the room, which part is generally | Villany and its deeds are blazoned

forth and thought worthy of record, but the memory of the unobtrusive and quiet course of him who " goes about doing good," is too often left to sink into silent oblivion. This picture is of course dear to us all; and

the least furnished, so that a hope may now be entertained of a speedy termination to the tour. "A consummation devoutly to be wished!" exclaims some impatient reader. Well, most testy sir, I shall get on as fast as I can, but shall not hurry my-it has another claim to our kindness self nevertheless. Here then are the curtains-morine curtains, not vulgar tavernified red, but chaste dove-co- | loured morine; and these, if I had any taste, would furnish me with hints for a beautiful description of fringes and festoons, scrolls and draperies, cornices and gilt pins, and all the other glorious insignia of the upholsterer. But I remember I had enough of these when I paid the bill for the curtains; and I remember too that I had half a mind to versify it, some of the descriptions were so florid and poetical; but thinking it would only prolong the memory of certain departed pounds, shillings, and pence, I gave up the idea.

Between the windows is a pierglass, respecting which I have nothing to remark in addition to what has already been said of the chimneyglass; but under it are three miniatures, about which I have something to say. The first is of an old gentleman, who, although not grandfather to my children, yet is held by my family in almost the light of one, from his more than fatherly kindness to my wife in her infancy and advancing years. He was one of that description called by Pope " the noblest work of God," an honest man, that rarest of things to be found upon earth. Every such man's memory should be sacred and dear to those who have known his worth; and the world should oftener hear than it does, that such men have existed.

and regard: it was done by a young lady, a friend of the family, who had never been taught drawing; and it is singular, that though the execution of it is but indifferent, yet the likeness is most striking. Next to it is a | miniature of my daughter, taken when nearly an infant, by a regular practitioner: this was like enough when first done, but four years have made a wonderful alteration, and it is now little more like "than I to Hercules." This forms my principal objection to the having a likeness taken of a very young person: it is all very well as shewing what they have been in infancy; but it is sometimes rather ludicrous to see in the house of a great bluff-looking man, with a face like the Red Lion at Brentford, as the old saws have it, a miniature of a little fair-faced puny boy, and to hear this bluff gentleman say, in the voice of a Stentor, "That's me." Next to this is a plain black profile, to which I can say, "That's me." I took it into my head the other day to walk into a shop, and suffer the machine, as they call it, to be passed over my visage; and here I am quite black in the face, with a smart ebonized frame, and an inner gilt edge, all for four shillings! What a depreciation of the fine arts, if indeed this can be said to belong to them! I might here give my own history, but I feel as if I blushed at the idea; and as it would be rather too egotistical to trouble the world with a full, true, and par

ticular account of my birth, parentage, and education, I shall even descend to the work-table that stands under these three generations în miniature.

with jam or honey. This is really a goodly display though. That upper || shelf is loaded with a famous lot of white jars of all dimensions: let me see," currant jelly, 1821;" "raspberry jam, 1822;""gooseberry jam, ditto;" " damson cheese, ditto;' "apricot jam, ditto;"" Narbonne honey:" but indeed it is too much; Ishall make my young readers'mouths water, and the old ones know all about it; I will therefore desist. Well then, on the next shelf are pickles of all sorts, from the mango down to samphire, a most classical pickle, for Shakspeare has called the gathering of it a "dreadful trade." Below these are soaps and starches and powder-blues; and at the bottom of all a variety of tun-bellied, Falstafflike, lettered gentlemen, in the shape of goodly stone-bottles of from one

Let us just take a peep in. It is hardly fair to be sure, as the lady owner is not present. What an assemblage! Why it is confusion worse confounded: threads and tapes; bobbins and buttons; pins and needles; housewifes and cotton-boxes; and I know not what besides. I will dip a little deeper, and see if there is any thing more worth enumerating.Pshaw! I have run a confounded needle into my finger! "Serve you right, Mr. Inquisitive," says some young lady. Well, miss, I will not look any further, but merely recommend you to paint one as prettily as my wife has painted this; for it is as gay as wreaths of flowers, butterflies, || to three gallons, and marked G. R. shells, feathers, &c. &c. can make it; only that Betty the cook is continually setting something or other on it to scratch it; and though Betty is a good girl in the main, and means to do well I believe, yet she can never remember the perpetual exclama- || tory cautions of " Lord, Betty, you'll ruin my table!" Poor girl, she is only troubled with an incontinence of memory, like the one mentioned by Matthews in an entertainment of his, who used to go up stairs fifty times a day, and never come down again. Now we get on indeed; I have passed the other window, and shall reach my old arm-chair in a trice; though I must take a peep first into the last closet as I pass. This is the store-closet; and when the children are in the room, it is a dangerous matter to open the door, for they cannot believe but you did so to give them some slice of cake, or biscuit,

