COUSIN TOMKINS, THE TAILOR.*

EDWARD STANLEY was a gentleman of good family, and liberal education, and held an official situation of considerable trust, and proportionate emolument. He was married, very early in life, to a lady, in the choice of whom he was guided rather by her personal attractions, than a regard to similarity of taste and congeniality of disposition. He devoted much of his time to the cultivation of the belles lettres, and delighted in the society of men of learning and genius, many of the most distinguished of which class were frequent guests at his table. His lady, on the other hand, was the daughter of persons of humble origin, who, from successful speculations, had risen suddenly into comparative wealth, by means of which they were enabled to give her an education at one of the fashionable finishing-schools, where, with the tinsel accomplishments of the day, she acquired notions as much at variance with common sense and proper feeling, as they were unfitted for the society in which she had been accustomed to move. As one of a large family, she brought her husband a very moderate fortune: she knew, however, that his income was ample, and resolved to make it subservient to the taste for expense and display which her education had engendered, and which Mr Stanley, who loved her affectionately, was too weakly indulgent to oppose.

They had one daughter, their only child, of whom her father was both fond and proud. Her mother, also, loved her, but she loved pleasure more, and, consequently, resigned her offspring to the care of menials in her infancy, and, subsequently committed her education to a governess. The latter, however, was a young woman of piety, as well as ability, whose endeavours were not less strenuously applied to regulate the heart, than to improve the understanding of her pupil. Mrs Stanley was too much absorbed by the business of fashionable life to afford the time, if she had cherished a wish, to interfere with the system of instruction adopted in the case of her daughter, who was, on the other hand, preserved from the taint of her mother's example, by the latter's reluctance to "bring her out," and, thereby, introduce into her circle a rival claimant for that admiration which she was still eager to attract.

Much, however, as Mrs Stanley's vanity was gratified by the notice which her splendid parties procured her, it was occasionally subjected to severe mortifications, and she was often painfully reminded of the humble sphere in which she and her parents had

* From the Second Series of Tales of a Physician.' By W. H. Harrison.

previously moved. Among her relations, there was one who happened to be a tailor, and who, to her inconceivable horror, had the undisputed honour of being her first cousin, and bearing the family name. Had he kept a chandler's shop, he might have been designated a provision merchant; or, if a cheesemonger, he might have been described by the style and title of a bacon factor; but a tailor is a tailor, all the world over, and there is no synonyme in our vocabulary by which to dignify the calling.

Her dread of being associated, in any shape, with this industrious member of a most useful trade, was said to have exhibited itself in the most ridiculous extremes. A table vegetable, vulgarly supposed to be symbolical of the sartorial art, was never admitted at the banquet, lest its presence should give rise to an unuttered sarcasm, or a mental sneer, among her fashionable guests. Nay, it was even insinuated, that no other reason could be assigned for the stopping up of a side window in the house, than the fact of its commanding a view of a certain cutler's, who, by way of a sign, had adopted a Patagonian pair of shears, which spanned his door posts, like a Colossus.

But Cousin Tomkins, the tailor, was as little ambitious of contact with his fair and proud relative, as she could be of his con-nexion. He was a sturdy and independent spirited man, who had too much good sense to be ashamed of a calling, by which he was not only gaining a livelihood, but accumulating wealth. He was, moreover, better informed than the generality of his caste, for he had studied other pages than his pattern book, and, above all, was well read in that volume, compared with which the wisdom of the most subtle philosophy that ever dazzled the world is foolishness and vanity. Never, but on a single occasion, and that an urgent one of a family nature, did Tomkins intrude himself on the presence of his fashionable cousin, whose contemptuous civility supplied him with little inducement to repeat the visit. Stung by the sense of treatment, from which common decency, if not his relationship, should have protected him, he was hurrying back through the lacquey-lined hall, when his progress was arrested by a fairhaired, blue-eyed girl, of about six years old, who, looking up in his face with an innocent smile, accosted him by the appellation of cousin, and, thrusting a little bunch of violets into his hand, dismissed him at the door with a laughing "good-bye." It was little Clara Stanley, whom some of the servants, probably in sport, had informed of the visitor's relationship, and whose mother took occasion, on being told of the circumstance, severely to reprehend, for the familiarity of which she had been guilty. Children, however, are sorry casuists, and Mrs Stanley's eloquence utterly failed in

convincing Clara that there was less impropriety in romping with her cousin the guardsman, than in shaking hands with cousin Tomkins, the tailor. Tomkins, on his part, was much affected by the child's behaviour, and, on his return home, he placed the little bunch of faded violets between the leaves of his Bible, alleging that he should daily be reminded of the incident, and learn to forgive the unkindness of the parent, for the sake of the innocence of the child.

But time passed on: the girl began to grow into the woman, and the work of education drew to a close. Her preceptress, however, in resigning her charge, had the consolation of feeling that, though the temptations, to which her pupil was about to be exposed, were many and strong, she was provided with panoply of proof against their power, in the humility of her mind, and her dependance upon God. Her taste, moreover, had not been corrupted into a relish for the dissipations of fashionable life. An authority, to which her piety, as well as filial affection, taught her to yield obedience, forced her occasionally into the ball-room; but, as love of display had never a place in her bosom, the scene had little charms for her, and she had discrimination enough to perceive that it was not, even to those who most frequented and most lauded it, the elysium which they would have it be accounted. To a few, the assembly may be, and doubtless is, a scene, if not of refined, yet of innocent enjoyment; but is it a scene of happiness, I ask, to the lover, who, like a moth flitting around the lamp, hovers about the goddess of his idolatry, only to see her coveted smiles lavished upon another, and to behold the easy profligate and the shallow coxcomb preferred before him? Is it a scene of happiness to the fading beauty, when she finds the spell of her attraction broken; or to the pining girl, who beholds the homage, which she had deemed exclusively and securely her own, heartlessly transferred to some triumphant rival? Is it a scene of happiness to the manoeuvring mother, who, when she has flown her daughters at herons of the highest soar, beholds them stoop to inferior game, and strike at the wrong bird? Oh, no! we can see the smile which mantles on the cheek of the revellers, but we cannot see the envy, the rancour, the jealousy, and the disappointment, which lurk beneath, and change the cup of pleasure into bitterness and poison!

