Nor a lady's age in the parish register. We hope we have more delicacy
than to do either: but some faces spare us the trouble of these
_dental_ inquiries. And what if the beast, which my friend would force
upon my acceptance, prove, upon the face of it, a sorry Rozinante, a
lean, ill-favoured jade, whom no gentleman could think of setting up
in his stables? Must I, rather than not be obliged to my friend, make
her a companion to Eclipse or Lightfoot? A horse-giver, no more than
a horse-seller, has a right to palm his spavined article upon us for
good ware. An equivalent is expected in either case; and, with my own
good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks, than out of my
money. Some people have a knack of putting upon you gifts of no real
value, to engage you to substantial gratitude. We thank them for
nothing. Our friend Mitis carries this humour of never refusing a
present, to the very point of absurdity--if it were possible to couple
the ridiculous with so much mistaken delicacy, and real good-nature.
Not an apartment in his fine house (and he has a true taste in
household decorations), but is stuffed up with some preposterous print
or mirror--the worst adapted to his pannels that may be--the presents
of his friends that know his weakness; while his noble Vandykes are
displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work of some wretched
artist of his acquaintance, who, having had them returned upon his
hands for bad likenesses, finds his account in bestowing them here
gratis. The good creature has not the heart to mortify the painter
at the expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not
vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining parlour,
surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to God knows whom, while
the true Lady Marys and Lady Bettys of his own honourable family, in
favour to these adopted frights, are consigned to the staircase and
the lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one by one
stript of his favourite old authors, to give place to a collection
of presentation copies--the flower and bran of modern poetry. A
presentation copy, reader--if haply you are yet innocent of such
favours--is a copy of a book which does not sell, sent you by the
author, with his foolish autograph at the beginning of it; for which,
if a stranger, he only demands your friendship; if a brother author,
he expects from you a book of yours which does sell, in return. We
can speak to experience, having by us a tolerable assortment of these
gift-horses. Not to ride a metaphor to death--we are willing to
acknowledge, that in some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a
friend's library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author) is
intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary--a thing not
fit to be hinted at among gentlemen--which confer as much grace upon
the acceptor as the offerer: the kind, we confess, which is most to
our palate, is of those little conciliatory missives, which for their
vehicle generally choose a hamper--little odd presents of game, fruit,
perhaps wine--though it is essential to the delicacy of the latter
that it be home-made. We love to have our friend in the country
sitting thus at our table by proxy; to apprehend his presence (though
a hundred miles may be between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect
reflects to us his "plump corpusculum;" to taste him in grouse or
woodcock; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar to the
latter; to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury brawn. This is
indeed to have him within ourselves; to know him intimately: such
participation is methinks unitive, as the old theologians phrase it.
For these considerations we should be sorry if certain restrictive
regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the peasantry of this
country, were entirely done away with. A hare, as the law now stands,
makes many friends. Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his _goût_) with
a leash of partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them)
passes them to Lucius; who in his turn, preferring his friend's relish
to his own, makes them over to Marcius; till in their ever widening
progress, and round of unconscious circum-migration, they distribute
the seeds of harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to
this kind of sensible remembrances; and are the less apt to be taken
by those little airy tokens--inpalpable to the palate--which, under
the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes, amuse some people's fancy
mightily. We could never away with these indigestible trifles. They
are the very kickshaws and foppery of friendship.