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between the two. "It was very odd" -no two natures could be more dissimilar—but, in making a salad, we incorporate oil and vinegar together, by the addition of mustard, and so-but, after all, "it's very odd !”

"A dog that brings a bone to you will steal one from you," said we, as a young mongrel whelp (for our reverend is no sportsman) thrust himself to the hearth rug. "Well, I declare!" ejaculated it in the bonnet and rustling silk, "I thought how it would be. I saw the dear creature watching at Syms the butcher's door, and I met that Sally, Mrs. Jones's maid, whom they call 'pretty,' pshaw! and I looked back, and saw her go into the shop, and it is not the first time, I'll venture to say, that she's been there, without any business, for I know Mrs. Jones always goes to market herself. So-well done, poor Mungo!" Here it stooped to caress the animal, but Mungo showed his teeth, most doggishly; bravo! thought we; now, mongrel as thou art, dear unto us shalt thou henceforth be, if thou wilt but make a snatch at those five lean bones, though they be unworthy of a gripe. But the Rector interfered to save that withered hand, and yet, "it was very odd," not a word was said in defence of poor pretty Sally, who had no teeth wherewith to bite the slanderer, and whose character was, at least, worth a bone. "Bone of his bone shall she be, however," said we, as we stalked away from the Rectory in no placid mood, and, consequently, deeming ourselves somewhat better than the generality of our fellow creatures. "If that fellow Syms dare to play the fool with poor Nanny Inglis's daughter!" and we grasped a "grievous crabtree cudgel," which graced our right hand, most crabbedly.

over.

We began then to think the matter Why was it, that, holding the slanderer, as we did, and yet do, in utter contempt, the slander should have wrought any effect upon us "It is very odd !" but so it is, that a whisper, true or false, aimed at a ven2 ATHENEUM, VOL. 2, 3d series.

ture perchance-a mere surmise—a something that would be nothing in any other case, if it light upon the name of a female-leaveth her not as it found her. The impression is effected upon the tablet of our memory, and however slight and almost imperceptible it may at first seem, it will re-appear unbidden, at some future time. "Shall we admit a doubt ?” said we, "upon such authority too? No, Sally shall be as immaculate in our eyes, as when we first recommended her to the widow Jones; when she was neither child nor lassie, and her only ambition and hope were, that she might be thought worthy of some wages, by which she might obtain a few of the grocer's luxuries for her poor mother."

But it would not do. Poor Sally appeared to us like one of those beautiful peaches, over the bloom of which the reptile snail hath crawled, and left its slime behind. It may not be rivalled by any on the tree, but we pass it by for no other reason, than that the stain is thereon. We care not to examine farther. The disgusting crawling thing hath been there, and defiled it. Alas! even thus is it with the victims of idle gossip, or rather, to speak correctly, of calumny. We look-we hesitate-perchance we pity, and then, like the Levite and the Pharisee, we "pass by on the other side." And not we alone, the coarser and grosser portion of our race, but, "It's very odd!" Ye! ye, the fairest creatures of God's fair creation! Ye withdraw the light of your countenance. Ye are like the bounding graceful herd of deer, that roam the forest in passing beauty, surpassed only by your own. If perchance the hunter's arrow strike in suddenly among them, they startle at the sound, and, as though borne upon the wings of the wind, scour over hill and dale in wild dismay, dreading perchance the hunter's spear, but apparently still more fearful of being again joined by that poor stricken one, that pants afar off after them in vain, and then, in tears and loneliness, lays him down to die unpitied, and, in a

few moments, forgotten by those with whom erewhile he, breast to breast, brushed aside the young underwood, or cropped the mossy turf. The poor dumb animals are right. They have no skill to medicate the wound, no power to extract the winged shaft, and they know that the spoiler cometh to seize his prey. But ye have power, and ye are well aware that ye have; and, on certain occasions, mayhap use it wisely and well. Exert it then, and chase not the innocent or thoughtless victim, but the detracter, from among you. Guide ye the steps of the young, friendless, and the orphan. First errors are seldom the consequences of depravity, and she who stands giddy upon the brink of a precipice, may often be recalled by a friendly word: but, another step taken, the poor infatuated being is, perchance while ye are deliberating, rushing headlong to destruction.

