beauties of the first order? Every man
in his circle knows women who give themselves airs, and to whom we can
apply the port-wine simile.

Come, my friends. Here is enough of ordinaire and port for to-day. My
bottle has run out. Will anybody have any more? Let us go up stairs, and
get a cup of tea from the ladies.

OGRES.

I dare say the reader has remarked that the upright and independent
vowel, which stands in the vowel-list between E and O, has formed the
subject of the main part of these essays. How does that vowel feel this
morning?--fresh, good-humored, and lively? The Roundabout lines,
which fall from this pen, are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. Has
anything, on the contrary, disagreed with the vowel? Has its rest been
disturbed, or was yesterday's dinner too good, or yesterday's wine not
good enough? Under such circumstances, a darkling, misanthropic tinge,
no doubt, is cast upon the paper. The jokes, if attempted, are elaborate
and dreary. The bitter temper breaks out. That sneering manner is
adopted, which you know, and which exhibits itself so especially when
the writer is speaking about women. A moody carelessness comes over
him. He sees no good in anybody or thing: and treats gentlemen, ladies,
history, and things in general, with a like gloomy flippancy. Agreed.
When the vowel in question is in that mood, if you like airy gayety and
tender gushing benevolence--if you want to be satisfied with yourself
and the rest of your fellow-beings; I recommend you, my dear creature,
to go to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article.
There are moods in the mind of the vowel of which we are speaking, when
it is ill-conditioned and captious. Who always keeps good health, and
good humor? Do not philosophers grumble? Are not sages sometimes out
of temper? and do not angel-women go off in tantrums? To-day my mood is
dark. I scowl as I dip my pen in the inkstand.

Here is the day come round--for everything here is done with the utmost
regularity:--intellectual labor, sixteen hours; meals, thirty-two
minutes; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight minutes; conversation with
the family, chiefly literary, and about the housekeeping, one hour and
four minutes; sleep, three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the
month, when the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more);
and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the Roundabout
Paper Day being come, and the subject