(_For The Mirror_.)
Houses undoubtedly present to the eye of fancy, an appearance
analogous to physiognomical expression in men. The remark has been
made by more acute observers than myself.
Look at that beetle-browed, solemn looking mansion with a ponderous
hat-roof--I mean of slates, garnished with bay windows--observe its
heavy jaws of areas, its hard, close mouth of a door; its dark, deep
sunken eyes of windows peering out from the heavy brow of dark stone
coping that supports the slate hat in question: what a contrast to
the spruce mock gentility of its neighbour, with a stand-up collar of
white steps, a varnished face, and a light, jaunty, yet stiff air,
like a city apprentice in his best clothes.
See the cap on the temple of that Chinese Mandarin, poking above yon
clump of firs, with its bell furniture; he seems pondering on the
aphorisms of Confucius, regardless of that booby faced conservatory,
whose bald, rounded pate glitters in the sun. Ah! what have we here; a
spruce masquerader in yellow straw hat, trying to look rural with as
much success as a reed thatched summer house. Stand in this quiet nook
a few hours, and give us the shadow of your mushroom covering.
There is a poor, forlorn wretch with his rags fluttering about him
like a beggar--give him a penny--he must be in distress--look at
his shattered face and dilapidated form; shored up upon crutches,
tottering on the brink of the sewers--shores I mean--of eternity;
behold his crushed and crownless hat--his hollow eyes--his rheumy
visage--look at that petition penned on his breast. Poh! 'tis a
surveyor's notice to pull down. But, then, look at that plurality
parson with rotund prominence of portico, and red brick cheeks of vast
extent, and that high, steeple-crowned hat--look at the smug, mean,
insignificant dwarf of a meeting-house, sinking up to its knees in a
narrow lane, and looking as blank as a wall, with a trap-door of a
mouth, and a grating cast of eye. How yonder bridegroom, just cemented
in an alliance that will not last out his lease of life, "spick and
span new," all eyes, and a double row of buttons ornamenting his
latticed waistcoat, looks at his adored opposite, who holds her
Venetian parasol--sun shade--before her face, glowing like a red brick
wall in the sun. Ah! his regards are attracted by a modest little
nymph of the grove, seated snugly in a sylvan recess, her pretty white
cheeks peeping out beneath the tresses of honeysuckle and woodbine
that veil her beauty. Well, _railing_ is in this case allowable, for
see that brazen front of maiden sixty, guiltless of curls, with a huge
structure of bonnet cocked straight at the top of her head, like the
roof of a market-house, and her broad, square skirts of faded green,
deformed by formal knots of yew and holly. Look with what a blushless
face of triumph she eyes her poor tottering neighbour opposite, who
never appears destined "to suffer a recovery." Oh, 'tis remorseless!
But look down that vista of charity children in slate coloured Quaker
bonnets, stuck one against the other in drab, like pins in a paper,
but not so bright; are they going to stand there for ever, with their
governess at their head, looking as smug and fubsy as the squat house
at the end? Why 'tis--street!--Look at the pump at the other end, that
might pass for an abridgment of a parish clerk--and see, there comes
stalking across the Green the parish beadle, with a great white
placard in his hat--you might well mistake him for Alderman ----'s
monument in red brick with the marble tablet on the top of it. Ah! my
pretty rustic--why your straw hat and brown stuff frock, with white
bib, and that gay flowered apron, with the sprig of jessamine stuck
at your side--you look so homely and comely beneath the shade of that
tall oak, that I could fancy you were only the shepherd's cottage
at the corner of the grange. Bless me--here's a modern antique,
masquerading in the country!--why a village belle of queen Bess' days,
looking as new and as fresh as the young 'squire's lodge, fresh out
of the hands of his fancy architect. More mummery! why this gentleman
looks as fine and as foolish in his affectation of rugged points and
quaint angles, as a staring, white-washed, Gothic villa with the paint
not yet dry. Oh! there is certainly no denying that thou art the
primest of Quakers, Mr. Chapel, one that will not countenance a
_belle_, but lookest right onward in smooth and demure solidity, with
that strip of white path in front of thy brown gravel waistcoat, and
the ample skirts of thy road-coloured surtout; not so your neighbour
Sturdy, him with his chimney like an ink bottle, upright in his
button hole, and his pen-like poplar in his hand; he is equally
uncompromising, but looks with an eye of stern regard upon that gay
sprig of myrtle with his roof of a hat, jauntily clapped on one side,
and a towering charming feather, streaming like smoke in the breeze.
But whither have my vagaries led me--here I am once more in the
dullest of dull country towns, over which strides the gouty old dean,
like a Gothic arch across a cathedral city; and see how the wealthy
innkeeper dangles his broad medal (sign of his having been in the
yeomanry) that swings to the wind like the banner of his troop--how
contemptuously he eyes that solid looking overseer, the workhouse,
with his right and lefthand men the executioners of the law--Stocks
and Cage--oh! turn away--there is that villanous cross barred gripe
the Jail--enough, enough, indeed.