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THAT there is a professional melancholy, if Drink itself does not seem to elevate him, I may so express myself, incident to the or at least to call out of him any of the exoccupation of a tailor, is a fact which I think ternal indications of vanity. I cannot say very few will venture to dispute. I may that it never causes his pride to swell, but it safely appeal to my readers, whether they never breaks out. I am even fearful that it ever knew one of that faculty that was not may swell and rankle to an alarming degree of a temperament, to say the least, far re- inwardly. For pride is near of kin to memoved from mercurial or jovial. lancholy-a hurtful obstruction from the ordinary outlets of vanity being shut. It is this stoppage which engenders proud

Observe the suspicious gravity of their gait. The peacock is not more tender, from a consciousness of his peculiar infirmity, humours. Therefore a tailor may be proud. than a gentleman of this profession is of being known by the same infallible testimonies of his occupation. "Walk, that I may know thee."

Do you ever see him go whistling along the foot-path like a carman, or brush through a crowd like a baker, or go smiling to himself like a lover? Is he forward to thrust into mobs, or to make one at the ballad-singer's audiences? Does he not rather slink by assemblies and meetings of the people, as one that wisely declines popular observation ? How extremely rare is a noisy tailor! a mirthful and obstreperous tailor!

I think he is never vain. The display of his gaudy patterns, in that book of his which emulates the rainbow, never raises any inflations of that emotion in him, corresponding to what the wig-maker (for instance) evinces, when he expatiates on a curl or a bit of hair. He spreads them forth with a sullen incapacity for pleasure, a real or affected indifference to grandeur. Cloth of gold neither seems to elate, nor cloth of frieze to depress him according to the beautiful motto which formed the modest imprese of the shield worn by Charles Brandon at his marriage with the king's sister. Nay, I doubt whether he would discover any vain-glorious complacence in his colours, though “Iris” herself "dipt the woof."

"At my nativity," says Sir Thomas Browne, "my ascendant was the earthly sign of Scorpius; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece In further corroboration of this argument of that leaden planet in me." One would-who ever saw the wedding of a tailor anthink that he were anatomising a tailor! nounced in the newspapers, or the birth of save that to the latter's occupation, methinks, his eldest son? a woollen planet would seem more consonant, and that he should be born when the sun was in Aries.—He goes on: "I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company." How true a type of the whole trade! Eminently economical of his words, you shall seldom hear a jest come from one of them. He sometimes furnishes subject for a repartee, but rarely (I think) contributes one ore proprio.

When was a tailor known to give a dance, or to be himself a good dancer, or to perform exquisitely on the tight-rope, or to shine in any such light and airy pastimes to sing, or play on the violin?

Do they much care for public rejoicings, lightings up, ringing of bells, firing of cannons, &c.?

Valiant I know they can be; but I appeal to those who were witnesses to the exploits

vour to ascertain the causes why this pensive turn should be so predominant in people of this profession above all others.

of Eliot's famous troop, whether in their well-attested fact, I shall proceed and endeafiercest charges they betrayed anything of that thoughtless oblivion of death with which a Frenchman jigs into battle, or whether they did not show more of the melancholy valour of the Spaniard, upon whom they charged; that deliberate courage which contemplation and sedentary habits breathe ?

Are they often great newsmongers ?—I have known some few among them arrive at the dignity of speculative politicians; but that light and cheerful every-day interest in the affairs and goings on of the world, which makes the barber* such delightful company, I think is rarely observable in them.

This characteristic pensiveness in them being so notorious, I wonder none of those writers, who have expressly treated of melancholy, should have mentioned it. Burton, whose book is an excellent abstract of all the authors in that kind who preceded him, and who treats of every species of this malady, from the hypochondriacal or windy to the heroical or love melancholy, has strangely omitted it. Shakspeare himself has overlooked it. "I have neither the scholar's melancholy (saith Jaques), which is emulation; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is politic; nor the lover's, which is all these:" and then, when you might expect him to have brought in," nor the tailor's, which is " so and so, he comes to an end of his enumeration, and falls to a defining of his own melancholy.

