no reason, and no fastidious delicacy to prevent me.If, however, I am a puddle in your path, I have most politely pointed out a stepping stone, at page 57, so that you may escape soiling your shoe if you will:laying this unction to my conscience, I proceed. But, at the rate I am going on, I shall not get born to-day,which, ma'am, as I am engaged to dine abroad at five, will be rather awkward. I will not, then, torture my reader (if I have one,) by tracing my line through the Gordian intricacies of the true love knots so formally extending through the document before me, uniting "Momus Jaques, to Catharine Boleyn, who had issue" &c. &c.-but by an Alexandrine cut, arrive at Roland Jaques, Esq., and Margaret his wife"my parents. I have no time to dwell on these characters,-I must make haste, and get into the world,-or I shall be too late for the Leodiensian. 66 My mother being a Scotchwoman, had an amazing prejudice against Englishmen (pray, Sir, what countryman was your father? He was born, maʼam, in Kilkenny)—which was only exceeded by her absurd antipathy to the Yorkshire part of them in particular. She naturally enough wished all her children to be Scots;-but she would rather have mother'd Barabbas than a Yorkshireman.-In August 1809, being in the south, and calculating that in about six weeks the family would be 1, my parents set out intending to reach Crowdie Hall, Fifeshire, before the event should take place. They had not advanced three miles into the southern confines of Yorkshire when-(it was the day preceding partridge shooting)—a sportsman essaying his piece frightened the horses and their carriage was overturned. My mother was born into a cottage in convulsions, and I into the world in-half an hour-an Englishman and (alas! my poor mother never thoroughly recovered it !)— a Yorkshireman! It was my misfortune to inherit at my birth a share of the family eccentricity-the quality is, I think, an heir loom with us:-and such has been the perverseness of my fate that I seem destined on every occasion to be unlike others. When a few months old, an attempt was made to christen me, but it failed!— I had the usual infantile antipathy to cold water, and the prudent nurse suggested to the curate the propriety of boiling itbut he was not to be persuaded. She, therefore, foreseeing a squall, gave me a choral whistle to divert myself with during the ceremony; but when it came to the water, I so little enjoyed the element that I gave my face a thump with the toy and cut a gash under my left eye, the slight scar of which is still visible, and setting up a scream threw all into confusion. I-a bleeding little demi-christian, was carried away, and the ceremony being only half performed, was never registered; no attempt was 'ever made to repeat it ;-so that to this day I have no christian name-but am called, as was intended, "NICHOLAS." I well remember being twice whipped at school-once for making thick upstrokes; and a second time for suggesting to my tutor in reading the 14th chap. of St. Luke, that if I made as lame an excuse for truant as the man that had married a wife did for his absence, I should have fared ill-for he might easily have gotten a pillion and taken his rib to the supper behind him. As I richly deserved (and do now, I half incline to think, for relating it,)-I was flogged, elevated on a form, adorned with my motley crest-(meet emblem of my mind),-and designated by the angry pedagogue-"an eccentric blockhead," as I am frequently synonymised to this day;-and, by the way, I take this opportunity of informing the young lady whom I over-heard in the Music Saloon the other evening asking"who was that singular young man in black that trod on her aunt's toes," that it was Mr. Jaques-much at her serviceBut the only interesting event of my life was on my entering my 10th year. There were 66 Tut! tut! tut!If I have not taken up five pages of your invaluable journal" and three hours and a half of my time, in writing of myself, and have hardly got into the 2nd Act of my ancestor's Drama! I declare I am ashamed of myself. Positively, I will stop. Here, Dick, dot me the i's, and carry it to Robinson and Hernaman's: and call at Muff's, and get me half a pound of green tea, and some fiddle-strings. Ardennes Lodge, Morning, 28th Nov. 1827. Jaques. You seem suspicious but I entreat you to believe that the embellishments of this narrative are, like those of our family, confined to the head. NOVEMBER.* OLD Winter now o'er Britain's wide domain All nature pines beneath the wintry blast. *We regretted our inability to insert this last month, as (though it appears to be the production of a young writer) it possesses, in our opinion, considerable poetical merit.-ED. Look round and mark where festive riot reigns, Ah! if the rich but knew the poor man's lot, THE DETECTED DOCTOR. A Doctor once of vast renown For oratory (not his own), Attracted crowds of belles and beaux, From whom his preaching gain d applause; For in Theology, 'tis said, His hearers were not deeply read; It chanc'd upon a luckless day, G. |