and scraggy, and the smoke of ten thousand chimneys has made its bark as black as your shoe. Little with ered twigs are continually falling from it, and its leaves resemble the papillotes of a slatternly maid of all work. Sooty sparrows perch about its creaking branches, and rascally town-bred crows were for years accustomed to build their nests upon its topmost boughs. But the crows have had at last the good taste to move into country quarters. Humboldt says of trees that "there is in them an expression of longing beyond belief when they stand so firmly planted and with so circumscribed. a sphere of action, while with their tops they move as far as they are able beyond the boundary of their roots. I know nothing in nature so formed to be a symbol of longing?" If this be so, how tragic is the destiny of that unlucky tree in Cheapside! for though its aspirations be with the stars, its conversation is with the chimneypots. There is not a day I see that tree that I do not feel inclined to address it in the words of Lear to the Earl of Kent in the stocks: "What's he that hath so much thy place mistook to set thee here?" And indeed it is to be wished that the lot of this unhappy vegetable could attract the sympathy of public writers. Poets, who scruple not to sacrifice common sense to the exigencies of their rhetoric when singing the sorrows of "An Old Arm Chair," might surely spare a tear for a living creature, and the most hapless of all living creatures-the tree in Cheapside.

"CHEEK."

HEEK-The side of the face below the eye.”

Such is Doctor Johnson's arid definition of one of the most delightful and suggestive words in the English language. Taken in a merely physical sense woman's cheek is enchanting to behold, yet more so to kiss ; taken in a metaphorical sense, woman's "cheek" is simply the most marvellous thing in creation. It is lofty as the sky, profound as the sea, boundless and illimitable as space. It is worthy of remark that the word "Cheek" has a talismanic influence on poets, invariably awakening them to strains of sweeter melody and more exalted eloquence. The immortal aspiration of Romeo, that he were a glove upon Juliet's hand, that he might touch her cheek, is a pretty and fanciful thought which will everywhere find ready acceptance with lovers and glovers, but its splendor pales in comparison with the magnificent exclamation of the Montague on viewing the senseless body of his mistress :

"Thou art not conquered! Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there."

Very sublime, too, and altogether worthy of Shakspeare is the famous simile :-"Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear." Indeed, when we come to analyze that idea, and to think of the greater effulgence which even a diamond of the first water would acquire from contrast with the dusky ear of an Ethiopian woman, we are compelled to admit

that no finer or more expressive metaphor can possibly be found in the whole range of poetry, whether ancient or modern. There are four lines of verse whose parentage I have never been able to trace, but which I would rather have written than dine with the Lord Mayor:

"Daughter of the rose, whose cheeks unite
The differing titles of the red and white,
Which heaven's alternate beauty well display
The blush of morning and the milky way."

I have never yet had enough of pancakes, nor do I suppose that I ever shall; but I do declare in all sincerity and truth that if I could conscientiously affirm that I am the author of those lines I would not surrender the glory of such a boast for all the pancakes ever fried. The very thought of a lady's cheeks sufficed to inspire Dr. John Donne, but an indifferent bard on ordinary occasions, to such flights of fancy as would have done no dishonor to the most illustrious poet. Take for example, these noble verses on Mrs. Drury:—

"We understood

Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say her body thought."

Every one forms his own ideal of supreme beauty. Mine is a woman with cheeks plump and red as a pair of pulpit cushions. Such cheeks look uncommonly well upon the male face also. My Apollo is a man of whom may be said, in the words of the old song, that

it

"He's tall and he's straight as the popular tree,

And his cheeks are as red as the rose,

And he looks like a squire of high degree
When dressed in his Sunday clothes."

The "damask cheek" of the young woman who never told her love, but let concealment prey upon it like a worm i' the bud," must have been beautiful to behold; but such young women are rare to find now-a-days. I know a girl- But there! the least said is the soonest mended. But most assuredly she is a damsel of whom we may sing in the words of Gray

"O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move

The bloom of young desire-the purple light of love."

She loves, sweet pet, and cares not who knows it ; nor need she, for she is as good as gold. "Bold in her face and fayre and red of hew,"-to quote the words of Chaucer, and there is no more blameless girl within the four seas of England. She is too good for me, so a better man may have her and welcome.

"Who can curiously behold

'The splendor and the sheen of beauty's cheek,
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?'"

asks a poet, once in great renown. And, indeed, beauty's
"cheek
is wonderful in more senses than one. A
friend of mine—a parson-labors under a strange in-
firmity of vision and memory, which incapacitates him
from distinguishing between any two women. To him
they are all alike. In this distressing state of circum-
stances his wife hit on the ingenious expedient of stick-
ing a wafer on one of her cheeks in the hope that he
might thus be enabled to know her from any other
member of her sex. It may hardly be believed, but it is
none the less true, that even this precaution has not
prevented her husband from falling into the mistake of
occasionally kissing the wrong woman, an error which

130

He hardly

he seems rather to relish. "My dear," he said to his wife the other day, "I have no words to express my admiration of your cheek." "My cheek, indeed!" expostulated the indignant lady, "your own is past endurance." But this anecdote is a digression. Having discoursed thus eloquently upon "cheek " in its physical signification, let us now consider it in its figurative meaning. How the word ever came to be used as a synonym for impudence, audacity, or effrontery is a mystery for philologists to solve. Suffice it to say that it is notoriously susceptible in popular parlance of that interpretation; and that so interpreted it is probably the most precious gift ever bestowed by Nature upon a human being, be that being man or woman. The man who has not "cheek" will never get on. deserves to be accounted a man at all. He is no better than a mouse. The woman who has not "cheek "-But where's the use of talking! there is happily no such woman. I have written upwards of 700 sonnets on my Belinda's cheek, in the material import of the phrase; but if I were to take to writing sonnets on her "cheek" in the symbolical sense, I might do nothing else all the days of my life, though I should live to the age of Methusaleh. I have not the slightest doubt that a lady I know could find it in her conscience to knock at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle and ask our Sovereign lady the Queen for the loan of the crown, ball, and sceptre. Having got them-supposing such a thing possible—a sudden access of bashfulness would probably supervene and she would be ashamed to return them.

I never yet met a woman who could tell even a fib. They don't know how, bless their veracious hearts!