Milton likewise has omitted it, where he had so fair an opportunity of bringing it in,

in his Penseroso.

But the partial omissions of historians proving nothing against the existence of any

⚫ Having incidentally mentioned the barber in a comparison of professional temperaments, I hope no other

trade will take offence, or look upon it as an incivility done to them, if I say, that in courtesy, humanity, and all the conversational and social graces which "gladden life," I esteem no profession comparable to his. Indeed, so great is the goodwill which I bear to this useful and agreeable body of men, that, residing in one of the Inns of Court (where the best specimens of them are to be found, except perhaps at the universities), there are seven of them to whom I am personally known, and who never pass me without the compliment of the hat on either side. My truly polite and urbane friend, Mr. A m, of Flower-de-luce-court, in Fleet-street, will forgive my mention of him in particular. I can truly say, that I never spent a quarter of an hour under his

hands without deriving some profit from the agreeable discussions which are always going on there.

And first, may it not be, that the custom of wearing apparel being derived to us from the fall, and one of the most mortifying products of that unhappy event, a certain seriousness (to say no more of it) may in the order of things have been intended to be impressed upon the minds of that race of men to whom in all ages the care of contriving the human apparel has been entrusted, to keep up the memory of the first institution of clothes, and serve as a standing remonstrance against those vanities which the absurd conversion of a memorial of our shame into an ornament of our persons was destined to produce? Correspondent in some sort to this, it may be remarked, that the tailor sitting over a cave or hollow place, in the caballistick language of his order is said to have certain melancholy regions always open under his feet.-But waiving further inquiry into final causes, where the best of us can only wander in the dark, let us try to discover the efficient causes of this melancholy.

I think, then, that they may be reduced to two, omitting some subordinate ones, viz. The sedentary habits of the tailor.Something peculiar in his diet.

First, his sedentary habits.-In Doctor Norris's famous narrative of the frenzy of Mr. John Dennis, the patient, being questioned as to the occasion of the swelling in his legs, replies that it came "by criticism;" to which the learned doctor seeming to demur, as to a distemper which he had never read of, Dennis (who appears not to have been mad upon all subjects) rejoins, with some warmth, that it was no distemper, but a noble art; that he had sat fourteen hours a day at it; and that the other was a pretty doctor not to know that there was a communication between the brain and the legs!

When we consider that this sitting for fourteen hours continuously, which the critic probably practised only while he was writing his "remarks," is no more than what the tailor, in the ordinary pursuance of his art, submits to daily (Sundays excepted) throughout the year, shall we wonder to find the

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brain affected, and in a manner overclouded, melancholy." "Amongst herbs to be eaten from that indissoluble sympathy between (he says) I find gourds, cucumbers, melons, the noble and less noble parts of the body disallowed; but especially CABBAGE. It which Dennis hints at? The unnatural and causeth troublesome dreams, and sends up painful manner of his sitting must also black vapours to the brain. Galen, Loc. greatly aggravate the evil, insomuch that I Affect. lib. iii. cap. 6, of all herbs condemns have sometimes ventured to liken tailors at CABBAGE. And Isaack, lib. ii. cap. 1, animæ their boards to so many envious Junos, sitting gravitatem facit, it brings heaviness to the cross-legged to hinder the birth of their own soul." I could not omit so flattering a testifelicity. The legs transversed thus cross-mony from an author who, having no theory wise, or decussated, was among the ancients of his own to serve, has so unconsciously the posture of malediction. The Turks, who contributed to the confirmation of mine. It practise it at this day, are noted to be a is well known that this last-named vegetable melancholy people. has, from the earliest periods which we can Secondly, his diet.-To which purpose I discover, constituted almost the sole food of find a most remarkable passage in Burton, this extraordinary race of people. in his chapter entitled "Bad diet a cause of

BURTON, Junior.

