pensity taught me painfully to appreciate the difference between my dear first Daddy and my Daddy-Long-legs.

My father Heavy-sides was what is called slow and sure: which means sure to be left behind. He had a solemn creak in his shoes, that declared how deliberately his toes turned on their hinges; his movement through life was a minuet de la cour. My step-father Walker's was a gallopade. Considered as foot-soldiers, or adverse parties of infantry, before one had well marched into his position, the other would have turned his right flank, cut off his left wing, charged his centre, harassed his rear, and surrounded his whole body. They were, alas! literally the quick and the dead, causing between them a race of my toes against my tears, and, if anything, my toes ran the fastest and farthest.

There has been lately a good deal of speculation as to the ownership of a certain poem; but I feel assured that my stepfather was the practical author of the "Devil's Walk." The march of mind might possibly have kept up with him, but no march of body could do it; least of all, such a body as mine, naturally heavy, and furnished with a pair of lower limbs very different from those of the son of Scriblerus, who made his legs his compasses for measuring islands and continents. Strain them as I would in pursuit of my step-father, I seemed to take nothing by my motion; those hopeless coat-flaps were always in front; like Dr. Johnson's great Shakespeare, with little Time at his heels, I panted after him in vain. The pace, as the jockeys say, was severe. It was, literally, a flight of steps, for he seemed to fly. If any gentleman could be in two places at once, like a bird, that man was my step-father, or rather fore-father, for he was always in front. His stride was that of the Colossus of Rhodes; like Robinson Crusoe, you could discern one footprint in the sand, but the other was beyond discovery. My infatuated mother was, nevertheless, continually holding him out to me as an example, and recommending me to "tread in his steps; "I wish I had been able! When his friends or creditors have been informed at the door that he "had just stept out," how little did they dream that it meant he was a mile off!

It was his pleasure, whenever my step-father walked, that I should accompany him; such accompaniment as flute adagio is sometimes heard to give to piano prestissimo. He seemed

to pride himself, like some pompous people, in constantly having a poor foot-boy trotting at his heels: often did I beg to be left at home; often, but vainly, address him in the language of old Capulet's domestic, "Good thou, save me a piece of march-pane." The descriptive phrase of "rocky fastnesses" was but too typical of his speed and temper; he had no more pity for me, than the great striding Ogre, in the sevenTeagued boots, for little Hop-o'-my-Thumb.

The day of retribution at last came, for, according to the clown's doctrine, the whirligig of time always brings round its revenges. My poor mother died, and had a walking funeral, and my step-father felt more for her than I had expected; but he suffered most in his legs and feet: the measured pace of the procession afflicted him beyond measure; he longed to give sorrow strides, but was forbidden; and he walked and grieved like a fiery horse upon the fret. The slow pace seemed as a slow poison: it has been affirmed that he caught cold upon the occasion; but whether he did or not, from that day he took ill, went off rapidly, as he always did, in a galloping consumption, and died, leaving me, as usual, behind him. In compliance with his last wish, he was furnished with a walking funeral, and, as decency dictated, I followed him to the grave; though, in truth, it was sacrificing the only opportunity I ever had in the world of getting before him.

I have been told that, the evening of his decease, his apparition appeared to a first cousin at Penryn, and the same night to his brother at Appleby. I have no particular faith in ghosts, but this I do most firmly believe, that if any Body had the Spirit to do the distance in the time, it was the very Spirit of my step-father Walker.

A BLIND MAN

Is a Blackamoor turned outside in. His skin is fair, but his lining is utter dark; his eyes are like shotten stars, mere jellies; or like mock-painted windows since the tax upon daylight: what his mind's eye can be, is yet a mystery with the

learned, or if he hath a mental capacity at all,- for “out of sight is out of mind."

Wherever he stands, he is antipodean, with his midnight to your noon. The brightest sunshine serves only to make him the gloomier object, like a dark house at a general illumination. When he stirs, it is like a Venetian blind, being pulled up and down by a string; he is a human kettle tied to a dog's tail, and with much of the same tin twang in his tone. With botanists he is a species of solanum, or nightshade, whereof the berries are in his eyes; amongst painters he is only contemned, for his ignorance of clare-obscure; but by musicians marvelled at for playing, ante-sight, on an invisible fiddle. He stands against a wall with his two blank orbs, like a figure in high relief, howbeit but seldom relieved; and though he is fond of getting pence, yet he is confessedly blind to his own interest.

