Imatges de pàgina
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1. That of remaining silent (for which both) parties hate you; each supposing that you secretly favour the other.)

2. That of pronouncing that both are in the wrong (for which you are, obviously, hated

by both.)

3. That of insinuating that both may be in the

right (hated, again, on both sides; each

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being more enraged at your contre, than grateful for your pour.)

4. That of defending the lady, at the expense of the gentleman (still hated by both ;-by her, for attacking her caro sposo, whom she will suffer no one to despise but herself; by him, for siding with the enemy.)

5. That of defending the gentleman at the expense of the lady-(this case is, inversely, the same with the last.)

6. That of endeavouring to make peace by treat

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ing the "matter en badinage" (for which both are far too much in earnest, as well as far too eager for victory, not to hate you most of all.)- The best course, perhaps, if you cannot steal away, is to be

taken with a sudden and violent fit of the toothache, which may last ad libitum.

Tes. Your last misery takes in two parties, and should be divided between us, I thinkone moiety for you as a Bachelor, and the other for me as a Benedict.-Well, but what subject comes next? for I must hurry into the library, to meet a confounded fellow, who.

.......

Sen. Thank you for the hint, Sir; the Library itself shall find us a new subject: let us try whether literary enjoyments ought to rank at all higher than any of the preceding. I must inform you that, during the intervals between my late delightful visits, I have generally fled for refuge to the book, or the pen; and if you have been at all in the practice of depending upon the same supports, and found them as miserably fallacious as I have, we shall have no difficulty in lengthening the list of our Groans, from this source. Tes. None:-I never, yet, took up a book that I did not, in five minutes afterwards,

fling to the other end of the room; nor a pen that I did not split up to the feather against the table, before I had written two lines with it.-Books, and Pens, then, by all means, for our next theme; I defy the good old dame who vented her spite against reading and writing, for having brought her son to the gallows, to bear them more ill will than I do. One great advantage, too, attending this subject, is, that we shall have no occasion, as hitherto, to seek abroad after our troubles. Tomorrow morning, then, I beg we may talk over our studies, together, in my library aforesaid. Sen. Well proposed: you may expect

me.

:—

DIALOGUE THE EIGHTH.

MISERIES OF READING AND WRITING.

Testy, Senior and Junior.-Sensitive. (Testy's house at Highgate.)

Testy. [Throwing the book which he had been reading into the fire, as he sees Sensitive enter.]

GET you gone, and be burnt for your pains! -Here, Sensitive, take a misery warm from the heart, while I am still suffering under it;-I will follow it with a cluster of others, which I have prepared for you.

GROAN 1. (T.)

Reading over a passage in an author, for the hundredth time, without coming an inch nearer

to the meaning of it at the last reading, than at the first;-then, passing over it in despair,-but without being able to enjoy the rest of the book, from the painful consciousness of your own real or supposed stupidity.

2. (T.)

As you are reading drowsily by the fire, letting your book fall into the ashes, so as to lose your place, rumple and grime the leaves, and throw out your papers of reference ;-then, on rousing and recollecting yourself, finding that you do not know a syllable of what you have been reading for the last hour.

3. (T.)

In reading a new and interesting book, being reduced to make a paper-knife of your finger.

4. (T.)

Unfolding a very complicated map in a borrowed book of value, and, notwithstanding all your care, enlarging the small rent you originally made in it, every time you open it.

Sen. Apropos of maps:

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