MY UNCLE-A PORTRAIT.

"This fellow, now, is like an over-ripe melon-rough outside, with much sweetness under it."-The Mountaineers.

IMAGINE a short burly-faced man, in a pepper-and-salt coat, red waistcoat, light kerseymere breeches, and short gaiters; his hat beauishly inclined a slight degree from the perpendicular over his right ear, the left scantily covered with a few grey hairs suspiciously disguised with powder; an eye of varied expression; dignified when glancing at an inferior, courteous in the salutation of an equal, and salaciously amorous when ogling a pretty girl. Imagine too "a fair round belly with good capon lined," and that air of consequential importance, which the ever present reflection of being worth a plum never fails to impart; and you have a tolerable camera-lucida portrait of My Uncle, Timothy Tomkins, Esq. citizen and bachelor.

Your plodding London tradesmen of the last century never suffered their imaginations to stray to green fields and rural felicity, 'till they had worn out the pith of their existence in the acquisition of a competence. They built substantial mansions in narrow alleys, and immured themselves and their progeny in their brick warrens, till the thirst of money-getting was sufficiently quenched to prompt the wish for retirement; and then they very prudently withdrew from the turmoils of traffic, to die of ennui and nothing-to-do-ishness in a dull country village. My honoured kinsman, though somewhat tinged with antiquated notions and gone-by prejudices, was yet wise enough to leave off bargain-driving and stock-jobbing, before he had lost all relish for rurality; but having passed the meridian of his life unbur thened with connubial cares, he found, after a few months' possession of his snug cottage on Hampstead Heath, that the prattle of children and the music of a woman's tongue might have proved less annoying than chewing the cud of his own musings, nodding over a newspaper, or contemplating the stagnant viridity of a duck-pond. He grew tired of gazing on the Heath, and listening to the cawing of rooks and the tinkling of sheep-bells. The blue sky and the green fields, his grotto and hermitage, his thickset hedges, and his flower-prankt arbours, became alike indifferent to his unpoetical imagination; and he sighed for the busy bustle of Cornhill, and the grateful hum of the Royal Exchange. Pent up in his green solitude, he felt convincingly how dreary a thing it was to lead the life of a bachelor; and then he fell to reflecting how silly it was of him, some twenty years back, to break off his courtship with Miss Biddy Briggs, the rich saddler's daughter, for disliking his pea-green coat; and that if he had bridled his anger, he might have secured the tender bit for himself, instead of holding the stirrup, like a fool as he was, to fat Ferguson, the fellmonger of Bermondsey, who vaulted in his place, and galloped off with the prize. All this, however, was now "past praying for ;" and though he had retired, that was no reason he should be hypped to death with the blue devils on Hampstead Heath. He, therefore, made up his mind to drive to London once a day, that he might look around and see how the world wagged; scrupulously resolving to drive no bargains either for time or tallow, but merely to peep at the busy Babel," and occasionally secure an old friend to share half his gig, and take a dinner and

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a bed at his rural domicile. Besides, there were other causes beyond the mere sense of loneliness, to induce him to adopt this plan. Among the rest, he missed his morning's sandwich and his comfortable bason of turtle. He had a tolerable cook, to be sure; and those of his old friends, who occasionally enlightened his solitude by dropping in, pronounced her culinary fabrications to be excellent. Their commendations gratified his ear, but did not convince his judgment; and Birch's soups remained ne plus ultras, which her skill could never achieve.

As he had no one to please but himself, his scheme was soon put into practice; and a new gig was ordered; a vehicle, by-the-bye, he had little fancy for, and in which nothing but the prejudice of the old school against riding in a stage-coach, could have induced him to peril his neck. I had the honour of initiating him in the noble science of driving; an acquirement, he said, which he never thought of living to see a gentleman take a pride in. He was immensely awkward at first; the clumsiest Phaeton that ever had a fancy for horse-flesh. His fat, fleshy knuckles grasped the reins with a most ungraceful air, and he brandished the whip like a carman. However, he was highly delighted with his new toy; and I shall never forget the glee with which he bundled into Batson's, and shook hands with a dozen of his cronies after a twelvemonth's absence. Even the waiter came in for a share of his regards." What, Joe! What, here still, eh, Joe? Not in business yet, eh? And Kitty the bar-maid, too, I declare! Well, Kitty, how d'ye do? Not married yet, I see. Joe and you make a match of it, eh? Can set up Joe's coffee-house then, you know."-A new dawn seemed to have gleamed on the old gentleman's existence. He grew fat and frolicsome, and had snug turtle-dinners and bacchanalian revels at his rus in urbe, 'till, like Sir John Falstaff, he grew out of all compass-out of all reasonable compass." Self-willed, as old bachelors usually are, he would no longer suffer me to drive, and my equestrian services were dispensed with. "Young, hair-brained fellows like you," he said, are not fit companions for sedate elderly folks." The fact was, he had no mind I should witness the midnight orgies of his rural retirement, and I had no inclination to partake of them. It happened one morning, after one of his customary devotions at the shrine of good fellowship, that he attempted to drive to town, his head half muzzy with the last night's debauch. The tit that run in his gig, was a fine blood mare of my own choosing; and I had more than once told him, that if he did not wish to drive to the devil, the whip and her hide must be kept at a respectful distance. "Attempt to brush a fly off her neck," said I," and depend on it she 'll break yours." Well, what does my sagacious kinsman do, but just as he came to that deep descent on the Hampstead-road, between the Heath and Camden Town, and where any man in his senses would have held tight the reins, he lays half-a-dozen swingeing lashes on the mare's flank. Away she scampered, helter-skelter; off flew the wheel, snap went the shafts, and out tumbled my uncle Timothy. The horse was stopped with difficulty, the gig was dashed to atoms, and uncle was conveyed home to bed. The old boy was more frightened than hurt. All his limbs were sound, and he had no bruises; but terror performed the work of reality, and introduced him, for the first time in his life, to the pleasures of the gout. The grossness of his habit, and the irregularities of his living,

