of launching out into greater expense and liberality with the tide of
fortune, they draw back with the fear of consequences, and think to
succeed on a broader scale by dint of meanness and parsimony. My uncle
Toby frequently caught Trim standing up behind his chair, when he had
told him to be seated. What the corporal did out of respect, others
would do out of servility. The menial character does not wear out
in three or four generations. You cannot keep some people out of the
kitchen, merely because their grandfathers or grandmothers came out
of it. A poor man and his wife walking along in the neighbourhood of
Portland Place, he said to her peevishly, 'What is the use of walking
along these fine streets and squares? Let us turn down some alley!' He
felt he should be more at home there. Lamb said of an old acquaintance
of his, that when he was young he wanted to be a tailor, but had not
spirit! This is the misery of unequal matches. The woman cannot easily
forget, or think that others forget, her origin; and, with perhaps
superior sense and beauty, keeps painfully in the background. It is
worse when she braves this conscious feeling, and displays all the
insolence of the upstart and affected fine lady. But shouldst thou ever,
my Infelice, grace my home with thy loved presence, as thou hast
cheered my hopes with thy smile, thou wilt conquer all hearts with thy
prevailing gentleness, and I will show the world what Shakespear's women
were!--Some gallants set their hearts on princesses; others descend in
imagination to women of quality; others are mad after opera-singers. For
my part, I am shy even of actresses, and should not think of leaving my
card with Madame Vestris. I am for none of these _bonnes fortunes;_ but
for a list of humble beauties, servant-maids and shepherd-girls, with
their red elbows, hard hands, black stockings and mob-caps, I could
furnish out a gallery equal to Cowley's, and paint them half as well.
Oh! might I but attempt a description of some of them in poetic prose,
Don Juan would forget his Julia, and Mr. Davison might both print
and publish this volume. I agree so far with Horace, and differ with
Montaigne. I admire the Clementinas and Clarissas at a distance: the
Pamelas and Fannys of Richardson and Fielding make my blood tingle. I
have written love-letters to such in my time, _d'un pathetique a faire
fendre les rochers,_ and with about as much effect as if they had been
addressed to stone. The s