never turns her head in speaking, and a roaring wind, from behind, flies away with every syllable as it is uttered, seems to consider you as provokingly stupid for making her repeat her words twenty times over. 16. (S.) The flaccidity of mind with which you attempt. to flog yourself up into an inclination to work in your garden, for the sake of exercise :~ "Ligonibus duris humum Exhauriebat, ingemens laboribus.” HOR. Tes. Nay, there are worse things about a garden than that, I can tell you: 17. (T.) On paying a visit to your garden in the morning, for the purpose of regaling your eye and nose with the choice ripe fruit with which it had abounded the day before, finding that the whole produce of every tree and bush has been carefully gathered in the night! 18. (S.) The delights of hay-time! as follows:-After having cut down every foot of grass upon your grounds, on the most solemn assurances of the Barometer that there is nothing to fear-after having dragged the whole neighbourhood for every man, woman, and child, that love or money could procure, and thrust a rake, or a pitch-fork, into the hand of every servant in your family, from the housekeeper to the scullion-after having long overlooked and animated their busy labours, and seen the exuberant produce turned and re-turned under a smiling sun, till every blade is as dry as a bone, and as sweet as a rose-after having exultingly counted one rising haycock after another, and drawn to the spot every seizable horse and cart, all now standing in readiness to carry home the vegetable treasure, as fast as it can be piled-at such a golden moment as this, Mr Testy, to see volume upon volume of black, heavy clouds suddenly rising, and advancing, in frowning columns, from the South West; as if the sun had taken half the Zodiac (from Leo to Aquarius) at a leap:-they halt-they muster directly over-head;-at the signal of a thunder-clap, they pour down their contents with a steady perpendicular discharge, and continue the assault, without a moment's pause, till every meadow is completely got under, and the whole scene of action is a swamp. When the enemy has performed his commission by a total defeat of your hopes, when he has completely swept the field, and scattered your whole party in a panic-flight, he suddenly breaks up his forces, and quits the field; leaving you to comfort and amuse yourself, under your loss, by gazing at his Colours, in the shape of a most beautiful rainbow, which he displays in his rear. 19. (T.) In your evening walk-being closely followed, for a quarter of an hour, by a large bull-dog (without his master,) who keeps up a stifled growl, with his muzzle nuzzling about your calf, as if choosing out the fleshiest bite :-no bludgeon. 20. (S.) Losing your way, on foot, at night, in a storm of wind and rain-and this, immediately after leaving a merry fire-side. 21. (S.) While you are laughing, or talking wildly to yourself, in walking, suddenly seeing a person steal close by you, who, you are sure, must have heard it all; then, in an agony of shame, making a wretched attempt to sing, in a voice as like your talk as possible, in hopes of making your hearer think that you had been only singing all the while. Tes. A forlorn hope, indeed!--if I had been your hearer, I should have said, by way of relieving your embarrassment, "Si loqueris, cantas; si cantas, cantas malè.” 22. (S.) In attempting to spring carelessly, with the help of one hand, over a five-barred gate, by way of shewing your activity to a party of ladies behind you (whom you affect not to have observed), blundering on your nose on the other side. Tes. Ha! ha! ha! "viribus ille Confisus, periit, admirandisque lacertis." 23. (S.) Juv. In walking out to dinner, clean and smart, becoming hot with your exercise, the consciousness of which makes you still hotter; so that on arriving, too late to repair yourself, you are obliged to sit down to table with a large party, (each of whom is clean and fresh,) with plastered hair-red, varnished face—and black coat besilvered all over with liquid spangles of powder and pomatum. 24. (T.) Venturing upon a pinch of high-dried Irish, in air-a sudden puff of wind emptying your box into your eyes, the moment you open it. the open 25. (S.) In returning from a long, hot ride, to be over taken on a common, many miles from home, by a torrent of rain, which so completely drenches your heated body, that you are obliged, for the preservation of your life, to stop at some lone, mean, public-house, undress, and get between the blankets, while your clothes are drying: then, after you have lain awake like a fool for a couple of hours, doing nothing, in the busy part of the day, finding, when you have re-dressed yourself, the rain increasing, night coming on, and no messenger to be had, by whom to send word to your anxious friends, that you must remain where you are all night. 26. (T.) On a stubborn horse-coming to a no less stubborn gate, when you have either no hooked-stick, or one with so gentle a curve, that it lets go its hold as soon as it has taken it; so that you must at last resolve to dismount, though you well know that your horse will afterwards keep you dancing D |