In his religion he is a materialist, putting no faith but in things palpable; in politics, no visionary; in his learning, a smatterer, his knowledge of all being superficial; in his age, a child, being yet in leading-strings; in his life, immortal, for death may lengthen his night, but can put no end to his days; in his courage, heroic, for he winks at no danger; in his pretensions, humble, confessing that he is nothing even in his own eyes; in his malady, hopeless, for eyes of looking-glass would not help him to see. To conclude, - he is pitied by the rich, relieved by the poor, oppressed by the beadle, and horsewhipped by the fox-hunter, for not giving the view holla!

A HORSE-DEALER

Is a double dealer, for he dealeth more in double meanings than your punster. When he giveth his word it signifieth little, howbeit it standeth for two significations. He putteth his promises like his colts, in a break. Over his mouth, Truth, like the turnpike-man, writeth up No Trust. Whenever he speaketh, his spoke hath more turns than the fore-wheel. He telleth lies, not white only, or black, but likewise gray, bay,

chestnut-brown, cream, and roan, piebald and skewbald. He sweareth as many oaths out of court as any man, and more in; for he will swear two ways about a horse's dam. If, by God's grace, he be something honest, it is only a dapple, for he can be fair and unfair at once. He hath much imagination, for he selleth a complete set of capital harness, of which there be no traces. He advertiseth a coach, warranted on its first wheels, and truly the hind pair are wanting to the bargain. A carriage that hath travelled twenty summers and winters, he describeth well-seasoned. He knocketh down machine-horses that have been knocked up on the road, but is so tender of heart to his animals, that he parteth with none for a fault; "for," as he sayeth, "blindness or lameness be misfortunes." A nag, proper only for dog's meat, he writeth down, but crieth up, "fit to go to any hounds;" or, as may be, “would suit a timid gentleman." String-halt he calleth "grand action," and kicking "lifting the feet well up." If a mare have the farcical disease, he nameth her "out of Comedy," and selleth Blackbird for a racer because he hath a running thrush. Horses that drink only water, he justly warranteth to be "temperate," and if dead lame, declareth them "good in all their paces," seeing that they can go but one. Roaring he calleth "sound," and a steed that high bloweth in running, he compareth to Eclipse, for he outstrippeth the wind. Another might be entered as a steeple chase, for why he is as fast as a church. Thoroughpin with him is synonymous with "perfect leg." If a nag cougheth, 't is "a clever hack." If his knees be fractured, he is "well broke for gig or saddle." If he reareth, he is "above sixteen hands high." If he hath drawn a tierce in a cart, he is a good fencer. If he biteth, he shows good courage; and he is playful merely, though he should play the devil. If he runneth away, he calleth him "off the Gretna Road, and has been used to carry a lady." If a cob stumbleth, he considers him a true goer, and addeth, "The proprietor parteth from him to go abroad." Thus, without much profession of religion, yet he is truly Christian-like in practice, for he dealeth not in detraction, and would not disparage the character even of a brute. Like unto Love, he is blind unto all blemishes, and seeth only a virtue, meanwhile he gazeth at a vice. He taketh the kick of a nag's hoof like a love-token, saying only, before standers-by, "Poor fellow,—

he knoweth me!”

and is content rather to pass as a bad rider, than that the horse should be held restive or overmettlesome, which discharges him from its back. If it hath bitten him beside, and moreover bruised his limb against a coach-wheel, then, constantly returning good for evil, he giveth it but the better character, and recommendeth it before all the studs in his stable. In short, the worse a horse may be, the more he chanteth his praise, like a crow that croweth over Old Ball, whose lot it is on a common to meet with the Common Lot.

REFLECTIONS ON WATER.

"When the butt is out, we will drink water: not a drop before."

TEMPEST.

I HAVE Stephano's aversion to water. I never take any by chance into my mouth, without the proneness of our Tritons and Dolphins of the Fountain, to spout it forth again. It is on the palate, as in tubs and hand-basins, egregiously washy. It hath not for me even what is called " an amiable weakness." For the sake only of quantity, not quality, do I sometimes adulterate my Cogniac or Geneva with the flimsy fluid. Aquarius is not my sign; at the praises heaped on Sir Hugh Myddleton, for leading his trite streamlet up to London, my lip curleth. Methinks if such a sloppy labor could at one time more than another betray a misguided taste, it was in those days, when, we are told, "The Grete Conduict, in Chepe, did runne forth Wyne." And then to hear talk withal of the New River Head, as if, forsooth, the weak current poured even from Ware unto London were capable of that goodly headed capital, the caput, of Stout Porter, or lusty Ale.

The taste for aquatics is none of mine. I laugh at Cowes'it should be Calves' Regattas; it passeth my understanding, to conceive the pleasure of contending with all your sail and sea, your might and main, for a prize cup of water. Gentle reader, if ever we two should encounter at good-men's