Heron.-Ay, ay! but down one fathom, and brave a noble breaker as you rise-sport like a dolphin on the wave, or lie upon its breast as softly as on M'Glashan's snowy sheets-for half an hour, and then breakfast with H. at Hunger'emout. What becomes of bile then? Quiet Gent.-It takes its leave, as I must. Mrs. Placid waits for me. What think you of Mr. Smith's plan of insulating the Flesher's Haugh, and bathing in the secure and graduated depth of the canal that effects it? Harum.-It's feasible, certainly; but let Mrs. P. wait, man, and we'll make you a member of our club. Quiet Gent.-O fie! Good bye.-(Exit.) me, Heron.-He'll be an ex-officio-being an office-bearer in the "Dunce.' By-the-bye, I forgot to urge previous to my election, the "into" beside " and at 337" tolerably" soon was "somewhat" out of place, by putting itself into its place. "Nearly full" might have been placed too as a dernier resort if all the other clauses had failed. Harum.-Hardly, it would have been far-fetched. But what are you rummaging your pockets for?—a book, and at Gourock! Heron.-Yes: I invariably carry a small volume with me, generally of poetry. The last of that description that I made a vade-mecum of, a young lady now possesses, so I brought the 12th of Constable with me. Harum.-Scientific, by all that's horrid! Heron.-Yes; but interesting to the last degree. It is a curious exemplification of the romance of physical truth. It is surprising to see the fine genius and poetical temperament of the editor equally at home in science as in song I wish I had an air to his "One long thought of thee," I'd sing it to you. Harum.-I'll lay my life it is "seltimeltal," and, to prevent you, will rather give a screed of a thing I heard on the street lately. It is an odd specimen of an almost forgotten sort of song. SCOTTISH RANT. Gude hae a care o' us! what'll I do? My head's turned tapsal teerie, O; I canna read, I canna write, Nor do aught else but caper, O; Gude hae a care, &c There. At night I canna bow my e'e, I try to gang hame, but aye gang wrang; I'd list, but there's nae French to kill; If 'twould but gie my heart mair room! I'll ride on a mote, I'll dive on a strae; I'll dwarf to the buik o' a bumbee's spang; He'll no mak' me mair camstrary, O; Will you get Saveall to garner up that? Heron.-No, indeed. You had better send it to "The Western Magazine," which is shortly to be " printed in Edin. burgh, with types cast for the purpose," and published for the benefit of us Goths in Glasgow," as no periodical, having for its object the diffusion of the lighter and more popular species of literature, has existed for some time in the West of Scotland!" Harum.-I contribute! Why, the wretches who wrote this seem never to have heard of the being of "The Ant." Heron.-Which will repay them by never hearing of the birth of their bantling. Harum.-I must drink a bumper-to the health of Miss O'Brien-since you won't give her yourself-nor take her either. Heron.-Harry, Harry!-but here comes Mr. Placid. Draw the table nearer the Sofa. Ring for Mr. M'Glashan, and let us make a quartett over a new measure. [Enter warm water, the Quiet Gentleman, Mr. M'Glashan, and more whisky, and exit our invisible reporter.] Printed by James Curll, 55, Bell-Street, and sold by all Booksellers. PRICE THREEPENCE. THE ANT. No. XXV.-SATURDAY, 8th SEPTEMBER, 1827. Original. THE BOOKSELLER'S WIFE. "The shoemaker's wife is always the worst shod."-English Proverb. "And she did roam amid the garden sweets, The Cowslip Gatherer. In spite of the proverb which I have placed above, if I had my choice of sex and situation, I should certainly ask of fate no more favourable destination than to be a Bookseller's Wife. She is the veritable priestess of Apollo-the handmaiden of the Muses-the wet-nurse of poesy-the presiding queen of song! I certainly do not mean to delineate the stately lady-only daughter, perhaps, of an opulent paper-maker, who has brought ten thousand pounds, and eleven thousand and one vagaries, to her husband's household; that drives in from her villa at Chiswick or Hampstead, to set down Mr. Duodecimo in Paternoster-Row, and go a "shopping" herself at Dyde & Scribe's, calling again at four, with an empty reticule and a full chaise, to take up her husband. No; but I shall give an interesting and pretty young woman-y -with a taste for letters, and an average share of accomplishments, as well as of native good sense-to a friend of mine, a bookseller; and I will make her the heroine of my sketch-the subject of a cabinet picture of almost perfect domestic happiness. Love and its affairs are so much alike in all the grades of the same classes of society, that I may safely generalise, and, whether my bibliopolical friend be a cockney, of London or Edinburgh, or a more humble provincialist, I may marry him at once; and thus suppose him to have already begun to make an amiable woman happy. Well, then the hundred little packets, and thousand tiny notes written on hot-pressed paper, or perhaps embossed, have been sent, and delivered-the