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the room-rummaging every nook of my brain to find out some way of coming at the object in view. I was literally haunted—I could not drive the strange man from my head. If I looked out, I saw him walking with my bodily eye: if I turned away, I beheld him equally well with the eye of the mind. Nor did the sound of his footsteps for a moment escape me. I heard them creaking upon the court, accompanied by the attendant and ghostlike responses of the everlasting walking-stick.

My anxiety at last attained such a pitch, that I verily believe I should have died upon the spot, if a copious flood of tears had not come to my relief. "Can nothing be done?" said I, weeping bitterly. "Must I remain in ignorance of this extraordinary man? who is he-what does he want-is he Whig or Tory-does he drink Port in preference to Malaga or Hermitage-has he dined like myself, on oysters and macaroni-does he write to Blackwood?" Such were the questions that crowded on my imagination; but, alas, there was no one to answer them but the man himself, with the tortoise-shell spectacles and the long queue! What could I do? I was ashamed and afraid to put them to him. Good breeding and caution alike forbade so extraordinary a proceeding. In this dilemna I threw myself upon the sofa, and buried my tear-bedewed face in one of the pillows, while I sobbed like the child who broke its heart because its nurse could not give it the moon as a plaything.

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But I did not long give way to idle sorrow. sentment took its place, and inspired my heart with deadly energy I felt myself insulted by the stranger. "He must be a villain,” I exclaimed in the bitterness of my soul, "thus to tamper with the agonies of a fellow being. Notwithstanding his dignity, he is neither more nor less than-a villain." Would it be believed that in so short a time I threw away all my late feelings of reverence and admiration !—but the human heart is a strange piece of mechanism, which is constantly getting into disorder, and turning disloyally upon itself. From the bottom of my spirit, I thought him a villain, whom I had just wondered at, and reverenced, and admired. "Yes, he is neither more nor less. He has haunted me till my brain borders on distraction. He shall account for himself:by heaven, he shall tell me who he is." My mind was wrought to a pitch of frenzied excitement-anger lent me courage-insatiable curiosity led me on; and I determined either to make him open his oracular lips and reveal himself, or to join with him in mortal death-grapple. Full of these terrible resolutions, I put on my hat, buttoned my coat, set my teeth, and descended the stair with portentous speed. On reaching the front door I paused a few seconds before opening it, to rally my ideas and collect my energies into one powerful focus. This done I opened the door, stepped into the court, and looked around me. Horrible to relate the man was gone, and I never saw him more!

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THE MAN WITH THE MOUTH.

"NEVER did I behold such a mouth!" This was my internal exclamation, as I gazed upon the man who sat opposite to me in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. He was an elderly personage-tall, meagre, long-chinned, hook-nosed, pale complexioned, and clothed from top to toe in a suit of black. It was wearing towards twilight, and the noble apartment in which I was seated had been forsaken by all its loungers, save myself and the man who called forth my observation. We were alone, he perusing the Morning Chronicle, I engaged with Blackwood's Magazine. The article I was reading was a capital one. It was -let me see— "Streams,”—that exquisite creation of Christopher North's matchless pen. But admirable as the article might be, it was not so admirable as the man's mouth who perused the Chronicle. For some time, indeed, there was a combat between the mouth and the article, both soliciting my regards with equal ardour, and compelling me every moment to turn my eyes, first to the one and then to the other. Each possessed a magnetic property; and my mind was,

like a piece of iron, reciprocally acted upon by a couple of powerful loadstones. By degrees, however, the balance was destroyed: Ebony either grew weaker, or the mouth stronger; and I was obliged, with a weeping heart, to throw the former aside, and submit myself entirely to the domination of the latter.

It was, in truth, a noble mouth, stretching, in one magnificent sweep, from ear to ear-such a mouth as the ogres of romance must have had, or the whale that swallowed Jonah. I remember the first time when-from the bottom of the stairs leading to the Fountain of Neptune-I beheld the front of Versailles' stupendous palace. One feeling only occupied my mind-that of breathless astonishment as the huge fabric rose up before me, in sublime proportion, from the bosom of its matchless garden. Such astonishment— such breathlessness came over me, when my eyes first encountered the man, or rather his mouth. I was more than astonished; I was delighted-delighted, as when stepping into the Sistine Chapel, the grand creations of Michael Angelo, frescoed upon its roof and walls, burst like a glimpse of Paradise upon my tranced spirit. Such was the delight afforded by the mighty mouth: not the man-beloved reader-for men, as fair in all respects as he, have I often seen. It was not his cheeks, thin as parchment, his nose curved like an eagle's beak, his chin prominent as a bayonet in full charge, or his complexion, pale and lustreless as a faded lily. It was not these-no, reader, it was not these which operated with such wizard power upon me. It was

his mouth-that mouth-wonderful as Versailles, and beautiful as the Sistine Chapel-which carried my sympathies away, and led me a captive worshipper at its shrine.

Such were my first impressions on beholding the Man with the Mouth. They were those of unmingled awe and pleasure, and appealed with resistless effect to my imagination. They came upon me like a rainbow bursting out from the bosom of a dark cloudas a stream of sunshine at midnight-as the sound of the Eolian harp in a summer eve. But they appealed to the fancy alone; they touched the heart, but not the head; and it was some time before the latter could bring its energies to bear, so completely had it been overwhelmed with the tumult of passions which agitated the feelings. It did act at last; and as soon as the incipient impressions subsided a little, I felt an irresistible desire to ascertain why such wonderful effects should spring from such a cause. But it was in vain; and being neither casuist nor phrenologist, I was obliged to drop a subject, to which my powers were altogether unequal. I wondered, and was delighted: but what the remote springs of such wonder and delight might be, baffled my philosophy, and set my reasoning faculties at naught.

Meanwhile the man continued opposite to me, reading the Chronicle, and I continued to look at him, marvelling at the dimensions of that feature which had vanquished Christopher North in single combat, and absorbed his beautiful" Streams" in its insatiable

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