In my boyhood I lived much with an old gentleman who called himself my uncle. I never heard, however, that I had either a father or mother who called him brother; and, therefore, I have often suspected our consanguinity was much nearer than he represented. I say I have often suspected such to be the fact; because, whoever might happen to be my parents, they not only kept the secret to themselves, but left me to my uncle as completely as if there were no one else in the world who had a right to look after me, which I am bound, in gratitude, to acknowledge he did, in a way quite unparalleled in the history of all the uncles I have ever read or heard of. Whatever the best of sons could say of the best of fathers, I had the melancholy satisfaction of saying in gilt letters upon black marble, under the organ-loft of church, after the old gentleman's death, as the posthumous tribute of an affectionate nephew.

It was one of his favourite maxims, (and, being a favourite, no one was allowed to question it,) that "we should always think to-day and act to-morrow;" in other words, that we should take second thoughts for our guide, and consider first ones only as our desires, which seldom square with our interests. He would frequently enforce this admonition by sundry pertinent observations, all of them tending to show, that if men did not set about coaxing themselves into good-humour with their first thoughts, (which, for the most part, he said, were nothing but their wishes,) they would not so often have to lament the consequences of their actions; and he generally wound up his advice by exclaiming, "it was second thoughts saved me from Widow Woakes." These words were so constantly on his tongue, that they became, at last, a sort of proverb with the family; insomuch, that whenever any circumstance happened fortunately, which might have fallen out unfortunately, had first intentions been followed, the usual congratulation was, "Thank God, we have escaped Widow Woakes!" My uncle's account of the Woakes affair was this:-

"I had very early subscribed," said he, "to the doctrine of Sir Thomas Brown, (in his Religio Medici,') who says, the whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman; man being the whole world, and the breath of God; woman, the rib, and crooked part of man.' Like him, I was resolved 'never to marry once,' and 'commended their resolutions who never married twice.' Moreover, I was particularly impressed with the truth of what followed these opinions-"

Here the old gentleman would make a sudden pause, and look strange things, as if there were something in the "opinions" he valued so highly, of a very doubtful character. I was not easy, therefore, till I had rummaged over his books, and found a copy of the "Religio Medici;" but I must refer the "curious reader" to p. 154, edition 1645, of that once celebrated work, (whose bold scepticism and whimsical speculations provoked the philosophy of Sir Kenelm Digby and the metaphysics of Alexander Ross into the field of controversy, and called forth the admiration of the learned Guy Patin, though, as he

says elsewhere, "he naturally hated the English, and thought of them with horror,") because it is not the custom, in these days, to write and speak of certain matters so plainly as our unsophisticated ancestors were pleased to do.

"The fact is," he would continue, shaking his head, “I never was a man to make up to the ladies, having always felt in their company like adventurous discoverers by sea and land,-an apprehension of rocks, quicksands, laughing hyenas, and weeping crocodiles. But, forty years ago, when I was at Bath, Mrs. Susannah Woakes made up to me with such determined vigour, that it seemed I must fall into her hands, as birds are said to drop, in spite of themselves, into the expanded jaws of the rattle-snake, fascinated by the glare of its terrific eyes.

"Not that I was fascinated; for, though the widow was tolerably young, that is, not more than three and twenty, and really beautiful, and infinitely sprightly, and as graceful as the Graces themselves, still there was one ugly circumstance-she was a widow! I repeat, therefore, I was not fascinated; but I was uncommonly puzzled what to do with her. She had made such a dead set at me, that, while I was thinking of nothing in the world but how to get away from her, the world itself, or, what is the same thing, the circle of my friends and acquaintance, (which is all that any man means when he talks of the world,) was thinking of nothing but the inevitable certainty of my approaching union with the "charming widow." Nor was this all. The more intimate of my friends, they who thought it became them, as friends, to advise me for my good, were incessantly eloquent to convince me of my happy fortune: so that, what with the constant fire of the Widow herself, and the broadsides of my friends, I was in a fair way of being made to surrender, and laid up for life, as a sheer hulk, in Woakes's dock.

"I have heard of a man hanging himself to stop his wife from going to a ball, after he had vainly tried all gentler modes of persuasion; and I was very near perpetrating a similar act of folly. I all but yielded to my first thoughts, and married the widow, simply because I had derogated so far from my bachelor dignity as to allow the world to consider me a husband elect. My second thoughts, however, saved me.