HOSPITA ON THE IMMODERATE INDULGENCE OF THE PLEASURES OF THE PALATE.

66
TO THE EDITOR OF THE REFLECTOR."

MR. REFLECTOR,-My husband and I are fond of company, and being in easy circumstances, we are seldom without a party to dinner two or three days in a week. The utmost cordiality has hitherto prevailed at our meetings; but there is a young gentleman, a near relation of my husband's, that has lately come among us, whose preposterous behaviour bids fair, if not timely checked, to disturb our tranquillity. He is too great a favourite with my husband in other respects, for me to remonstrate with him in any other than this distant way. A letter printed in your publication may catch his eye; for he is a great reader, and makes a point of seeing all the new things that come out. Indeed, he is by no means deficient in understanding. My husband says that he has a good deal of wit; but for my part I cannot say I am any judge of that, having seldom observed him open his mouth except for purposes very foreign to conversation. In short, Sir, this young gentleman's failing is, an immoderate indulgence of his palate. The first time he dined with us, he thought it necessary to extenuate the length of time he kept the dinner on the table, by declaring that he had taken a very long walk in the morning, and

came in fasting; but as that excuse could not serve above once or twice at most, he has latterly dropped the mask altogether, and chosen to appear in his own proper colours without reserve or apology.

You cannot imagine how unpleasant his conduct has become. His way of staring at the dishes as they are brought in, has absolutely something immodest in it: it is like the stare of an impudent man of fashion at a fine woman, when she first comes into a room. I am positively in pain for the dishes, and cannot help thinking they have consciousness, and will be put out of countenance, he treats them so like what they are not.

Then again he makes no scruple of keeping a joint of meat on the table, after the cheese and fruit are brought in, till he has what he calls done with it. Now how awkward this looks, where there are ladies, you may judge, Mr. Reflector,-how it disturbs the order and comfort of a meal. And yet I always make a point of helping him first, contrary to all good manners,-before any of my female friends are helped, that he may avoid this very error. I wish he would eat before he comes out.

Mr.

is calculated to produce.

I wonder, at a time like the present, when the scarcity of every kind of food is so painfully acknowledged, that shame has no effect upon him. Can he have read Mr. Malthus's Thoughts on the Ratio of Food to Population? Can he think it reasonable that one man should consume the sustenance of many?

What makes his proceedings more particu- more reconciled to it, in some measure, from larly offensive at our house is, that my my telling her that it was the custom of the husband, though out of common politeness world, to which, however senseless, we he is obliged to set dishes of animal food must submit, so far as we could do it with before his visitors, yet himself and his whole innocence, not to give offence; and she has family, (myself included) feed entirely on shown so much strength of mind on other vegetables. We have a theory, that animal occasions, which I have no doubt is owing to food is neither wholesome nor natural to the calmness and serenity superinduced by man; and even vegetables we refuse to eat her diet, that I am in good hopes when the until they have undergone the operation of proper season for her début arrives, she may | fire, in consideration of those numberless be brought to endure the sight of a roasted little living creatures which the glass helps chicken or a dish of sweet-breads for the us to detect in every fibre of the plant or first time without fainting. Such being the root before it be dressed. On the same nature of our little household, you may guess theory we boil our water, which is our only what inroads into the economy of it,—what drink, before we suffer it to come to table. revolutions and turnings of things upside Our children are perfect little Pythagoreans: down, the example of such a feeder as | it would do you good to see them in their nursery, stuffing their dried fruits, figs, raisins, and milk, which is the only approach to animal food which is allowed. They have no notion how the substance of a creature that ever had life can become food for another creature. A beef-steak is an absurdity to them; a mutton-chop, a solecism in terms; a cutlet, a word absolutely without any meaning; a butcher is nonsense, except so far as it is taken for a man who delights in blood, or a hero. In this happy state of innocence we have kept their minds, not allowing them to go into the kitchen, or to hear of any preparations for the dressing of animal food, or even to know that such things are practised. But as a state of ignorance is incompatible with a certain age, and as my eldest girl, who is ten years old next Midsummer, must shortly be introduced into the world and sit at table with us, where she will see some things which will shock all her received notions, I have been endeavouring by little and little to break her mind, and prepare it for the disagreeable impressions which must be forced upon it. The first hint I gave her upon the subject, I could see her recoil from it with the same horror with which we listen to a tale of Anthropophagism; but she has gradually grown

