------ A creature of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen.
It is feminine; a lower animal of the tribe _Inquisitoria_; and with all
others of its species indescribably restless. It is commonly found with
the bosom slatternly arrayed, leaning with folded arms out of a
“two-pair front,” looking cunningly and maliciously over the side of a
garden-pot--like a starling through the water-hole of its cage over the
water-pot--with its head always on the bob, like that of the Chinese
figure in grocers’ shops. Its features are lean and sharp as the bows of
a Folkstone cutter, or the face of a Port Royal pig; its nose, like a
racoon’s, is continually on the twist; the ears are ever pricking up for
vague rumours and calumnious reports, and the eyes roll from side to
side, like those of the image in the wooden clock at Kaltenbach’s in the
Borough; the tongue is snake-like, is perpetually in motion--pretty yet
pert--and venomous. Its habit is bilious, its temper splenetic. It is a
sure extractor of all secrets, a thorough heart-wormer, a living
diving-bell, a walking corkscrew. It generally “appears as well as its
neighbours,” but it is fastidious, and loves to be different. Upon its
legs, which are of the sparrow order, it looks a merry, light-hearted,
artless, and good-natured little thing; but it is the green-bag-bearer
of the parish, and its food is scandal. Hear it talk on a first meeting
with a regular listener! Its voice is at first soft as the low piping of
the nightingale, but gradually becomes like the loud hissing of an
adder, and ends hoarse, and ominous of evil as that of the raven. It is
an untiring spreader of idle and false reports, to the injury of many a
good character. It is only innoxious to reasonable beings, for they
never listen to it, or when obliged to do so, are no more amused by its
sayings than by the singing of a tea-kettle; but these being few in
number, compared with the lovers of small talk, to whom its company is
always acceptable, it is a dangerous animal,
---- mother of deceit and lies.
Look at it sitting in its habitation!--every sound from the street draws
it to the light-hole[271]--every thing from a bonnet to a patten
furnishes it with matter for gossip--every opening of a neighbour’s door
brings its long neck into the street. Every misfortune that assails
others is to it a pleasure--every death a new life to itself--and the
failings of the departed are eternal themes for its envenomed slander.
It is at the heels of every thing that stirs, and the sooner it is
trodden upon the better. But people tolerate and like it, because it is
“so amusing,” and “so clever;” and yet each of its listeners is traduced
in turn. There is no dealing with it, but by giving it rope enough; it
will then hang itself, which, by the by, will be such an end as the
creature merits.