"It was in the month of August that the widow began her manœuvres, and, towards the middle of October, I perceived things were coming to extremities. There was no possibility of my holding out another week. I could not account for this increased activity in the enemy's movements; but they so crippled my means of defence, that I was every moment in dread of being made prize of. I took advantage of darkness, therefore, set all my sails, and escaped during the night. In plain English, I packed up my trunks, without saying a word to any body, ordered a post-chaise to the door an hour after my usual time of going to bed, and set off for the Lakes. I learned afterwards that the widow, inconsolable for my loss, married, the very next week, Sir Boobykin Gosling, Bart., a descendant of the ancient family of the Goosecaps, whose ancestors came in with the Conqueror, and one of the branches of whose genealogical tree produced the renowned men of Gotham.

"I also learned, that before the honeymoon was in its wane, Sir Boobykin confessed his bride became dearer and dearer to him every day; hundreds of his paternal acres slipping, like himself, into bondage, to liquidate certain widowed debts that were growing as impatient as herself for a husband. In fact, she was so circumstanced, that, had she not gone to church, she must have gone to prison; and, of the two locks, preferring wedlock, she at once determined to take up with Sir Boobykin when she found she could not take in myself. It was neck-or-nothing with her after I had absconded: for it is an ancient practice in this realm, that about the beginning of November, (and it was the 25th of October I set off for the Lakes,) our Sovereign Lord the King is accustomed to keep his court at Westminster, where, laying aside his usual observance of etiquette, he causes to be invited, in his name, persons whom he never thinks of asking either to St. James's or Windsor. About that time too, lawyers, as rapacious as hawks, assemble in Westminster Hall, and make brief work with their long bills of whatever they can catch. The widow had received some six or seven of these invitations; but, either feeling the extreme awkwardness of a female going to such a place alone, or not caring to go at all, yet too well-bred to neglect the thing entirely, she prevailed upon her husband to attend for her. Sir Boobykin, who had never visited the Court at Westminster upon any similar occasion, was greatly surprised at the costly nature of the suits in which it was necessary he should appear; and was heard to grumble something about the d-d expensive habits of Lady Gosling before he had the felicity of marrying her. So I have reason, you see, for saying, that 'second thoughts saved me from Widow Woakes.'"

This important incident in the life of my uncle, which I heard him relate so often, that I could tell it as well as himself before I was fourteen, and the almost daily inculcation of his favourite precept, "think to-day, and act to-morrow," had a decided influence upon my own life. Even as a school-boy, I can recollect how I used to take fourand-twenty hours to consider of it, before I would exchange a cricketbat, or favourite taw, with my companions; and once, in particular, when I was invited to join a boating party, I adhered so systematically to my practice, that, though the excursion was to take place in the afternoon, I would not give my answer till the next day. They laughed at me; but what was the consequence? The next day, three of the laughers were taken home in a hearse to their disconsolate parents. And who knows but four might have been drowned, had I gone with them? The only chance in my favour was, that I had no tender parents to grieve by an untimely death, if my uncle was really my uncle.

I cannot, however, say I have always had equal reason to congratulate myself upon escaping" Widow Woakes." I was engaged, for example, as a principal in a duel, just after I had quitted the University; but if I had stuck to my first thoughts, in all probability I should still be in possession of the first finger of my right hand, which was shot off on the occasion. There was the less excuse for me, because I might have been contented with those reasons for not fighting, which invariably take precedence of those that induce us to fight. I had nature on my side; and, highly as we may think of preceptive

wisdom, nature, rightly understood, is the better authority; especially in cases where one of her first laws is concerned, that of self-preservation. Shakspeare says, "conscience makes cowards of us all;" but I suspect nature makes more cowards than conscience, let phrenology say what it may about its organs of combativeness. Two men, though living on a desert island, may quarrel, and not speak to each other for a twelvemonth, but they will not kill each other. Let there be a third man, and it is ten to one the desire to stand well in his opinion will lead to bloodshed. What has nature to do with this? Just as much as she has with any one of the infinite number of habits and customs which distinguish different states of society, from the Greenlander, who is a very epicure in blubber, to the London Alderman, who is as great an epicure in calipash and calipee. But I am growing too philosophical.

This affair of the duel is worth recording. It happened thus:"That was a very beautiful ostrich plume which Miss Smith wore at the Race Ball last night," said I.

"I thought it the ugliest thing I ever saw," remarked Captain Brown.

