and condemning himself to his own dull company throughout a rainy day. And then, too, he lived too well for a discontented politician. He seemed to expatiate on a variety of dishes, and to sit over his wine like a jolly friend of good living. Indeed, my doubts on this head were soon at an end; for he could not have finished his first bottle before I could faintly hear him humming a tune; and on listening, I found it to be "God save the King." "Twas plain, then, he was no radical, but a faithful subject; one that grew loyal over his bottle, and was ready to stand by king and constitution when he could stand by nothing else. But who could he be! My conjectures began to run wild. Was he not some personage of distinction travelling incog.? "God knows!" said I, at my wit's end; "it may be one of the royal family, for aught I know, for they are all stout gentlemen!" The weather continued rainy. The mysterious unknown kept his room, and, as far as I could judge, his chair, for I did not hear him move. In the mean time, as the day advanced, the travellers'-room began to be frequented. Some, who had just arrived, came in buttoned up in box-coats;-others came home who had been dispersed about the town. Some took their dinners, and some their tea. Had I been in a different mood, I should have found entertainment in studying this peculiar class of men. There were two especially, who were regular wags of the road, and up to all the standing jokes of travellers. They had a thousand sly things to say to the waiting-maid, whom they called Louisa, and Ethelinda, and a dozen other fine names, changing the name every time, and chuckling amazingly at their own waggery. My mind, however, had become completely engrossed by the stout gentleman. He had kept my fancy in chase during a long day, and it was not now to be diverted from the scent. The evening gradually wore away. The travellers read the papers two or three times over. Some drew round the fire, and told long stories about their horses, about their adventures, their overturns, and breakings down. They discussed the credits of different merchants and different inns; and the two wags told several choice anecdotes of pretty chambermaids, and kind landladies. All this passed as they were quietly taking what they called their night-caps, that is to say, strong glasses of brandy and water and sugar, or some other mixture of the kind; after which they one after another rang for "Boots" and the chambermaid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into marvellously uncomfortable slippers. There was only one man left; a short-legged, longbodied, plethoric fellow, with a very large, sandy head. He sat by himself, with a glass of Port wine negus and a spoon; sipping and stirring, and meditating and sipping, until nothing was left but the spoon. He gradually fell asleep bolt upright in his chair, with the empty glass standing before him; and the candle seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long, and black, and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the little light that remained in the chamber. The gloom that now prevailed was contagious. Around hung the shapeless, and almost spectral, box-coats of departed travellers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only heard the ticking of the clock, with the deep-drawn breathings of the sleeping toper, and the drippings of the rain, dropdrop-drop, from the eaves of the house. The church bells chimed midnight. All at once the stout gentleman began to walk over head, pacing slowly backwards and forwards. There was something extremely awful in all this, especially to one in my state of nerves.These ghastly great coats, these guttural breathings, and the creeking footsteps of this mysterious being. His steps grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. I could bear it no longer. I was wound up to the desperation of a hero of romance. "Be he who or what he may," said I to myself, "I'll have a sight of him!" I seized a chamber candle, and hurried up to number thirteen. The door stood ajar. I hesitatedI entered the room was deserted. There stood a large, broad-bottomed elbow-chair at a table, on which was an empty tumbler, and a "Times newspaper, and the room smelt powerfully of Stilton cheese. The mysterious stranger had evidently but just retired. I turned off, sorely disappointed, to my room, which had been changed to the front of the house. As I went along the corridor, I saw a large pair of boots, with dirty, waxed tops, standing at the door of a bedchamber. They doubtless belonged to the unknown; but it would not do to disturb so redoubtable a personage in his den; he might discharge a pistol, or something worse, at my head. I went to bed, therefore, and lay awake half the night in a terrible nervous state; and even when I fell asleep, I was still haunted in my dreams by the idea of the stout gentleman and his waxtopped boots. I slept rather late the next morning, and was awakened by some stir and bustle in the house, which I could not at first comprehend; until getting more awake, I found there was a mail-coach starting from the door. Suddenly there was a cry from below, "The gentleman has forgot his umbrella! look for the gentleman's umbrella in number thirteen!" I heard an immediate scampering of a chambermaid along the passage, and a shrill reply as she ran, "Here it is! here's the gentleman's umbrella!" 4 The mysterious stranger then was on the point of setting off. This was the only chance I should ever have of knowing him. I sprang out of bed, scrambled to the window, snatched aside the curtains, and just caught a glimpse of the rear of a person getting in at the coach-door. The skirts of a brown coat parted behind, and gave me a full view of the broad disk of a pair of drab breeches. The door closed-" all right!" was the word-the coach whirled off:-and that was all I ever saw of the stout gentleman! Washington Irving. LINES BY THE HON. G. TUCKER, OF VIRGINIA. DAYS of my youth! ye have glided away; Days of my youth! I wish not your recall; you Days of my age! ye will shortly be past; been ; COMPLAINT OF THE DYING YEAR. RECLINING on couch of fallen leaves, wrapped in fleecy mantle, with withered limbs, hoarse voice, and snowy beard, appears a venerable old man. His pulse beats feebly, his breath becomes shorter; he exhibits every mark of approaching dissolution. This is old Eighteen Hundred and Seventeen; and as every class of readers must remember him a young man, as rosy and blithesome as themselves, they will perhaps feel interested in hearing some of his dying expressions, with a few particulars of his past life. His existence is still likely to be prolonged a few days by the presence of his daughter December, the last and sole survivor of his twelve fair children; but it is thought the father and daughter will expire together. The following are some of the expressions which have been taken down as they fell from his dying lips: "I am," said he, "the son of old father Time, and the last of a numerous progeny; for he has had no less than five thousand eight hundred and seventeen of us; but it has ever been his fate to see one child expire before another was born. It is the opinion of some, that his own constitution is beginning to break up, and that when he has given birth to a hundred or two more of us, his family will be complete, and then he himself will be no more." Here the Old Year called for his account-book, and turned over the pages with a sorrowful eye. He has kept, it appears, an accurate account of the moments, minutes, hours, and months which he has issued, and subjoined, in some places, memorandums of the uses to which they have been applied, and of the losses he has sustained. These particulars it would be tedious to detail, and perhaps the recollection of the reader may furnish them as well or better. But we must notice one circumstance; upon turning to a certain page in his accounts, the old man was much affected, and the tears streamed down his furrowed cheeks as he examined it. This was the register of the forty-eight Sundays which he had issued; and which, of all the wealth he had to dispose of, has been, it appears, the most scandalously wasted. "These," said he, "were my most precious gifts. I had but fifty-two of them to bestow. Alas! how lightly have they been esteemed!" Here, upon referring back to certain old memorandums, he found a long list of vows and resolutions, which had a particular reference to these fifty-two Sundays. This, with a mingled emotion of grief and anger, he tore into a hundred pieces, and threw them on the embers, by which he was endeavouring to warm his shivering limbs. VOL. II. N |