Averse, however, as she was from the dissipations of high life, she was no stranger to the enjoyment arising from the cultivation of the polite arts. Her harp, her pencil, and her books, were the sources on which she drew for recreation; nor, ardent as was her piety, did she, in the gloomy spirit of fanaticism, deem the chords which were so often struck to the praises of her God, profaned by

being attuned to many of those airs with which our language abounds, and which are as pure in sentiment as they are plaintive in their melody. Although, like the dying poet, she deemed the Bible the best book, she was not one of those who cannot distinguish between a trashy novel, in which some accomplished profligate favours the world with a transcript of his history, or some discarded sycophant with the fruits of his eaves-dropping, and the pages in which the genius of Mackenzie, of Scott, and of Irving, shine with equal purity and lustre.

It was not, as I have said, in the crush of the rout, or the glitter of the ball-room, that Clara sought her pleasures: and it was, therefore, with no ordinary sense of relief, that she escaped from the fashionable jargon of some vapid exquisite, to the society which her father's taste and hospitality were wont to gather around his board; where she was a silent, though not the less gratified, observer of the flashes of wit and genius which such meetings elicit. Yet was Clara not one of those epicene creatures, ycleped bluestockings: it is true, she was mistress of French and Italian, and had just sufficient knowledge of the Latin language to insure correctness in the writing and speaking of her own; but she did not waste, on the acquisition of more learned tongues or abstruse sciences, the time which might be devoted to employments more becoming her sex, and more useful to those around her.

Gifted as she was, too, in personal attractions, enhanced by a grace of manner which Nature needs not the aid of the dancing master to confer, it will not be matter of surprise that she had many admirers; yet it would be unjust towards the wiser portion of the other sex, to conceal that there were those who were as much enchanted by the accomplishments and virtues of her mind, as by the beauty of her person. Among them was a gentleman who was a frequent guest at the table of her father. The younger son of a respectable family, he had been educated for one of the learned professions, and, by the amiability of his manners, not less than by the variety and brilliancy of his talents, had rendered himself a general favourite in the society in which he moved. Upon his enthusiastic and poetical temperament, the beauty and virtues of Clara were calculated to make a powerful impression, which every hour passed in her company tended to deepen.

Ardent, however, as were his feelings, they were under the control of a well-regulated mind, and he was awakened from the elysian dream into which he had suffered himself to be entranced, by the reflection that, situated as he was, straitened in circumstances, and dependant entirely on his success in the profession he had chosen, the object of his passion could not honourably be pursued.

With a resolution and self-denial rarely evinced upon similar occasions, he withdrew himself from the magic circle, ere its enchantment became too strong for him, and suddenly, and at the hazard of much misinterpretation of his motives, ceased to be a guest at Mr Stanley's.

The subject of this sketch was not fitted for the heroine of a romance, and the early years of her life passed away unmarked by any occurrence which it would be interesting to record. At the age of eighteen, however, an eventful year in her existence had deprived her of both her parents, who died within a few months of each other. Mr Stanley had never been a provident man; his affairs, therefore, at his decease, were in such a state, that it required the sacrifice of all he left behind him, even to the furniture of his house, to satisfy the demands of his creditors.

The morning appointed for the sale arrived, and Clara retired to an apartment as remote from the bustle of preparation as she could select. Sorrow for the loss of an affectionate parent was weighing heavily upon her heart, nor was the reflection that she must, in a few hours, quit the home of her childhood, to wander forth, she knew not whither, calculated to lighten her grief. Of the many who were wont, with smiling faces and flattering tongues, to flock to the splendid entertainments which her mother delighted to give, there was not one found to offer the word of comfort in her tribulation; but, as she had never relied upon their friendship, she could feel little disappointment at their desertion. Her prospect over the bare wilderness of life, was, indeed, a desolate one: there appeared not a blossom to gladden her path, nor was there a tree between her and the gloomy horizon, to shelter her from the coming storm. But her view was not confined to earth: she turned upwards, with the eye of faith, to that beneficent God whom she had served in her prosperity, and who, she felt the blessed conviction, would not desert her in the day of her trouble. True it was, the means of deliverance were not visible, but faith assured her that His arm was not shortened that it could not save; she had not trusted to a broken reed, which pierces the hand that seeks its succour.

In the meantime, the preliminary arrangements for the sale were in progress: the rooms were thronged with company, of which no inconsiderable portion was made up of the acquaintances, -they were once deemed friends,-of Mr Stanley. Some were attracted by the amiable desire of witnessing the wreck of the prosperity they had envied; others, by the hope of securing at a cheap rate, some article of furniture, bijouterie, or art, which they had admired in the life-time of its late proprietor.

A few of the relatives of Mr Stanley were gathered into a circle,