"It certainly was not ugly," I replied; " but, of course, there may be different opinions as to its beauty. I, for instance, thought very beautiful."

it

"And I thought it very ugly-d-d ugly!" responded Captain Brown-" as ugly as Miss Smith herself."

"Miss Smith is not exactly handsome, I allow," was my answer; “but a lady may not be handsome, and yet not ugly."

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Every one to his taste," said Captain Brown, with what I considered an insulting air; and then added, "every Jack has his Gill!” "Miss Smith is no Gill of mine," I replied.

"I did not say she was," said Captain Brown, and laughed. "And I am no Jack," I continued, nettled by his laugh.

"I did not say you were," said Captain Brown, fiercely; "but if you want to make a quarrel of it you may. I say again, and I have as much right to say what I say, as you have to say what you say, that Miss Smith's ostrich plume was d-d ugly-as ugly as Miss Smith herself."

"Since you put it thus offensively, Captain Brown," I retorted, "I now maintain there was nothing d-d ugly-no, nor any thing ugly at all, either in Miss Smith's feathers or Miss Smith herself. I'll not be brow-beaten by any man, Captain Brown!"

"Sir! you are insolent!" exclaimed Captain Brown, looking as scarlet as his own jacket.

"Very likely; but I always make it a rule to conduct myself towards persons as they deserve," and I turned upon my heel to quit the room.

Captain Brown followed me to the door.

"You shall hear from me in an hour," said he.

“In half an hour, if you like," said I, and walked away, boiling with indignation.

Before I heard from Captain Brown I was as cool as a cucumber. I saw all the folly of my situation. I had never spoken to Miss Smith in my life. What was it to me, then, whether her ostrich plume was

beautiful or ugly, or she herself handsome or a fright? I resolved to treat the matter with ridicule. It would be preposterous to go out for such a cause. We should be the laughing-stock of all our friends and acquaintance. These were my first thoughts, when my mind was calm enough for thought to take the place of feeling. Besides, I might be shot through the body; and all for what?-a silly dispute about Miss Smith and her feathers! I did not like the idea. I determined I would not make an affair of honour of it. But what would the world say, if Captain Brown posted me as a coward? Or horsewhipped me? Or if I were pointed at as a man who had sneaked out of a duel by a voluntary apology? These were my second thoughts. They carried the day, after a sharp struggle, with my first. I determined I would make an affair of honour of it. I did so. I met Captain Brown the next morning at sunrise, and I sacrificed one of my fingers, besides the risk of sacrificing my life, in defence of Miss Smith's personal charms and the disputed pulchritude of her ostrich plume. My uncle's precept failed. I could not congratulate myself upon having "escaped Widow Woakes" that time.

But it was not always thus. I was one day walking through Finsbury-square. There sat a pale, sick woman, meekly and sorrowfully bending her eyes to the earth, while a child slept in her arms, upon whose thin pallid features were the traces of as much misery as can fall to the lot of sinless infancy. I had been reading that very morning chap. v. b. iii. part 3, of Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy," and all the better feelings of my nature had responded to every argument he employed for enforcing the duty of alms-giving. But I rather think it must have been a grand field-day with the beggars; that they had all turned out upon some special occasion; for I met eleven cripples, four widows with five fatherless children a-piece, three starving industrious mechanics, in clean white aprons, and one blind sailor, who had lost his "precious sight" by lightning, in the Bay of Biscay, between St. Paul's and the Old Jewry. It was this, I suppose, that soured the milk of human kindness within me, and made me pass, with an unpitying heart, the simple, touching appeal of the poor creature I have described, on whose lap lay a written paper with these words only; " Have compassion on us; we are destitute !" She asked no charity, either by word or look; but, with folded arms round her baby, and her head drooping over it, she trusted all to the tale which this little scroll told of her condition. Yet I passed on!

I blush while I write this confession of cold, miserable selfishness, that could, even for a moment, stifle the yearnings of the lowest species of humanity, upon the paltry plea, that perhaps I had (for I did not know I had) given my mite already to the unworthy. It is curious how conscience keeps tugging at a man to hold him back when he is going in a wrong path. Every step I took towards the City Road, leaving that poor silent suppliant behind unrelieved, I felt I was walking under the constantly increasing burden of a selfaccusing spirit-a consciousness that I had left something undone, which it was necessary, for my own comfort, I should return and do. I obeyed my monitor. I returned; and, as if to show me to myself in my true colours, I saw a Greenwich pensioner, with a face as hard