18

CONFESSIONS OF PETER PUG.

My name is Peter Pug. I never was in love but twice. I have no wish to be in it a third time. I lost my first inamorata by a blunder of my own; the fault of my losing the second, does not attach to me: it rests with the young lady herself.

I will not weary the reader with a long story respecting the ways and means whereby I got acquainted with my first Dulcinea; neither will I attempt to be minutely eloquent in praise of her charms. I am fond of a nervous, condensed style of writing; particularly, when speaking of either of the two girls I loved. I say then at once, that Jemima was a perfect angel, both personally and intellectually. What more could I say in her praise, though I were write till doomsday?

I never take things, particularly in matters relating to love, in moderation: I like to be either hot or cold. I have no conception of an intermediate state of feeling. Nature has endowed me with unusually strong feelings and passions. I was desperately in love with Jemima; and, what is more, I thought I had every reason to believe that she loved me in return,— if not so violently, at least to such a degree as ought to have made me satisfied.

Those whom we love, we like to speak of. So says the proverb, and so say I. Nothing in the world afforded me greater pleasure than to hear other people speak of Jemima-always excepting the hearing herself speak-because I knew it was not in human nature to utter a word about her except what was in her praise. When my acquaintances betrayed no disposition to speak of her charms of their own accord, I generally contrived to decoy them into the subject by some means or other.

Two of my acquaintances had a particularly excellent taste as regarded the ladies. I knew full well from an indirect source, how highly

they thought of Jemima; but, somehow or other, they provokingly eschewed, notwithstanding all my attempts to trepan them into it, the subject of her charms when conversing with me.

I determined one day to fall on some scheme or other to call them out; not to fight, far from it; but to call them out in the way of expressing what they thought of the attractions of Jemima. I spent an entire blessed day in ruminating on the best way of doing this. After proposing and abandoning, in my own mind, countless devices for the purpose, many of them, I am convinced, excessively ingenious, I concluded that the best plan would be to get my two friends and self seated in the head inn of the place, and to begin discussing a bottle of the grateful grape; not doubting that the infinitely more agreeable topic of the peerless attractions of Jemima would be substituted ere long.

It is no crime, is it, to be poor? I know there are those who practically think so; but this comes of ignorance and a want of principle. I have no hesitation in admitting that I was poor when in love with Jemima: with my pre

sent circumstances the world has nothing to do. I consoled myself in my poverty with the reflection, that it is often with lovers as with poets; that is to say, that the poorest make the best. As to poor men making first-rate lovers, I had an example in myself which abundantly satisfied me on the point. As to poor poets very often making the best poets-there is no Irishism here my extensive learning supplied me with innumerable proofs. Does the reader want any? Let him take the instances of Homer, Terence, Tasso, Dryden, Otway, Chatterton, Goldsmith, and a thousand others.

But why acquaint the public with my poverty? Because when they have read what follows, they will be the better able to appreciate the ardour of my affection for Jemima.

I have said that I intended to invite my two friends to partake of a bottle of wine with me at the head inn of the place. I knew the liquid was not to be got for nothing. I knew more than this: I knew the precise price which would be charged. When I had formed the resolution of treating my friends to a bottle, I had neither gold,

silver, nor copper in my pocket. To speak a truth, I had not handled any of the circulating medium for some days before. My only expedient therefore was, to levy on the pockets of my friends: not in the way of charity; for poor as I often have been, that I have always scorned; but in the way of procuring a temporary loan,—though I must confess that some of my loans have not been so temporary as I could have wished, and as I persuaded myself they would be at the time of contracting them.

By the kindness of eight of my friends-two of them severally advanced me a sixpence, it not being convenient to go farther at the time, and the remainder a shilling each-by the kindness

of

my friends, I raised the sum of seven shillings. I was much elated at my success, notwithstanding the rebuffs and denials I had met with from several persons of whom better things might have been expected.

My first determination was to go to the Flying Eagle with my pockets replenished to the extent just mentioned; but on second thoughts, as the occasion was rare, and the object one of