REJECTED LOVE. HELEN it is enough-farewell, for ever, And make a death which hath not pain nor peril. To risk my chance of being happy somewhere. Of compliment, bestow'd upon your beauty, Ye build your triumph out of our abasement. What sage, what school, e'er taught to win a woman? But faith, and love, and constancy, are idle; And, putting thus temptation in eclipse, Mirth's bowl was mawkish, Pleasure's form look'd haggard. T'embalm its habitation, being, as 'twere, Some sweet aroma to resist corruption; A lava stone, the shape and form retaining, TRESSILIAN. THE PEDESTRIAN : Being from the Perambulatory Collection of John Shanks. MR. EDITOR, No. 1. THOUGH naturally a modest man, I have taken leave to obtrude myself upon you at this time, for reasons which, when stated, may induce you to excuse so great a liberty. My appearance and manner, be it known to you, are generally supposed to be somewhat remarkable, or, as my countrymen the Scotch say, kentspecle; and are becoming a subject of talk and observation in most places which I visit; so that, did I not introduce myself to you, you might hear of me by some other hand, in a way, so as to give you a prejudice by no means in my favour. I have thought proper, therefore, to be beforehand with any who might be disposed to caricature me to you, of which promptness you will, no doubt, see the prudence, as it may save me some trouble hereafter, besides giving me the advantage of the first word in my own cause. grace as the flat piece of lead on that pendulum-like article), swung, he said, my clattering hands," each about the size of a shoulder of mutton. He further profaned my person, by calling my back" my trunk," because it is a little elongated; saying that my shoulder-blades stuck out, particularly in certain of my movements, so that my coat looked as it were hung on pins, or on a dyer's frame. My knees, it was averred, betokened great kneeling; and as to my feet, he swore it must have been from me that the Irishwoman asked a shoe, to make of it a cradle for her child. a great deal more, has gone abroad of me; nevertheless, I can assure you it is utterly false, and that I am a very tolerable looking youngish man; though, perhaps, a little bandy, particularly on one side; but one does not know what will please in these new-fangled times; for when I was a stripling of thirty, no gentleman was thought handsome who was not a little bandy, for that was then the fashion. Was it not very provoking to say all this of my person, besides affirming, that my mouth and ears were very near neighbours; and that my skinny jaws were made frightful by my grey whiskers; and because, in the course of shaving, I have left the one something larger than the My name, Sir, is John Shanks; other, to call them by the names of not Cruikshanks, as I have some- the great bear, and the little bear? times been miscalled. My appear--Now, Sir, I confess that this, and ance is allowed, by all worthy persons who have judgment in these matters, to be quite gentlemanlike; not that shabby-genteel, as others have impertinently said; and although I have been profanely called "Old Shanks," I protest I am only fifty years of age, which you will agree with me, Sir, in thinking, leaves me quite a young man.— A half-grown sprig of divinity chose disrespectfully to describe me as a raw, unshapely, gaunt-looking man, with a very long neck, or thraple, as he termed it, which he had the assurance to say, was evidently meant for a rope. He went on shamelessly to say, that my knowlty shoulders rose on each wing of me to a level with my jaws, overlooking my person like promontories, from whence my arms, he protested, hung like the handles of an old-fashioned pump; at the lower extremities of which (with as much Eur. Mag. Vol. 83. It is also false to say that I stutter and mumble, or that my voice sounds as if it came out of an empty cask. I have, indeed, a little asthmatic cough, that I am so accustomed to, I really should feel dull without it; and as for that nervous twist in the mouth, and shake of the head that I occasionally have, I never feel any inconvenience from it, excepting, that certain ill-reared persons sometimes burst out laughing in my face while I am speaking 20 to them; but all sensible persons think it a mark of uncommon wisdom, since the days of the learned Leviathan, Samuel Johnson. But for my profession, Sir, it is not for me to put you in possession of my private affairs. I travel about the country, partly because it is my humour to do so, and partly on a little business. But I am not a pedlar, Sir, be assured-I scorn the name; and when some have taken me for a quack doctor, or a travelling preacher, that is to say, an ambassador from heaven,-give me leave to say, I have always successfully convinced them that I was a gentle man; a little reduced to be sure, but when we became acquainted, they acknowledged that I had the very