Ye know how little we may do for the poor persecuted victims. Ye know that even the proffer of our advice and assistance individually, rendereth the breath of the slanderer doubly veno

mous.

Really, ladies, "it is very odd" that ye do not combine to send these hybrids to Coventry. Verily, on our knees would we willingly go to crave such a boon.-Away! away with them from among ye! Then shall the orphan be glad, and the "widow's heart shall sing for joy." For the unprotected, the poor, and her "who hath no helper," are marks for the bolt of the slanderer.

So, pondering on these and similar fantasies, and having narrowly escaped slipping from a narrow wooden bridge into the trout stream, we found our footsteps wending unconsciously towards the widow Jones's. Nay, madam, why that smile? "It's very odd!" The widow Jones can scarcely be less than sixty-five years of age, and we are no matter what. It is not our wont to visit "lone women,' as they are called; and that may possibly account for our expecting to find the widow Jones, with spectacles on

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nose, reading the Bible, or, at the farthest, nothing less edifying than the Whole Duty of Man. No such thing. There were the spectacles, and there was the widow Jones in her arm-chair, with clean-starched ruff, cuff, and apron, perusing Moore's Loves of the Angels! (More puellarum matrumque !) "It was very odd!" If there be any invention by which an old woman may be ground young, it must be poetry. The good soul was quite in the extatics, and seemed essaying to believe herself a sort of Peri!—indeed, she gave us a look, which appeared sufficiently whimsical considering all things."It's very odd," thought we. We are not very vain; but we began to think of the Dragon of Wantley, and had almost commenced carolling aloud, "Oh, oh, Mr. Moore! you son, &c." when we recollected in what presence were. Now the widow Jones may have been a pretty woman in her day; but, certes, hath now as fair a title to the Bruce motto Fuimus, as any of that noble family.

we

Alas, for human nature !-We had, in a moment of weakness, beguiled, partly by bright eyes, and carried away captive by "the harmony of sweet sounds," both which have a wondrous influence upon our usual stoical inflexibility, particularly after Burgundy or Champaigne, (and the squire "delighteth to honor us," during our summer haunt, and brief winter visit, by the trout stream,)—we had written some execrable rhymes in one of those man-traps, called an "Album,” which, gay and gaudy as the snake, reposeth in splendor in the . drawing-room, at the manor-house, ever ready to unclasp and unfold itself to the dismay of loitering, lounging swains. Now he who committeth himself in such a book, achieveth unto himself a fame, the average extent of which shall be about five miles in diameter in the country,—about twice the number of family circles in London,-and as many "flats" in Edinburgh.-Alas! the widow Jones had heard of our "original," though she

had never seen it. If she had, perhaps we might have escaped; but, as matters were, nothing would the provoking old body talk about save poetry for the first half hour. Then followed a rhapsody of "Paradise and the Peri," and she subsequently seemed disposed to converse on anything rather than Sally, who had opened the door to us on our arrival, and had "been running in our head" ever since. And is this, thought we, in very deed, the wife of Poor Simon Jones, the village lawyer? whose Burns was him of the "Justice," and the law ecclesiastical? Who knew no difference between John o' Groat and Tam o' Shanter? Who had heard of one Sir Thomas More, but of Anacreon Thomas never? Who would have been puzzed to discriminate between an epic and an epidemic? Unto whom a bill of inclosure appeared a finer composition, than aught that Milton or the wondrous Shakspeare ever indited? Poor Simon! well is it for thee thy bones are in peace, and thy plodding spirit resteth from its labors! for, of a truth, hadst thou lived to see thy Penelope turn so very blue,-worse than the blue devils with which thou wert occasionally beset, what would it have been to thy bewildered sense? What couldst thou have done with a cerulean wife? A sorry Simon wouldst thou have appeared in her eyes! But this comes of "Reading Societies!"

Now the widow Jones had a backdoor, which caused a marvellous turn in our conversation.

"Pray," inquired she, most earnestly, as though the thing was of the utmost importance, "have you seen The Lights'

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member to have seen elsewhere in bygone days.