numbers of Blackwood and the New Monthly have come back from their missionand the paper-covered volumes of the latest novel, I shall suppose, are no longer transported to and from a remote part of town or country, but repose in quiet on the parlour table of the young matron; the distance of whose former residence from the "shop" was a source of daily vexation to the unromantic errand boys, who were not so easily transported as their master. In short, Katherine is the Bookseller's Wife, and the subject of our eulogium, envy, and description. She is seated in her breakfast parlour, dressed in a morning gown, and with a morning cap on; but her hair is not hid in paper twistings, for she is not sufficiently blue to regard untidyness as a proof of superior intellect. The cap is of muslin, with an edging of lace of the smallest possible breadth of surface and size of pattern. The gown is close over the bosom; but not up to the chin, or hiding a neck which becomes more beautiful when its swan-like archings are increased by her being told that its fine fleshy plumpness of outline is lovelier than all the rigid contour of more marble-looking beauties. The robe-it is either of Monteith's finest bandanna, or Mr. Snell's loveliest summer stripes, however remote the wearer may be from the seat of the manufacture of these is plaited at the girdle, which gives to its skirt that fine and graceful sweep that a flounce may set off, but is not indispensable to obtaining: but it has one row of them-no more-of only sufficient fulness to heighten the effect of the black worsted stocking, and the prettiest little, but well articulated, ancle that ever set off a Denmark satin shoe. A small Canton crape shawl, of that indescribable shade of white, which the genuine productions of the celestial empire alone possess, is lying easily, but not carelessly, over the arm of the sofa upon which its fair owner sits, with an inclination to one side so gracefully small, that it hardly approaches to leaning, and has not in its air one breath of langour or of laziness. It is a quarter to nine on a beautiful summer morning, and the cool air which wafts the perfume of the mignonette through the open window, assists the gentle student to turn over without effort or the use of the flat side of finger or thumb, the leaves of what is it? It seems a post octavo volume-beautifully boarded, to use the technical term-and covered with a smooth brown paper, as yet unsoiled by counter-tossing, or breakfast-buttered fingers. She passes over the pages with a pleasing rapidity, which evidences at once the size of the type and the interest of the subject. It must be "Cyril Thornton!" And yet, for it is past the quarter, she can lay down the volume-at the close of a chapter though-and wonder if any thing of moment has detained Mr. Caterwell. On the snowy tablecloth beside his chair, just at the corner from which the marmalade dish has been lifted back to make room for it, she has laid a volume of the Life of Napoleon, which is yet wet from the hands of the bookbinder, and beside it is the singular companion to the work, that booksellers can alone possess, in the shape of the volume of leaves for which others are substituted in sewing up the book. On the top of her piano, there lie the proofsheets of a new volume of beautiful verses with the latest corrections of the author; the forthcoming number of the "Minstrelsy," which may not be out for a month; and a large pile of MS., the materials of an historical novel on the subject of Lady Grange, which an author, who has not been able to get to St. Kilda, solicits her husband's professional opinion upon. She is not aware that on account of a Sabbath intervening, this is magazine morning; but the entrance of her lord ten minutes behind his ordinary time, and with a handful of books, too thick for pamphlets, and too thin for volumes, in lilac, drab, yellow, and ruby coloured covers, at once explains and compensates the delay. They are magazines-without a leaf of them as yet being cut, or the sacred dew of virgin sanctity dried off or evaporated from one of their pages! Their contents are preceded by announcements from Oliver & Boyd and Blackwood, Longman and Murray, Colburn and Hurst, and the elegant Ainsworth, too, that, till this hour, have never seen the light of day-reserved from the vulgar crowding of newspaper columns, to exhale their first breath in the literary and rarified atmosphere which surrounds the stars of genius, and is itself impreg nated with the rich odour of near "New Publications," and "Miscellaneous Literary Announcements." These very announcements speak of the Magician being about to rest from his mighty spells, and for a time disport himself in the nursery of his grandchildren-the sons and daughters of the author of "Matthew Wald," and "Valerius!"-of a great house at once preparing to let the eaters of Scottish kail know the ingredients of the most exquisite consommé, and partake in the pleasure itself has in fostering rising talent in more etherial em |