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a part of the second, to assist a man over the gaps of speech-the little aukward intervals, called want of ideas.

Deprive a man of his stick, who is accustomed to carry one, and with what a diminished sense of vigour and gracefulness he issues out of his house! Wanting his stick, he wants himself. His self-possession, like Acres's on the duel-ground, has gone out of his fingers' ends; but restore it him, and how he resumes his energy! If a common walking-stick, he cherishes the top of it with his fingers, putting them out and back again, with a fresh desire to feel it in his palm! How he strikes it against the ground, and feels power come back to his arm! How he makes the pavement ring with the ferule, if in a street; or decapitates the downy thistles aforesaid, if in a field! Then if it be a switch, how firmly he jerks his step at the first infliction of it on the air! How he quivers the point of it as he goes, holding the handle with a straitdropped arm and a tight grasp! time to the switches! How he

How his foot keeps twigs the luckless

pieces of lilac or other shrubs, that peep out of a garden railing! And if a sneaking-looking dog is coming by, how he longs to exercise his despotism and his moral sense at once, by giving him an invigorating twinge!

But what would certain men of address do without their cane or switch? There is an undoubted Rhabdosophy, Sceptrosophy, or Wisdom of the Stick, besides the famous Divining Rod, with which people

used to discover treasures and fountains. It supplies a man with inaudible remarks, and an inexpressible number of graces. Sometimes, breathing between his teeth, he will twirl the end of it upon his stretchedout toe; and this means, that he has an infinite number of easy and powerful things to say, if he had a mind. Sometimes he holds it upright between his knees, and tattoos it against his teeth or under-lip, which implies that he meditates coolly. On other occasions he switches the side of his boot with it, which announces elegance in general. Lastly, if he has not a bon-mot ready in answer to one, he has only to thrust his stick at your ribs, and say, "Ah! you rogue !" which sets him above you in an instant, as a sort of patronizing wit, who can dispense with the necessity of joking.

At the same time, to give it its due zest in life, a stick has its inconveniences. If you have yellow gloves on, and drop it in the mud, a too hasty recovery is aukward. To have it stick between the stones of a pavement is not pleasant, especially if it snap the ferule off; or more especially if an old gentleman or lady is coming behind you, and after making them start back with winking eyes, it threatens to trip them up. To lose the ferule on a country road, renders the end liable to the growth of a sordid brush, which, not having a knife with you, or a shop in which to borrow one, goes pounding the wet up against your legs. In a crowded street you may have the stick driven into a large pane of glass; upon

which an unthinking tradesman, utterly indifferent to a chain of events, issues forth and demands twelve

and sixpence.

XXXIX.-OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS.

THOUGH We are such lovers of the country, we can admire London in some points of view; and among others, from the entertainment to be derived from its shops. Their variety and brilliancy can hardly fail of attracting the most sluggish attention; and besides reasons of this kind, we can never look at some of them without thinking of the gallant figure they make in the Arabian Nights, with their Bazaars and Bezesteins; where the most beautiful of unknowns goes shopping in a veil, and the most graceful of drapers is taken blindfold to see her. He goes, too smitten at heart to think of the danger of his head; and finds her seated among her slaves, (exquisite themselves, only very inferior), upon which she encourages him to sit near her, and lutes are played; upon which he sighs, and cannot help looking tenderly; upon which she claps her hands, and a charming collation is brought in; upon which they eat, but not much. A dance ensues, and the ocular sympathy is growing tenderer, when an impossible old woman appears, and says that the Sultan is coming. Alas! How often have we been waked up, in the person of the young

draper or jeweller, by that ancient objection! How have we received the lady in the veil, through which we saw nothing but her dark eyes and rosy cheeks! How have we sat cross-legged on cushions, hearing or handling the lute, whose sounds faded away like our enamoured eyes! How often have we not lost our hearts and left-hands, like one of the Calendars ? Or an eye, like another? Or a head; and resumed it at the end of the story? Or slept (no, not slept) in the Sultan's garden at Schiraz with the Fair Persian.

But to return (as well as such enamoured persons can) to our shops. We prefer the country a million times over for walking in generally, especially if we have the friends in it that enjoy it as well; but there are seasons when the very streets may vie with it. If you have been solitary, for instance, for a long time, it is pleasant to get among your fellow-creatures again, even to be jostled and elbowed. If you live in town, and the weather is showery, you may get out in the intervals of rain, and then a quickly dried pavement and a set of brilliant shops are pleasant. Nay, we have known days, even in spring, when a street shall out-do the finest aspects of the country; but then it is only when the ladies are abroad, and there happens to be a run of agreeable faces that day. For whether it is fancy or not, or whether certain days do not rather bring out certain people, it is a common remark, that one morning you shall meet a succession of good looks, and another encounter none but the

reverse. We do not merely speak of handsome faces; but of those which are charming, or otherwise, whatever be the cause. We suppose, that the moneytakers are all abroad one day, and the heart-takers the other.

It is to be observed, that we are not speaking of utility in this article, except indeed the great utility of agreeableness. A candid leather-cutter therefore will pardon us, if we do not find any thing very attractive in his premises. So will his friend the shoemaker, who is bound to like us rural pedestrians, A stationer too, on obvious accounts, will excuse us for thinking his a very dull and bald-headed business. We cannot bear the horribly neat monotony of his shelves, with their load of virgin paper, their slates and slate-pencils that set one's teeth on edge, their pocket-books, and above all, their detestable ruled account-books, which at once remind one of the necessity of writing, and the impossibility of writing any thing pleasant on such pages, The only agreeable thing, in a stationer's shop, when it has it, is the ornamental work, the card-racks, hand-screens, &c. which remind us of the fair morning fingers that paste and gild such things, and surprise their aunts with presents of flowery boxes. But we grieve to add, that the prints which the stationers furnish for such elegancies, are not in the very highest taste. They are apt to deviate too scrupulously from the originals Their well-known heads become too anonymous. Their young ladies have casts in the eyes, a little too

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