Mr. Fleetwood, a man of excessive refinement and delicacy of taste, is described as paying visits to his friends in the country. But the pleasures which might possibly be derived from this exercise are marred by his false sensibility.
'Our next visit was to a gentleman of liberal education and elegant manners, who, in the earlier part of his life, had been much in the polite world. Here Mr. Fleetwood expected to find pleasure and enjoyment sufficient to atone for his two previous experiences which were far from agreeable; but here, too, he was disappointed.
'Mr. Selby, for that was our friend's name, had been several years married. His family increasing, he had retired to the country, and, renouncing the bustle of the world, had given himself up to domestic enjoyments; his time and attention were devoted chiefly to the care of his children. The pleasure which he himself felt in humouring all their little fancies made him forget how troublesome that indulgence might be to others.
'The first morning we were at his house, when Mr. Fleetwood came into the parlour to breakfast, all the places at table were occupied by the children; it was necessary that one of them should be displaced to make room for him; and, in the disturbance which this occasioned, a teacup was overturned, and scalded the finger of Mr. Selby's eldest daughter, a child about seven years old, whose whimpering and complaining attracted the whole attention during breakfast. That being over, the eldest boy came forward with a book in his hand, and Mr. Selby asked Mr. Fleetwood to hear him read his lesson. Mrs. Selby joined in the request, though both looked as if they were rather conferring a favour on their guest. The eldest had no sooner finished, than the youngest boy presented himself; upon which his father observed that it would be doing injustice to Will not to hear him as well as his elder brother Jack, and in this way was my friend obliged to spend the morning in performing the office of a schoolmaster to the children in succession.
'Mr. Fleetwood liked a game at whist, and promised himself a party in the evening, free from interruption. Cards were accordingly proposed, but Mrs. Selby observed that her little daughter, who still complained of her scalded finger, needed amusement as much as any of the company. In place of cards, Miss Harriet insisted on the "game of the goose." Down to it we sat, and to a stranger it would have been not unamusing to see Mr. Fleetwood, with his sorrowful countenance, at the "royal and pleasant game of the goose," with a child of seven years old. It is unnecessary to dwell longer on particulars. During all the time we were at Mr. Selby's the delighted parents were indulging their fondness, while Mr. Fleetwood was repining and fretting in secret.'
The 'Mirror.'—Vol. I. No. 117.
Inanit veteres statuas Damasippus emendo.—Hor.
A wife is writing to the 'Mirror' upon a new affliction which has attacked her husband. He happened to receive a crooked shilling in exchange for some of his goods (the husband was a grocer), and a virtuoso informed him that it was a coin of Alexander III., of great rarity and value, whereupon the good man became seized with a passion for collecting curiosities.
'His taste,' says the wife's letter, 'ranges from heaven above to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth. Every production of nature or of art, remarkable either for beauty or deformity, but particularly if either scarce or old, is now the object of my husband's avidity. The profits of our business, once considerable, but now daily diminishing, are expended, not only on coins, but on shells, lumps of different coloured stones, dried butterflies, old pictures, ragged books, and worm-eaten parchments.