If you tell a good jest,
And please all the rest,
Comes Dingley, and asks you, “What was it?”
And before she can know,
Away she will go
To seek an old rag in the closet.
Dean Swift.
While I was inditing the goodly matter which my readers have just
perused, I might be said to go through a course of breaking-in to stand
criticism, like a shooting-pony to stand fire. By some of those venial
breaches of confidence, which always take place on the like occasions,
my private flirtations with the Muse of Fiction became a matter
whispered in Miss Fairscribe's circle, some ornaments of which were, I
suppose, highly interested in the progress of the affair, while others
“really thought Mr. Chrystal Croftangry might have had more wit at his
time of day.” Then came the sly intimation, the oblique remark, all that
sugar-lipped raillery which is fitted for the situation of a man about
to do a foolish thing, whether it be to publish or to marry, and that
accompanied with the discreet nods and winks of such friends as are in
the secret, and the obliging eagerness of others to know all about it.
At length the affair became so far public, that I was induced to face a
tea-party with my manuscript in my pocket, looking as simple and modest
as any gentleman of a certain age need to do upon such an occasion. When
tea had been carried round, handkerchiefs and smelling bottles prepared,
I had the honour of reading the Surgeon's Daughter for the entertainment
of the evening. It went off excellently; my friend Mr. Fairscribe, who
had been seduced from his desk to join the literary circle, only
fell asleep twice, and readily recovered his attention by help of his
snuff-box. The ladies were politely attentive, and when the cat, or
the dog, or a next neighbour, tempted an individual to relax, Katie
Fairscribe was on the alert, like an active whipper-in, with look,
touch, or whisper, to recall them to a sense of what was going on.
Whether Miss Katie was thus active merely to enforce the literary
discipline of her coterie, or whether she was really interested by the
beauties of the piece, and desirous to enforce them on others, I will
not venture to ask, in case I should end in liking the girl--and she
is really a pretty one. Better than wisdom would warrant, either for my
sake or hers.
I must own, my story here and there flagged a good deal; perhaps there
were faults in my reading, for while I should have been attending to
nothing but how to give the words effect as they existed, I was feeling
the chilling consciousness, that they might have been, and ought to have
been, a great deal better. However, we kindled up at last when we got to
the East Indies, although on the mention of tigers, an old lady, whose
tongue had been impatient for an hour, broke in with, “I wonder if Mr.
Croftangry ever heard the story of Tiger Tullideph?” and had nearly
inserted the whole narrative as an episode in my tale. She was, however,
brought to reason, and the subsequent mention of shawls, diamonds,
turbans, and cummerbands, had their usual effect in awakening the
imaginations of the fair auditors. At the extinction of the faithless
lover in a way so horribly new, I had, as indeed I expected, the good
fortune to excite that expression of painful interest which is produced
by drawing in the breath through the compressed lips; nay, one Miss of
fourteen actually screamed.
At length my task was ended, and the fair circle rained odours upon me,
as they pelt beaux at the Carnival with sugar-plums, and drench them
with scented spices. There was “Beautiful,” and “Sweetly interesting,”
and “O Mr. Croftangry,” and “How much obliged,” and “What a delightful
evening,” and “O Miss Katie, how could you keep such a secret so long?”
While the dear souls were thus smothering me with rose leaves, the
merciless old lady carried them all off by a disquisition upon shawls,
which she had the impudence to say, arose entirely out of my story. Miss
Katie endeavoured to stop the flow of her eloquence in vain; she threw
all other topics out of the field, and from the genuine Indian, she made
a digression to the imitation shawls now made at Paisley, out of real
Thibet wool, not to be known from the actual Country shawl, except by
some inimitable cross-stitch in the border. “It is well,” said the old
lady, wrapping herself up in a rich Kashmire, “that there is some way of
knowing a thing that cost fifty guineas from an article that is sold for
five; but I venture to say there are not one out of ten thousand that
would understand the difference.”
The politeness of some of the fair ladies would now have brought back
the conversation to the forgotten subject of our meeting. “How could
you, Mr. Croftangry, collect all these hard words about India?--you were
never there?”--“No, madam, I have not had that advantage; but, like
the imitative operatives of Paisley, I have composed my shawl by
incorporating into the woof a little Thibet wool, which my excellent
friend and neighbour, Colonel Mackerris, one of the best fellows who
ever trode a Highland moor, or dived into an Indian jungle, had the
goodness to supply me with.”
My rehearsal, however, though not absolutely and altogether to my
taste, has prepared me in some measure for the less tempered and guarded
sentence of the world. So a man must learn to encounter a foil before
he confronts a sword; and to take up my original simile, a horse must be
accustomed to a _feu de joie_, before you can ride him against a volley
of balls. Well, Corporal Nym's philosophy is not the worst that has
been preached, “Things must be as they may.” If my lucubrations give
pleasure, I may again require the attention of the courteous reader; if
not, here end the