up a merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. He had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction; but he never lost sight of sex, nor overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bareheaded-smile, if you please-to a poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the way to some street, in such a posture of unforced civility, as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor him in the offer of it. He was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women; but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen him-nay, smile not-tenderly escorting a market-woman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a countess. To the reverend form of female eld he would yield the wall (though it were to an ancient beggar woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show our grandames. He was

the Preux Chevalier of Age, the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses that had long faded thence, bloomed for him in those withered and yellow cheeks.

"He was never married; but in his youth he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley-old Winstanley's daughter, of Clapton— who, dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had one day been treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches the common gallantries-to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance, but in this instance with no effect. could not obtain from her a decent acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that

He

she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman, placed in her situation, had a right to expect all sorts of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young women; but that, a little before he had commenced his compliments, she had overheard him, by accident, in rather rough language, rating a young woman who had not brought home hist cravats quite to the appointed time, and she thought to herself As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady, a reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, I can have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine gentleman who is courting me; but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one (naming the milliner), and had failed of bringing home the cravats to the appointed hour-though, perhaps, I had sat up half the night to forward them-what sort of compliments should I have received then? And my woman's pride came to my assistance; and I thought that, if it were only to do me honour

a female, like myself, might have received handsomer usage; and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the belonging to which was, after all, my strongest claim and title to them.""

Was it Susan Winstanley, then, to whom Mr. Paice alluded, when he said to Lady Baring, "There is yet living, a lady, now married (i.e. Mrs. Mason), and another has ceased to be, my dear affection for whom would have made me inexpressibly happy?" It may have been so, though my grandfather did not think it.

Lamb goes on to say-"I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagined that the uncommon strain of courtesy which, through life, regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards all womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson."*

* Elia, First Series, "Modern Gallantry."

A Mrs. Adams, living in Oakley Street, Lambeth, sent one day to Mr. Paice in great distress, to say that her only son was ill and dying. He posted off to her assistance, and found the doctor strongly insisting that a blister which he had previously ordered, should be put on without further delay. "O, sir!" sobbed the widow, "you mean all for the best, I dare say, but, please God, my poor boy shall die in a whole skin." "But, my good madam," interposed Mr. Paice, "what the doctor wants is, that your boy shall not die!" I suppose he carried the point, for the boy survived, and, in due time, was apprenticed to a chemist. But his whole soul and mind were absorbed in point and counterpoint. He contrived, out of old boxes, &c., to construct an organ, every key of which was of wood; but, nevertheless, it could be played upon, and he could play upon it too; and as he made all manner of mistakes in the shop, physic was at length formally abandoned for music: His circumstances were then as meagre as could be; and as my mother, who had had an excellent master at Yarmouth, was, on her return to town,