k upon my
sense, redolent of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most
delicate of culinary operations.

Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none--to remember. By the
uncle's side I may be said to have been born an orphan. Brother, or
sister, I never had any--to know them. A sister, I think, that should
have been Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort,
or what a care, may I not have missed in her!--But I have cousins,
sprinkled about in Hertfordshire--besides _two_, with whom I have been
all my life in habits of the closest intimacy, and whom I may term
cousins _par excellence_. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are
older than myself by twelve, and ten, years; and neither of them seems
disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the
prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in
the same mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three,
years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my
grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or younger brother!

James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities, which not
every critic can penetrate; or, if we feel, we cannot explain them.
The pen of Yorick, and of none since his, could have drawn J.E.
entire--those fine Shandian lights and shades, which make up his
story. I must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the fates
have given me grace and talent. J.E. then--to the eye of a common
observer at least--seemeth made up of contradictory principles.--The
genuine child of impulse, the frigid philosopher of prudence--the
phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his
temperament, which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new project
in his brain, J.E. is the systematic opponent of innovation, and crier
down of every thing that has not stood the test of age and experiment.
With a hundred fine notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy,
he is startled at the least approach to the romantic in others; and,
determined by his own sense in every thing, commends _you_ to the
guidance of common sense on all occasions.--With a touch of the
eccentric in all which he does, or says, he is only anxious that _you_
should not commit yourself by doing any thing absurd or singular.
On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a certain
popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to _say_ so--for the world
would think me mad. He disguises a passion