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were powerful auxiliaries to the virulence of his disorder. His temper was not one of the mildest in the world, and he indulged freely in the popular remedy of expletives. To be tied down to his arm-chair was punishment enough; but to be tortured into the bargain would have excited cataraphobia in a less irritable temperament than his. I received a note from him a day or two after his accident, written in much apparent pain, if I might judge by the hieroglyphics that were jumbled together in its composition. It was couched in the following terms :—

"Bob, you scoundrel, why don't you come to me? I am dying, you undutiful cub, and you won't stir a peg.....I 've had a sad accident, Bob. Spilt from that kickshaw cockle-shell, the gig. All my bones broken....Confound that mare! Your buying, Bob-on purpose, I be lieve, to break my neck.....Got the gout, too, Bob. The gout, you villain, and you know it, and won't come. Yes; here I may die; nobody cares for me: nobody cares for an old bachelor.....Bobby, my boy, come to your poor lame uncle...... You rascal, if you don't set out directly, I'll cut you off with a shilling.

"Your loving uncle, TIMOTHY TOMKINS."

My sensations, on perusing this epistle, were none of the most agreeable: not that I disliked the old gentleman; but I was so well aware of the testiness of his temper, that I felt my dependence on him at this moment stronger than ever. I knew that it hung upon a thread; and that, square my behaviour as I would, I could hardly hope to please him. Besides, I had a tale to unfold, on the reception of which the future happiness of my life depended; and if the variable wind that guided his weathercock disposition should happen to set in the wrong quarter, a long farewell to all the fairy pictures of felicity my ardent imagination had painted. I have already glanced at an attachment of the old gentleman in his younger days to Miss Biddy Briggs, who wedded his rival. The lady certainly acted a little precipitately in the affair; for had she waited the ebullition of my uncle's passion, he would doubtless have been the first to have made overtures of peace. However, she promptly decided on giving her hand to the fellmonger, and left her quandam-beau to recover his chagrin and surprise as he might. Since that period, he had cherished a bitter dislike to the fellmonger; and whenever the image of Biddy crossed his mind, he drove it away with the epithets of a jilt, a coquet, and an inconstant. Now it happened, by the most singular chance in the world, that the daughter of this couple was introduced to me at a ball-that grand mart, time out of mind, for the exchange of hearts; and, as a matter of course, I fell in love. I hope none of my readers will take offence at this oldfashioned method of imbibing the tender passion; for I can assure them, that even now, hearts are sometimes lost in ball-rooms, as well as in the days of Sir Charles Grandison. I skip over the honied hours that preceded my offer and acceptance-lovers' têtes-à-tête are maudlin matters for paper. Two obstacles alone opposed our union,-trifles, perhaps, to some folks, but not so to us- -I mean the consent of her parents and of my uncle, on whom the reckless generosity of a liberal minded but ill-fortuned father had left me utterly dependent. It was agreed that I should write to the former, and make a vivà voce appeal

to the latter. Mr. and Mrs. Furguson were good sort of folks, who were anxious to see their daughter happy; and they wrote me in reply, that if my uncle's consent could be obtained, their's should not be withheld. Their letter contained many expressions of regard for their old friend, and an anxious wish for an union, which would connect both families in bonds of closer friendship. This was the sum and substance of their epistle, worded in a somewhat more homely style, but containing all I could desire. And now, said I, for my uncle!