There were only two faces in the room beside our own, (which we have not been latterly much in the habit of scrutinizing,) so we looked upon Sally's-it was all beauty and innocence. Heavens! thought we, and shall this butcher, with his marrow-bones and cleaver" It was very odd!"-What concern could it possibly be of ours if she liked the man of beef? He had thrown as good men as ever we were, in our best days, upon the village green.

Did that mortify our pride? Not a whit. We were angry we scarcely knew why, and cared not wherefore; and were resolved to have the matter set to rights, and sifted to the bottom. So, when Sally left the room, we spake of her; and the widow Jones, now in her natural sphere, gave us so good an account of the lassie, that when we took our leave, and she opened the door for us, we slipped a half-crown into her band. Bless her little eyes!-how she looked!— No doubt she was thinking of her poor mother. We confess we were not; but forthwith betook ourself to the butcher's, who had arrived a few minutes before us, and was busily engaged in cutting up a lamb.

"It is very odd!” thought we-for though not given to regard the "ominous," we cannot help an occasional touch of weakness, when odd "coincidences" present themselves, and we reflect that the ancients, before whom occasionally our boasted intellects twinkle like stars around the moon, thought somewhat more deeply of these matters. "We have been killing to-day," said the butcher.

Humph!" said we, “likely enough. "The butcher has brought the li- And what have you killed?”—“ As ver, ma'am," said pretty Sally, open- fine a young lamb, your honor, as ever ing the door at the moment; " but the was taken from its dam; it cuts up lights are gone to Miss Simkins's delightfully tender."—"Humph! anycats." thing else?""Aye, indeed," repli"Why didn't he come the front ed the fellow, "I've floored as great door?" inquired Mrs. Jones.

"I don't know, indeed, ma'am," replied Sally; and there was a light in her eyes, the like of which we re

a calf as ever I see'd in my born days."-"It was very odd!" Why should we have been out of humor? But we were, and positively half sav

age at the moment, and the next we burst out into a fit of laughter at our own folly. The butcher, in his turn, looked as th ugh he wished to say, "It is very odd!" yet he held his peace respectfully. Indeed, we ever have been treated with no small deference by the villagers, (among whom we are wont to sojourn during the summer months,) principally, we imagine, from the general belief that we are of that privileged class which "much learning" hath warped aside from pursuing the ordinary course of mankind. This character we obtained almost on our first visit, having been descried by some rustics,

"Recubans sub tegmine fagi,” at the "grim and sultry hour of noon," reading in a "printed book," when we had given out that we were going "a-fishing." It was not the way to catch fish, they were certain, and yet our basket was generally well filled. "It

was

very odd!" they said; and thenceforth we were never expected to do anything like anybody else. And, sooth to say, we seldom did; for the feeling of independence, as Sancho Panza saith of sleep, "doth, as it were, cover a man as with a blanket." There are, perchance, times and places when and where men must mow, and chatter, and grin," and play the ape among their fellow-men; but, where the pure stream glides by in its eloquent beauty, and the thousand graceful forms and tints of the waving foliage rustle around, and the clouds sail high in the blue firmament above our head, our spirit leaps within us with joy and gladness, we inhale the free air of Heaven, ourselves as free; and exclaim, in the fulness of our delight,

"Thy spirit, Independence! let me share, Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye!" And we feel that we are indebted to and blest by ONE alone-HIM "in whom we live, and move, and have our being."

Now, if the man who hath lived an artificial life, till his enjoyments fade before him for very weariness, so that

he listlessly roameth from Dan to
Beersheba, seeking rest and finding
none, and ever exclaiming, "Cui
bono!" doth not understand this, let
him be of good heart, for, "there are
more things in heaven and earth"
than have "been dreamt" of in his
"philosophy." We, too, have "heard
the chimes at midnight," and

"Run each extreme of folly through,
And lived with half the town."

