distinction of his friends ; something on the system of an alphabetical 

 list, in which you find the name preceding, and the style and title 

 afterwards, Tlie splash of so much unexpected grandeur was a honne 

 fortune, that none but tnft-hiinters can adequately estimate. With all 

 these sovereign claims to supercilious impudence the gallant officer 

 possessed the wit and gaiety peculiar to his country — all its gallantry 

 and personable quality — together with a brogue, on which a joke pre- 

 vailed among the major's friends, that it was so pre-eminently influential 

 as to benefit the growth of a potatoe-bed by its vernacular euphony. 



Miss Biddlecombe was violently smitten with the gallant officer's 

 unbounded intimacy with the great ; and she, in general, herself dis- 

 played the ensign of her consequence, by mentioning her pa's acquaint- 

 ance with certain hopeful honours of the peerage, who frequent the 

 table of some plebeian Croesus, whom they flatter to his face, and 

 ridicule among their noble friends. The daughter of such opulence (for 

 that is the connection after all,) does wonders with impatient ti'adesmen. 

 The ruiTiour of a match between a lord, and some devoted heiress whom 

 he most professedly contemns, enables him to carry on his course of 

 profligate imposture — for a host of creditors are fed with trumped-up 

 probabilities of fortune, should patrician pride descend to an alliance, in 

 which the glorious blood of the nobility is to be bartered for the wealth 

 of despicable honesty and frugal toil. 



Nor were these irreverent notions of mendicant aristocrats witliheld 

 from the reflections of Miss Biddlecombe herself. The zeal of private 

 friendship, which is always so disinterested between the wealthy patron 

 and the ])oor dependent, had placed incessantly before tlie affluent 

 young lady's eyes the hoiTor of so sad a marriage. And every argu- 



