So little of the sex I’ve seen, I hold each one a fairy _quean_—) Appear in such a garb of flour, And talk with such continuous power, And try to look so dapper, That one might think the miller’s maid Had come, most naturally arrayed, And bore away the clapper. That powder is a great transgression Against the rosy cheek; It buries up the whole expression; It makes the eye look weak, Unnatural the tress; And throws upon the brow a blight, As though it had grown gray with fright At single blessedness. Pray who would such a woman toast? Unless he meant to drink to one Long, long since with the buried gone, And now an awful ghost? Which, like all ghosts that earthward rove, Must horrify the hues of love. * * * * * MISFORTUNES OF A TIMID GENTLEMAN. BY J. ROSS BROWNE. Book I. No excuse is necessary for giving my autobiography to the public. It is true I am but a timid gentleman—a quiet, inoffensive sort of person, too diffident of my own powers to be celebrated, and too much averse to the bustle of the world to figure as a politician or public character of any sort; yet I cannot help thinking there are some passages in my life which will be read with profit. I attained my eighteenth year without more reverses of fortune than usually attend a youth of romantic aspirations and of a poetic and visionary turn of mind. I was a curious mixture of boldness and timidity. My parents formerly lived in a very mountainous part of the country; and while most of my days were spent in daring exploits amidst crags and precipices, at night I trembled to meet, in the social circle of neighbors, a bright eye or a dimpled cheek. The extreme bashfulness with which I approached the other sex of my own age subjected me to a good deal of ridicule, and finally caused me, in self-defence, to ascribe my repugnance to their society to what was anything but the true cause—an intuitive hatred of womankind. And truly my conduct supported the assertion. Never was there a greater mope or a more decided book-worm. I pretended society had no charms for me. I affected to look with indifference on the most fascinating beauty. I shunned all intercourse with the daughters of the neighboring gentry. All this arose, in fact, from my excessive timidity. I never could look upon a young female, however common-place her attractions, without the utmost agitation. When I attempted to speak, I invariably blushed, and my heart beat violently. Thus unfortunately organized, I reached, as I observed before, my eighteenth year. Until this time I had kept almost entirely aloof from female society, and, as a matter of course, my heart was still my own.