"It is very odd," that men should blunder so abominably in their search after happiness. Our senses were given to us for the purposes of enjoyment, and our reason was meant to direct us. Well, "it is very odd !”. -away we go, in expectation of finding "Happiness, our being's end and aim," by gallopping after fashion, folly, and even vice; anything rather than poor reason, who is kicked into the ditch by the way-side, to struggle forth as she may. And for our senses- -What do we with them? Do we not everything in our power to deprave and vitiate them? Stewpans, and all the infernal "baterie de cuisine," are invented for the purpose of bribing the appetite to admit into the system a series of villainous compounds that shall destroy our natural taste and relish for that which is simple and wholesome. The eye is tutored to judge of beauty by Fashion, and to consider even lovely woman "frightful," if her head be not bound up tight as the wax of a Burgundy cork, or encumbered by a square yard of thatch, patch, pomatum, or lace, as that capricious goddess may dictate. Under her guidance, the exquisite and endless variety of form displayed in vegetation becometh rugged and coarse to the eye of man; and he planteth his trees in straight lines, and clippeth them into the misshapen semblance of birds, beasts, and hobgoblins. And, for his ears, he knoweth not what he would have. Could he, in his fastidiousness, command the birds of the air, the rooks, as they passed overhead, might caw, "I'd be a butterfly;" the nightingale warble, "Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled ;”

and the pigeon and the ring-dove, he of the old school, for we never en"Rookety coo," "I've been roaming." "It is very odd !"

And yet this is man! Phaugh! Foh! This is the "similis Deo" animal, who strutteth to and fro upon the face of the earth, "vaunting himself and being puffed up," with scorn. ful brow and haughty mien, as though be verily believed that he had made himself, and all the vast creation with which he is surrounded!

"Mais, retournons à nos moutons." -Let us return to the butcher's shop. We ordered the calf's head, opining that Cunegunda might bedevil it into mock turtle for to-morrow, when the rector, the squire, and the captain, are to dine at our cottage. And then, "it is very odd," we knew not what to say next. Had we been intent on mischief, however, we are firmly persuaded we should have been at no loss; but ever thus is it when a good deed is to be performed—a lion starteth up in the way. It suddenly occurred to us that we might really be doing mischief, if there was nothing "going on" between the parties, should we introduce the name of such a lilly of the valley as Sally Inglis to such a long-legged, hard-trotting butcher. Then, why came we here? It was not to seek after a calf's head, for we had all that we wanted in that way at home, and, moreover, we generally leave those matters to Cunegunda. "It was very odd," and we thought it more particularly odd, when, casting our eyes on the opposite side of the way, we saw the short name and long pole of M'Nab the barber, the very man of all others, within ten miles round, to throw a light upon the subject. There he sat, according to his wonted habit, twisting a few hairs about, and composing lamentations over the days of perukes, cauliflowers, toupees, and powder; while his own locks had assumed a snowy whiteness, as though despairing of keeping up their long accustomed alpine tint from any extraneous

courage your "Waterloo" cutting shops-your village barber is, generally, a good civil sort of a fellow, and somewhat of an angler withal, a name which with us covereth a multitude of sins. And so old Jerry McNab is a bit of a favorite, or "crony" of ours; and he opened his door, and stood with glistening eyes to welcome us, ere we had crossed half the space between him and the butcher's. Now, Jerry is firmly persuaded, that, when a man's hair begins to " baldify," (that is his term,) it cannot be cut too often; therefore, in ten seconds, we were installed in his arm-chair, and enveloped in a table-cloth, and the glittering scissars were flourishing about our pericranium. Such hath been the legitimate situation for gossipping from time immemorial, and we felt that we had a right to inquire if any news were stirring in the village. None," was the reply; and, unlike the generality of inquirers, we were pleased to hear that such was the case. But a wretched shaver indeed is he, who, when he hath got a man down in one of his chairs, and, as it were, at his mercy, cannot say something to him. Yet such we have seen, (our flesh seems crimping on our bones as we think thereof,) when compelled to commit a "morning call,” and endure a sumposion aoinon, for what wot we of the adulterated white, may hap Cape at home made, which goeth its eternal round, with a tail of gingerbread, or jaw-breaking biscuits?

66

Think not, fair and gentle lady! that we do not properly estimate thine industry in the manufacturing, or concocting of thy "home made," from thy worthy grandmother's receipt. No-we agree with you perfectly, and think "it ought to be kept in the family." We really swallow a glass, occasionally, at three houses but, as a general custom, we have not dared to make the experiment since a lady, for whom we feel the greatest respect, and towards whom we were anxious to make the agreeable, took us Now, your village barber, that is, in hand, and played us as skilfully

source.

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