stamp of gentility, which I could not help shewing in all I said and did. Some even regretted, that I was not constituted a converter of souls; for they said the bend of my eyebrows, and the peculiar sound of my voice, when I condescended to speechify to them, was exceedingly impressive; and were I to discourse to the villagers, of the new birth, or the new Jerusalem, or to "talk of hell, where devils dwell," I could not fail to do wonderful execution. For my conveyance here and there, I am indebted to my poor limbs, or, as the boys say, to my "Shanks" for as Solomon saith wisely, he has "seen servants on horses, and princes walking on their feet." I am, unfortunately, one of these "princes;" for I have, doubt less, many princely qualities, whom athraward fate" obliges-as is vulgarly said of me,-to ride on Shanks's mare, while many of Na ture's serving - men pass me contemptuously on horseback. In deed, I have got rather a distaste at horse-riding, my last exploit in that way not being mixed with any "pleasing remembrances," when I begin to think of it; for although my friend and countryman, Deacon Langladle, complimented me with a gratuitous ride upon his auld mare Margery, which he loved long and well, nathless that she was rather lean and long-backed like myself, I could not get decently through the town of Thurlowton astride of her, but the young folks should be jeering and bawling after me, to come down and look at myself riding; and the gentlefolks swore I was Don Quixote come alive again, and offered me a spur and a barber's basin. But for all this, Sir, I am a gentleman, who has seen better days, and have observed and suffered not a few of the evils of life. Being apt enough to complain myself, "complainers frequently fall in my way; and as my pedestrian excursions bring me often into conversation with those kind of " princes" who are forced to walk on their legswith those who are poor and jovial, as well as with the dispirited and the complaining as I have got a facility in entering into people's humours, and as I can give groan for groan, and am considered kindhearted and compassionate, I hear many a sorrowful tale, and observe many a strange character. Moreover, being considered rather an odd man, and above the quality of those I am apt to meet in my perambulations, persons more readily open their mind to me than to their equals. A young woman tells me of her disappointments in love, and an old man of his success or disappointments in his avaricious schemes, for the mere pleasure of telling them. The one boasts of her conquests, and the other of his sagacity and his craft, because these are subjects on which they love to speak, when they can do it as they can to me without that suspicion and reservation, which experience imposes upon the freedom of communication among neighbours and equals, who may take advantage of the weaknesses of each other. Now, Sir, not doubting but that you will take my part against any who would calumniate my character or ridicule my person, I will, in return, give you a few of the narratives and adventures which have been communicated to me in the course of my excursions; and as I have an excellent memory, and do not shut my eyes to what is worth remarking, you shall have them as they have been given to me, with all possible truth and accuracy. My road the other day lay through a desolate moss in Scotland, lying between Kilmarnock and Glasgow, well known by the name of the # Mearns Moor. The cheapness of "Gude day, Mem," I said, ad- 307 rested a little, and if ye're gaun on to Glasgow, I shall be blythe of your company, for ye are a reverend looking gentleman, and solid, if ye will" and she smiled mournfully travelling companion of a silly body, "think it worth your while to be the who will not be apt to make you laugh.""Indeed I will be glad to be your companion, Mistress," I said, " and not the less so, that you seem rather sad, as I am sorry to perceive; but perhaps I may be able to divert your mind as we proceed. You may suppose I have not lived until this day without my own share of the sorrows of life, nor would I be now travelling this road on foot if I had been among the fortunate and the happy." The little woman looked in my face when I had said this, and seemed impressed with somewhat that she would say, but restrained herself, and only looked something which I cannot describe; then giving a smile, as if in grati tude to me for putting myself on a level with her feelings, she proceeded onwards. After walking a short time in silence, she reached her hand to me, and said, " as you are so attentive, Sir, will you allow me to take your arm. A woman," she continued, "requires a staff to lean upon through this world, partienlarly a weak broken hearted creature like me; but my staff is gone, and I am to wander through the world alone!" Here she stopt; her heart was full, and I did not interrupt her-but