496 The Perils of Penmanship. [|Nov< 



cradle. But, alas ! I cannot get over even this first stage with so con- 

 solatory a reflection ; for boys can and do write, at an age when I was 

 still labouring at the acquirement, or, rather, the non-acquirement, of 

 the penraanlike employment of " these pickers and stealers." My mis- 

 fortunes, consequently, began early. My exercises were always incor- 

 rect — not per se, but laecause the master therein read any thing but that 

 which was actually written down : — my letters home never said what I 

 intended to say : — many treats were prepared for me, a week before I 

 was able to partake of them : — I received a brilliant new pair of skaits, 

 "at my own particular request," as it was said on Midsummer day; 

 and a severe reprimand for my gormandizing propensity, in asking for 

 " peaches in ]VIai-ch," when, as Heaven is my Avitness, what I wrote was, 

 that my " teaching was on the march." 



Things grew worse as I grew older. I was suspected of numberless 

 " white lies," for observations which really deserved the " albo lapide 

 notata" of Ovid for their truth ; nay, I was even suspected of pro- 

 founder falsehoods, at the very time that I was priding myself on my 

 immaculate veracity. I received the character of being addicted to the 

 vulgar propensity of inflicting hoaxes on my friends, while in reality I 

 never was guilty of a mystification during the whole course of my life. 

 Once I put a whole family — father, mother, three sons, five daughters, 

 and two maiden aunts, into deep mourning, by what I intended to be a 

 most joyous announcement of a wedding : nor was this the worst part of 

 the business ; they went to a race-ball in crape, and met the defunct as 

 a bride, bedecked with white satin, and the rosiest of smiles ; the conse- 

 quence of which was, that one of the five daughters, a dark beauty, and 

 my especial favourite, never forgave me for having thus interrupted a 

 prosperous flirtation, up to that time existing between her and a marry- 

 ing baronet ; he danced the whole evening w ith a girl dressed in conleur 

 fie rose — a blushing evidence that the odious black was the cause of his 

 defalcation. 



This w^as but one out of many disasters. A grandmother, through 

 my ingenious hieroglyphics, received intimation that her grandson 

 intended to cut her, because he had heard that she was going to marry 

 again. An octogenarian uncle vituperated me for asking for a legacy, 

 when the outside of my demand was, to be allowed to pay my respects. 

 A maiden aunt was fui-ious, on my congratulating her on the birth of 

 tAvins, overlooking a whole line about her pretty lap-dog, Flora, which 

 I had flattered myself I had made particularly legible ; and my father, 

 in a fit of the gout, hurried up to town, on reading tliat his house was 

 burned down, when all that I had done was, to tell him a comical story 

 about an old prude, who had fainted away because the cat spit at her, 

 and who could not be recovered till burnt feathers had been put under 

 her nose. But, in all these instances, the most cruel part of the affair 

 was, that the wliole of the blame was thrust upon me, as poor INIalvolio 

 had his greatness thrust upon him ; when, if my correspondents Avould 

 but have dealt candidly, thej^ ought at least to have consented to share 

 the blunder, owing to their want of skill in decyphering what I am sure 

 / was able to read pleasantly enough. At first I used to be very eager 

 to establish their mistakes, to decypher the letters myself, and to prove 

 by the written word that I was innocent ; but I never got any thing by 

 it, but a renewal of grumbling, and an insinuation that I possessed the 

 disreputable art of making black look white. 



So much for my youthful days ; but matters got worse as I advanced 



