The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 385, August 15, 1829. Various
Stand in this quiet nook a few hours, and give us the shadow of your mushroom covering.
There is a poor, forlorn wretch with his rags fluttering about him like a beggar—give him a penny—he must be in distress—look at his shattered face and dilapidated form; shored up upon crutches, tottering on the brink of the sewers—shores I mean—of eternity; behold his crushed and crownless hat—his hollow eyes—his rheumy visage—look at that petition penned on his breast. Poh! 'tis a surveyor's notice to pull down. But, then, look at that plurality parson with rotund prominence of portico, and red brick cheeks of vast extent, and that high, steeple-crowned hat—look at the smug, mean, insignificant dwarf of a meeting-house, sinking up to its knees in a narrow lane, and looking as blank as a wall, with a trap-door of a mouth, and a grating cast of eye. How yonder bridegroom, just cemented in an alliance that will not last out his lease of life, "spick and span new," all eyes, and a double row of buttons ornamenting his latticed waistcoat, looks at his adored opposite, who holds her Venetian parasol—sun shade—before her face, glowing like a red brick wall in the sun. Ah! his regards are attracted by a modest little nymph of the grove, seated snugly in a sylvan recess, her pretty white cheeks peeping out beneath the tresses of honeysuckle and woodbine that veil her beauty. Well, railing is in this case allowable, for see that brazen front of maiden sixty, guiltless of curls, with a huge structure of bonnet cocked straight at the top of her head, like the roof of a market-house, and her broad, square skirts of faded green, deformed by formal knots of yew and holly. Look with what a blushless face of triumph she eyes her poor tottering neighbour opposite, who never appears destined "to suffer a recovery." Oh, 'tis remorseless! But look down that vista of charity children in slate coloured Quaker bonnets, stuck one against the other in drab, like pins in a paper, but not so bright; are they going to stand there for ever, with their governess at their head, looking as smug and fubsy as the squat house at the end? Why 'tis—street!—Look at the pump at the other end, that might pass for an abridgment of a parish clerk—and see, there comes stalking across the Green the parish beadle, with a great white placard in his hat—you might well mistake him for Alderman –'s monument in red brick with the marble tablet on the top of it. Ah! my pretty rustic—why your straw hat and brown stuff frock, with white bib, and that gay flowered apron, with the sprig of jessamine stuck at your side—you look so homely and comely beneath the shade of that tall oak, that I could fancy you were only the shepherd's cottage at the corner of the grange. Bless me—here's a modern antique, masquerading in the country!—why a village belle of queen Bess' days, looking as new and as fresh as the young 'squire's lodge, fresh out of the hands of his fancy architect. More mummery! why this gentleman looks as fine and as foolish in his affectation of rugged points and quaint angles, as a staring, white-washed, Gothic villa with the paint not yet dry. Oh! there is certainly no denying that thou art the primest of Quakers, Mr. Chapel, one that will not countenance a belle, but lookest right onward in smooth and demure solidity, with that strip of white path in front of thy brown gravel waistcoat, and the ample skirts of thy road-coloured surtout; not so your neighbour Sturdy, him with his chimney like an ink bottle, upright in his button hole, and his pen-like poplar in his hand; he is equally uncompromising, but looks with an eye of stern regard upon that gay sprig of myrtle with his roof of a hat, jauntily clapped on one side, and a towering charming feather, streaming like smoke in the breeze. But whither have my vagaries led me—here I am once more in the dullest of dull country towns, over which strides the gouty old dean, like a Gothic arch across a cathedral city; and see how the wealthy innkeeper dangles his broad medal (sign of his having been in the yeomanry) that swings to the wind like the banner of his troop—how contemptuously he eyes that solid looking overseer, the workhouse, with his right and lefthand men the executioners of the law—Stocks and Cage—oh! turn away—there is that villanous cross barred gripe the Jail—enough, enough, indeed.
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