O. C. E. not that there is a groce of them, but that they contain certain home-made wines, called gooseberry, raisin, orange, currant, and elder; the last conjuring up pleasant recollections of winter, when a little of it mulled, and taken with divers strips of toasted bread, is rather a comfortable concern.

Thank heaven, the door is shut, and my tour is ended; here is the chair I started from, and I will now sit me down, for if the reader is not tired, I am. What! another interruption? Here is a living piece of furniture; puss has taken possession of my chair. Well, madam, fond as I am of you, and fond as you generally are of me, you must nevertheless turn out. What, you do not like it? However, that is not to be wondered at; few like to be forcibly ejected from a good situation.

I cannot help thinking that a cat

is an abused animal; the species has || agree with the late Dr. Wallcott (alias Peter Pindar, of facetious memory,) in the following character of a cat, given in his Pindariana: "I do not love a cat; his disposition is mean and suspicious. A friendship of years is cancelled in a moment by an accidental tread on his tail or foot. He instantly spits, raises his rump, twists his tail of malignity, and shuns you; turning back, as he goes off, a staring vindictive face, full of horrid

Thus then I have finished my journey; I again repose in my easy chair; and I have escaped from a day's ennui, as completely as if I had been wandering

somehow got an ill name for treachery and other bad qualities, and perhaps not without some reason: they certainly are far behind the dog in those peculiar and strong attachments which are so honourable to the latter animal; yet I have met with many instances to the contrary, and this quiet creature is one of them. She will suffer the children to drag her about in all sorts of ways, and never attempts to behave spitefully,|| oaths and unforgivingness; seeming when it would be almost justifiable to say, ' Perdition catch you! I hate on her part to do so; for I do not you for ever!' know any thing more deserving of pity, than a cat or kitten when lugged about in the topsy-turvy way they mostly are by children. I have also met with very strong instances of memory in cats, a thing which they are supposed to be particularly devoid of: one instance was remarkable, where a cat, who never saw me more than three or four days in a year, and that generally at one stay, would remember me perfectly well on going the succeeding year. This was at a fishing-house, and as I used to give grimalkin fish to eat, that circumstance may help to account for it. However, I rather wish to redeem the general character of the cat from what I think an unmerited obloquy: much of their ferocity and waspishness arises more from ill treatment, I am inclined to believe, than their real nature. There is scarcely an animal that might not be subdued by kindness; and feeling this, I cannot

"By hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade;" and really feel altogether better. But I fear my trifling will be hardly borne with: it is one thing for a man to amuse his own idleness; but it is quite another matter to publish such amusement, and be the cause of idleness in others. However, in all that I have said, I have kept the domestic virtues and all the best feelings of the mind in view; I have not sought to raise a blush on the cheek of innocence, or to give a pang to the heart of honour; and all I can hope for is, that the day I have passed in this way may not be designated a day of folly, but that there may be found at least one who will smile, and that not contemptuously, at A Tour round my Parlour.

THE LOITERER.
No. V.

TO N. NEVER MOVE, Esq.

Mr. LOITERER, I HAVE suffered for some time under a grievance that I believe is

often felt by others as well as myself, though I do not remember ever to have seen it complained of. I shall

1

was all, Mr. Loiterer, I should be ashamed to complain, but unfortunately it is only a small part of the vexation which her pride inflicts upon me. I have known her during a whole month together behave to me with the most marked indifference, and assume all possible airs of

supe

phrase it, to make me remember who I am. I cannot describe all the littlenesses which this paltry pride makes her stoop to; one of them, which hurts me the most, is talking at me: you cannot conceive the pains she takes to impress upon my mind how fortunate I am in meeting with a protectress like her; and how little reason a person in my rank of life could have to expect so much kindness and indulgence from one so greatly my superior.