It was at this critical juncture that his letter reached me; and this was the business I had to impart. Oh! thought I, the miseries of dependence! And on an old bachelor too, the testiest animal in the world! Old bachelors are a sort of wild beasts. They carry their untamed ferocities about them, to the annoyance of their fellow-creatures; while a married man, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is the gentlest being imaginable. He is swayed, and curbed, and softened down, 'till he loses all his celibacious asperities, and becomes a reasonable creature. Marriage, like the gentle arts, " emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros;" it prevents men from degenerating into brutes, and, by the constant collision with woman's milder mind, gives them a portion of her tender spirit, and humanizes the soul. All these reflections were engendered by the fear that the ancient animosity of my uncle to the very name of Ferguson should stand between me and the consummation of my hopes. I glided up the stairs that led to his apartment, and as I held the handle of the door in dubious suspense, endeavoured to screw my courage to the sticking-place, ere I turned it round and ventured into his presence. The effort was made, and the door opened. By the side of the fire, half-encircled with an old-fashioned screen, sat my uncle Timothy, in a capacious arm-chair; his legs enveloped in flannels and fleecy hosiery; his hands resting on the elbows of the chair; his countenance flushed and fiery with pain and vexation, and his eyes glaring at the glowing embers in abstracted vacancy. As I advanced towards him with the best look of condolence I could command, he raised his head, and the following dialogue ensued:

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So, you are come at last. A pretty, dutiful nephew-a tender-hearted kinsman. Yes, here I might lie and languish in agony 'till doomsday. Even my own brother's son cares nothing for me; no, not an atom. Well, sir, what do you stand there for, like a stock-fish? Why don't you get a chair ?"" Sir," I replied, mechanically obeying him, "I assure you I never heard of your accident 'till the receipt of your letter; and I set off on the instant."" Dare say you did. Don't think it, though. Hoped to find your old uncle at his last gasp, I've no doubt. Disappointed, mayhap; shall live long enough yet to tire you out. Sound at the core, Bob. No chance for you these twenty years. Took care of myself when I was young, and didn't waste my health and my money in drinking and raking. No Tom-and-Jerrying in those days."—"I should hope, sir, my conduct would acquit me of any undutiful wish towards an uncle who has always proved so kind to me as you have." "Eh? Well, perhaps it would. As you say, I haven't deserved it, Bob. Don't think you are hard-hearted; never did. You are tolerably well as the world goes; only a little flighty. Young men now-adays, are not as they were when I was a stripling. Bobby, my boy, just shift my leg on this cushion. Zounds! you scoundrel, you 've

trippled me. You villain, do you suppose my toes have no more feeling than a horse's hoof? Did you think you were handling a bedpost?" I stammered out an apology, attributing my inadvertency to my anxiety to relieve his pain. This soothed him a little. "Why, lookye, Bob: you know I am naturally good-tempered, but it would provoke the patience of a saint to be cooped up here like a capon, roasted as I am by a slow fire, drenched with drugs, and fed upon slops. But tell me, what are you doing? How do you like the law? Fancy you like the playhouses better. Prefer hopping at Almack's, to studying Coke upon Littleton, eh ?"—"Sir, I never go to balls."-" Never go to balls! More shame for you. Dare say you never said a civil thing to a lady in your life."—"I trust, Sir, I have never been found deficient in the attentions due to the fair sex."-" Pshaw! I don't believe you. I know you are a shy-cock. You've no more gallantry than a goose,no more spirit than a tom-tit. You're an animated iceberg. Zounds! when I was a youngster, the glance of a bright eye acted on me like a spark in a powder-barrel: I was in flames in a moment. Dare say you never formed a single attachment. Sorry for it. Should like to see you married, Bob."-" Perhaps, Sir, you could recommend me a wife."—" Not I, Bob. I never played the part of a match-maker in my life. You must beat up your own game, lad, and run it down yourself.”—“ Then, my dear uncle, to confess the truth, so far from being the cold composition you imagine me, I am actually engaged to a lady." -"The devil you are! And pray who is she?"—I hesitated, and changed colour. "What are you stammering at? You 're not ashamed of telling her name, surely.”—“ Oh, no, sir. Her name is—her name

-that is, her name is-Miss Julia Ferguson." He stared at me a second or two in mute surprise. "Ferguson! No relation, I hope, to fat Ferguson the fellmonger." Here was a crisis! It was in vain to repent my precipitancy. Sincerity was all I had to trust to, and I confessed she was his daughter. The effect was fearful. He never uttered a word; but I could see the workings of pride, passion, and resentment, as they alternately displayed themselves in the fiery glances of his eye, the flushings of his cheek, and the quivering of his lips. Opposite his window there grew a sturdy oak. He turned his eye towards it, and thus addressed me, with an assumed coolness: "Bob, look at that oak. When your strength shall be able to bend its trunk, you may hope to bend my wishes to your will. Ferguson! I detest the name, and all who bear it; and sooner than you should wed her, I would follow you to your grave." There was something so appalling in his manner as he uttered this denouncement, that I was unable to reply; but I was spared the effort by the sudden opening of the door, and the entrance of an old friend of my uncle's who stopped suddenly, struck by the expression on both our countenances. "Heyday!" said he, "what's the matter? Uncle and nephew at loggerheads!"-" Here 's Bob," replied my kinsman, "has dared to acknowledge a passion for the daughter of fat Ferguson, the fellow that". "Married your adorable, because you was too sulky to ask her hand for yourself. Well, what is there so wonderful in that? Julia Ferguson is a fine girl, and deserves a good husband."-" Very likely; but do you suppose I would ever give my consent to her union with my nephew ?"-" And why not? Let me tell you, the Fergusons are a respectable and a worthy family." VOL. VII. No. 37.-1824.

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