The young gentleman has an agreeable air and person, such as are not unlikely to recommend him on the score of matrimony. But his fortune is not over large; and what prudent young woman would think of embarking hers with a man who would bring three or four mouths (or what is equivalent to them) into a family? She might as reasonably choose a widower in the same circumstances, with three or four children.

I cannot think who he takes after. His father and mother, by all accounts, were very moderate eaters; only I have heard that the latter swallowed her victuals very fast, and the former had a tedious custom of sitting long at his meals. Perhaps he takes after both.

I wish you would turn this in your thoughts, Mr. Reflector, and give us your ideas on the subject of excessive eating, and, particularly, of animal food. HOSPITA

EDAX ON APPETITE.

66
TO THE EDITOR OF THE REFLECTOR."

MR. REFLECTOR,-I am going to lay before | period when it was thought proper, on you a case of the most iniquitous persecution account of my advanced age, that I should that ever poor devil suffered. mix with other boys more unreservedly than I had hitherto done. I was accordingly sent to boarding-school.

You must know, then, that I have been visited with a calamity ever since my birth. How shall I mention it without offending delicacy? Yet out it must. My sufferings, then, have all arisen from a most inordinate appetite

Not for wealth, not for vast possessions, then might I have hoped to find a cure in some of those precepts of philosophers or poets, those verba et voces which Horace speaks of :

quibus hunc lenire dolorem

Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem;"

not for glory, not for fame, not for applause, -for against this disease, too, he tells us there are certain piacula, or, as Pope has chosen to render it,

66 rhymes, which fresh and fresh applied,
Will cure the arrant'st puppy of his pride;"

nor yet for pleasure, properly so called: the strict and virtuous lessons which I received in early life from the best of parents,-a pious clergyman of the Church of England, now no more,-I trust have rendered me sufficiently secure on that side:

No, Sir, for none of these things; but an appetite, in its coarsest and least metaphorical sense,―an appetite for food.

The exorbitancies of my arrow-root and pappish days I cannot go back far enough to remember; only I have been told that my mother's constitution not admitting of my being nursed at home, the woman who had the care of me for that purpose used to make most extravagant demands for my pretended excesses in that kind; which my parents, rather than believe anything unpleasant of me, chose to impute to the known covetousness and mercenary disposition of that sort of people. This blindness continued on their part after I was sent for home, up to the

Here the melancholy truth became too apparent to be disguised. The prying republic of which a great school consists soon found me out there was no shifting the blame any longer upon other people's shoulders,-no good-natured maid to take upon herself the enormities of which I stood accused in the article of bread and butter, besides the crying sin of stolen ends of puddings, and cold pies strangely missing. The truth was but too manifest in my looks, -in the evident signs of inanition which I exhibited after the fullest meals, in spite of the double allowance which my master was privately instructed by my kind parents to give me. The sense of the ridiculous, which is but too much alive in grown persons, is tenfold more active and alert in boys. Once detected, I was the constant butt of their arrows, the mark against which every puny leveller directed his little shaft of scorn. The very Graduses and Thesauruses were raked for phrases to pelt me with by the tiny pedants. Ventri natus-Ventri deditus,— Vesana gula,-Escarum gurges,-Dapibus indulgens,-Non dans fræna gulæ,-Sectans lautæ fercula mensæ, resounded wheresoever I passed. I led a weary life, suffering the penalties of guilt for that which was no crime, but only following the blameless dictates of nature. The remembrance of those childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when, in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favourite boy;

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