she seemed to strain against her feelings, wiped away her tears, and begged my pardon for obtruding her griefs upon a stranger. After some conversation, in which she, at my request, agreed to beshe seemed to recover her spirits, guile the time on the road by telling me her story, which she did as follows: The Widow's Story. Sir, with an account of my early "I need not take up your time, years. I enjoyed much in the company of an excellent mother, read expected happiness of life. But my much, and anticipated much of the father always called me a novelreading fool; and my mother shook her head, and warned me against setting my heart upon any thing in this world, exhorted me to endeavour to conquer my sensibility, and to think soberly.' As I grew up I perceived, with sorrow, that I was very destitute of personal attractions, the grand object of value to a woman; and my mother told me, that as to marriage,-what a woman's destiny generally turns upon,-I might think myself fortunate if I obtained a man in years, and in decent circumstances; a plain man, who would take me for other qualities than personal beauty."-Here my gallantry obliged me to interrupt the lady, by observing, that she must have been undervaluing herself, or my eyes deceived me; but she only faintly smiled, and proceeded : "I enjoyed little of the pleasures of youth, and scarcely knew any thing of the interesting and hopeful enjoyments of young females who are sought after, admired and loved. My good sense was praised, my erudition was talked of, sometimes sneered at; but beauty! that dear subject of interest to a woman, was never mentioned in my presence, except with reference to others, in such a way, as to shew me its value in the eyes of men, and to give me a humble opinion of myself. The young men talked of books with me and my father, but they made up their party of pleasure without ever thinking of me; and prefered the silliest coquets, the merest mental nonentities, because of some girlish beauty of face or person. This was most chagrining to me, as I had naturally strong sensibility and much relish for the endearments of affection and the passions of the heart. The emulations and preferences of the young party or the ball-room I was not destined to partake of; to the look of admiration or of interest, in public or private, I was quite a stranger, and the delicious evening walk with a lover, the stolen whisper or interview, I was fated never to enjoy. Old men talked religion with me, young men talked about the weather or the wars, but their little love topics and scandals among their rivals and sweethearts, they feared to speak of in my presence, and love was never mentioned, except in ridicule. "Meantime my father died, and was soon followed by my excellent mother, whose death caused me much grief, and whose counsel I was soon greatly to miss. My support was cut off by their death, and I had no relations alive, except a brother, who was abroad, and could not be useful to me; but I had fortunately been bred to dress-making, in which business I now set up, and to which I turned energetically for a livelihood. I got business by degrees, my mind was kept employed, and I maintained myself as a tradeswoman, respectable and independent. "There now came some to my house in quality of suitors, but none such as my fancy had painted, or as 1 could even think of as husbands. One there was who had been pretty intimate with my father; a coarse man, upwards of forty, stingy, worldly, and easy in circumstances. His addresses at first frightened me, at the bare idea of such a man being my companion for life, and the sharer of my bed. But as he became serious in his advances, I began to think of the folly of rejecting him, particularly as I was now twenty-five, and had little chance, as I thought, of obtaining a young man whom I could love, or who would feel the affection for me which I thought naturally should belong to the conjugal state. In short, good sense, if you please to call it so, overcame my natural aversion to him as a man; for I referred to the whole of life and its substantial comforts, and tried to reconcile myself to complete disappointment for life of any exercise for those feelings as far as regarded my husband, which nature had so intimately connected with my happiness. "But this conquest over myself and all that had been dear to my imagination, that had still been the subject of my undeferred hope for many years, was not achieved for some time, nor without tears and regrets more than I need tell. In short, I reconciled my mind to marry the man who was the very antipode of the man I could have loved. I consented, and the day was fixed when we should go together to the next large town for some marriage articles. In the morning when we were to have proceeded, I was ready at the time appointed, but it rained a little, and he came not, nor for the whole of the day did he make |