not trouble you with any account of myself: suffice it to say, that I am companion to a lady who is what the French call un peu parvenue; but as she has a very large fortune, and lives in good style, she is admitted into the most fashionable society. She is naturally good-natured, and has in many respects a great deal of consi-riority, merely, as she herself would deration for me; but unfortunately she has imbibed an idea, that in order to support her dignity properly, it is necessary she should sometimes be haughty and capricious. I am convinced that her natural kindness of heart and gaiety of temper render it very unpleasant to her to practise this sort of air, and that she does it merely for fear I should otherwise forget the vast distance there is between us. From my being of a good family, I am, generally speaking, politely noticed by her visitors, from many of whom I receive attentions which my present situation does not entitle me to expect. I know that my patroness is pleased with this, and she very often avails herself of it to take me with her where she visits; nay, I have known her sometimes to accept of invitations which she would otherwise have declined, because she thinks they will be agreeable to me. But perhaps after a month or two of uniform kindness and attention, she is suddenly seized with an apprehension that all this indulgence will make me fancy myself her equal; and in order to convince me of the contrary, she leaves me behind when she is going to some place to which she knows I particularly wish to accompany her; or if she has company at home, she desires I will settle accounts or write letters for her, instead of coming as usual into the drawing-room. If this

In this way, Mr. Loiterer, she goes on till she has, as she fancies, completely humbled me, and inspired me with a proper sense of her great consequence. As soon as she thinks she has done that, she begins to relax; and if I appear more than usually dejected, she makes a rapid transition from the extreme of haughtiness to the excess of kindness. If I thought that this tormenting humour proceeded either from malignity or ill-temper, I should despair of effecting a reformation, but I am certain that it is contrary to her natural temper, and that she forces herself to exercise it merely from a fear of lowering her dignity by too much affability. Will you then, Mr. Loiterer, have the goodness to set her right on this point? I know that she has a high respect for your opinion, from the circumstance of your noble descent; and if you will have the kindness to assure her, that affability is

the distinguished characteristic of true gentility, you will be the means of saving many heartaches to your very humble servant, CHARLOTTE.

SIR,

TO THE LOITERER.

People, generally speaking, complain of the malice of mankind, and are angry with their acquaintance for speaking ill of them. I have a right to quarrel with mine on the contrary account, for all my misfortunes proceed from having too good a character. To explain this seeming enigma, I must tell you, that the reputation I enjoyed of being one of the best-humoured and best-natured men in England, gained me the good graces of Miss Alicia Aigre, a young lady whose fortune was rather above what I could have aspired to; and as she was besides rather pretty and apparently amiable, I gladly availed myself of a hint which she caused to be given me of her preference, and we were married. But, alas! Mr. Loiterer, I had hardly time to congratulate myself on my happiness, when I found that I was the most miserable dog alive. My wife, who is an adept in the art of tormenting, chose me merely because she wanted a subject to exercise her talents upon, and she could find nobody else on whom she durst make such an unsparing use of them.

I pity the situation of this correspondent, but I pity still more that of her patroness. In fact, I do not know a more miserable animal than a parvenue struggling to keep up a certain degree of consequence, and dreading lest every deviation from a haughty and artificial manner should || be considered as a derogation from her dignity. If, however, these people had a mind to create for themselves a degree of consequence which mere riches can never procure, they might do it at a much easier rate, by behaving to those they consider as their inferiors with kindness and affability. I do not mean that overstrained affability which is itself the greatest insult that can be offered to the person on whom it is exercised, since it is in fact but another way of saying, Is it not very good of me who am so much superior to you, to take all this trouble to put you at your ease? The affability I mean is very different from this: it is that polite, natural, and easy manner, which, as my correspondent justly observes, is one of the characteristics of true gentility, and which never fails to distinguish all those who wish to be considered as really well-bred people. As her patroness has an opportunity of mixing with such people, I recommend to her an attentive study of their behaviour, and I am convinc-jects of complaint against me, not oned she will soon be cured of the ridi- ly in every thing I say or do, but culous fancy, that haughty airs are even in things with which I have apnecessary to keep up her conse-parently no concern. Thus it is im

Her method, it must be confessed, is rather singular: she does not scold, is not sullen, never has recourse to the common trick of fits or sickness; her only weapon is complaint, and with this she continues to be more formidable to a man of my temper than Xantippe herself; for she harasses me by finding perpetual sub

quence,

N. N.

possible to keep her in good humour. If I stay at home, she is sorry to see