Night-attacks of mosquitoes, &c., that make one regret the old "Knights in armor." Sen. O, yes!-I am quite at home in this misery ;"intus et in cute novi." This little harlequin of the insect race seems, like his brother the biped, to consider his pursuers as foes" quos fallere et effugere est triumphus." 109. Getting out of bed in the morning, after having had far too much sleep. Tes. To which I beg leave to "move as an amendment," —or far too little. 110. After tossing through a restless night, in sickness, sinking at last into a doze, from which you instantly start broad awake, with the joy of thinking that you are falling asleep. 111. At a strange house-jumping into a bed which you expect, and have desired, may be very hard; and instantly finding yourself buried in a valley of pap, between two mountains of feathers; the night a dog night. 112. Scylla, or Charybdis-sleeping in damp sheets, or between the blankets. 113. The hypochondriacal impression, under which you fancy, as you • lie in bed, that your fingers are each as large as a woolsack-legs of the size of church pillars-pillow bigger than the bed of Ware, &c., &c.; and all this affair seeming to grow worse and worse every moment! Tes. A plaguy instance of Virgil's "Majorque videri !" I must own. 114. To be startled from your slumbers, all night long, by your win dows, as they bang and thump, by fits, in the wind; the floors and wainscot of your chamber, too, occasionally stretching and cracking like a ship, &c., &c.; till, at last, if you have any nerves, you go mad. 115. The shrill, tiny buzz, or whizz, of mosquitoes about your eyes, nose, and ears, through a sultry night. Cold weather. Nurses. (Both suggestive of Lap-land.) 116. Finding that you have far, very far-very far indeed-from enough bed-clothes, as you get into bed, in a brandy-freezing night; housemaids all asleep hours ago. 117. Being driven from one corner of the bed to another by the sharp points of feathers, which stand up to receive you, on whichever side you turn. Ned Tes. "Omne tulit punctum !"—HOв. Sen. "Restless he toss'd and tumbled, to and fro, DRYD. WIFE OF BATH. 1 118. Waking with the pain of finding that you are doing your best to bite your own tongue off. 119. The sheet untucked, or too short, so as to bring the legs into close intimacy with the blanket. 120. While you are confined to your bed by sickness-the humors of a hired nurse; who, among other attractions, likes " a drop of comfort"leaves your. door wide open-stamps about the chamber like a horse in a boat-slops you, as you lie, with scalding possets-attacks the fire, instead of courting it-falls asleep the moment before you want her, and then snores you down when you call to her-wakes you at the wrong hour to take your physic, and then gives you a dose of aquafortis for a composing draught! &c., &c., &c. 121. The flame (but not the smell) of your candle going out, as you lie sick and sleepless; leaving you, at once, "Pertæsum thalami, tædæque."-VIRG. 122. Suddenly recollecting, as you lie at a very late hour of a Lapland night, that you have neglected to see, as usual, that the fires are all safe below; then, after an agonizing interval of hesitation, crawling out, like a culprit, and quivering down stairs. After all, the worst thing about a bed is-getting up. Tes. This happened to me last night. O, it was a snug job, to be sure!-as to myself, I had no scruple in determining that it would have been a world pleasanter, in such a night as that, to be burnt, than frozen, to death; but as Madam, there, seemed to think she had a sort of joint interest in the question, and was not altogether satisfied with my way of deciding it; why, I e'en gave myself up to my fate. Sen. These dressing-room and bedchamber miseries make terrible inroads on one's domestic peace and quietness. What would you say, Testy, to a valet a private servant? Tes. "I shall have no further occasion for your services," is what I should probably say to him, (translated into polite language,) at the end of the first day-and-a-half, or shorter time; whenever my patience was exhausted. A “gentleman's gentleman," indeed! I'd as soon think of hiring a private drummer to contribute to my peace and quietness! Ned Tes. Or a private toot-er, to play on the fife for you, and so add to the harmony of your domestic arrangements. Sen. To be sure; we have said almost too much about the servant nuisance already, to allow the idea that an addition to their number could be an alleviation to any misery in the world. Tes. Besides, the nearer they are the more intolerable. As for a body-servant, no one bodily ailment could be compared with it. Ned Tes. Or, as an Englishman might say, it takes two 'ills to make a valet. Sen. Well, what shall we attack next time? Tes. We shall come to some "slough of despond," you may be sure-some ever-open trap-door, to fall through to the realms below. Ned Tes. To pitch into Tar-tar-us. The stamp of ill-breeding. Tes. Some patch of blackness is always to be had without searching for it; and, what's more, lots of people to defend it as a beauty-spot. Ned Tes. We need not scour the earth to find its stains. Tes. No, indeed. We may leave it to chance, and still be at no loss to continue RICHARDSON COX. THE MARTYR LEG-END. Miseries of the body. (Every one nose-the blows it is subject to.) CHAPTER IX. Miseries of the body. (Every one nose-the blows it is subject to.)—Ad udfortudate bad who cad dot prodoudce eb or ed.-If you've studied your nerves, you've taught your-self self-torture.-Amateur doctors-of a mature age too. The game of draughts. Checkers-of perspiration.-Better let the ladies alone or you'll surely lose!-Men's best aims are found to be misses,-women's to be Mrs.—Are man-tillas machines for the cultivation of the race? Harrowing thought!-Happiness destroyed by an evil spell.-Modern sociability. Oh Pride, thou hell-pest to make mankind wretched.—A carriage is like a lottery prize: never drawn when one wants it.-A dis-tressed damsel. The meshes ladies weave are sometimes labor lost.-Part-ies of pleasure well named. The pleasure isn't in the meeting.— Compassionable ugliness. (The consequences of the small pox are to be pitted.)— Motes are not defensible in eye-warfare. Beams can overcome them. 1. A villainous cold in the head-blowing your nose lustily and frequently, till you are a walking nuisance to all around you, but without any fruits, except a sharp twinging sensation in the nostrils, as the passages which you have forced open, close up again with a shrill, thin, whining whistle; not to mention the necessity of disgusting yourself and friends by pronouncing M like B, and N like D, till you are well. Sen. Bad enough; but I have a worse, just now coming upon me: 2. Being on the bri-on the bri-on the brii-on the br-(sneezes)— ink of a sneeze for a quarter of an hour together; and yet, with all your gasping and sobbing, never able to compass it. 3. After over fatigue or watching-those self-invited starts, jerks, or twitches, that fly about the limbs and body, and come on with an indescribable kind of tingling, teazing, guawing restlessness; more especially towards bed-time. |