]83].3 The Perils <}f Penmanship. 497 



towards manhood. A college friend of mine wrote a volume of poems : 

 in my burst of enthusiastic admiration of his talents, I addressed him as 

 follows:— " Dear Charles, your volume has afforded me no despicable 

 pleasure. It would be insulting to compare it to the trash of the day, 

 whose only mei'it consists in making us feel the more grateful for your 

 valuable or, may I say, value-less, effusions, by their contrast with such 

 ineffable nonsense." — By return of post 1 received the following 

 answer : — " Dear Jack, I lose not a moment in assuring you, that your 

 opinion of ray poor poems shall in no way militate against our friend- 

 ship. Be assured, I am very far from imagining that j^ou insult me, 

 though it seems I do you, by offering you a volume which you find 

 despicable from its ineffable nonsense." — Charles was never cordial with 

 me after this, and at last di'opped my acquaintance entirely, on my en- 

 treating him to permit me to point out his mistake: " that's rather too 

 much," said he ; "I won't stand upon my writing — but d — n it, I can 

 read !" 



The next dilemma to which my hieroglyphics reduced me, was to 

 lose a girl — and such a girl ! — to whose mother I wrote, offering 

 hand — heart — life — fortune — adoration — all I had to give — in her 

 daughter's behalf. The respectable matron replied, by forbidding me 

 her house, and ordering her daughter to cut me. As I am not a detri- 

 me?ital, this proceeding surprised me. Soon after, the fair one married, 

 and we became better acquainted, when I learned that ray offer of 

 marriage to her own sweet self, had been interpreted by her raother into 

 an insolent attack upon her own immaculate and five-and-forty-year-old 

 virtue. 



On the instant I made a vow. I swore that I might write invitations 

 and circulars, but I would print all my more tender communications, 

 and that my next proposal should be obvious, to a very tyro, in the 

 alphabet. ]\Iy oath was registered — my printing-press was ordered — 

 and a first-rate compositor engaged, to give rae a two-hours' lesson'in 

 the noble art of printing every morning. But the types, and the press, 

 and the rest of the apparatus. Could not be got ready in less than a week, 

 so that, for that interval at least, it was necessaiy to find some occupation 

 to divert my chagrin. What was it to be .?— ^-Well bethought ! — There 

 could be no mistake upon this subject for an epistle ; so I sat down to 



indite a short note to ahem ! — a very amiable young lady 



— short, decidedly short — somewhat stubby, too, like a dwarf oak — 

 and tliough I now think her unquestionably pretty, at that time I had 

 not made the discovery. I wrote simply to ask her whether she thought 

 her father would permit me to shoot on his preserves, during a three 

 days' visit that I was going to make in his neighbourhood. I received, 

 in reply, a hurried, quicksilver billet, from the young lady ; — there 

 seemed mischief in it, the moment I took it in my hand ; — I could 

 almost imagine it made of the Chinese sensitive leaf — it actually ap- 

 peared to vibrate as I broke the seal. Well matched, thouglit I, as I 

 glanced at the contents ; for the only words I could decyjjher, down a 

 long page of round-about, zig-zag, up-and-down, indescribable pen-marks, 

 were " love" and " happiness." Well matched, indeed ; for this two- 

 worded epistle was accompanied by a most legible one from lier fjither, ac- 

 cepting my [iroposal " for his daughter's hand with l)()th i)ride and plea- 

 sure." Tlie ol<l fellow seemed at once so delighted and so flattered, and 

 '*■' love" and " happiness" were such a ])retty present from a lady to a gentle 



M. M. New i'tru'.v.— Vol.. Xll. No. 71. 2 S 



