When for a short time he was betrayed into the expression of any cheerful sentiment, if he ever allowed that it was a fine day, he quickly relapsed into congenial gloom, and discovered that there might be a thunder-storm within the next half-hour. His only comfort was in the reflection that his maternal uncle's family were consumptive. Here he anticipated a fine field for the exercise of his poetic gifts, and, accordingly, when his aunt was gathered to her fore-fathers, her dutiful nephew laid a sheet of blank paper upon his desk, and settled himself down to write "a Dirge." He began by attributing all the virtues to her--devoting about six lines to each separate virtue. Her person next engaged his attention, and he discovered, though none of her friends had ever remarked her surpassing loveliness, that her step was as the breath of the summer-wind on flowers (certainly no gardener would have trusted her upon his box-borders); that she was fresh as Hebe (she always breakfasted in bed); that she had pearly teeth (her dentist has maliciously informed us that they were made of the very best ivory); and, finally, that her general deportment was most charming--so charming that Mr. Blackbrook never dared trust himself in her seductive presence. Having proceeded thus far with his melancholy duty, the poet ate a hearty supper of the heaviest cold pudding, and--we had almost written--went to bed--but we remember that Mr. Blackbrook always "retired to his solitary couch." He rose, betimes, on the following morning, looking most poetically pale. His dreams had been of woe, and darkness, and death; the pudding had had the desired effect. Again he placed himself at his desk, and having read over the prefatory lines which we have endeavored to describe, he threw his fragrant curl from his marble forehead, and thought of the funeral-pall, the darkened hall--of grief acute, and the unstrung lute. He put his aunt's sorrowing circle in every possible position of despair. He represented his surviving uncle as threatening to pass the serene portals of reason; he discovered that a dark tide rolled at the unhappy man's feet; that the sun itself would henceforth look dark to him; that he would never smile again; and that, in all probability, the shroud would soon enwrap his manly form. He next proceeded to describe minutely the pearly tears of his cousins, and the terrible darkness that had come over their bright, young dreams. An affecting allusion to his own unfathomable grief on the occasion, was concluded by the hope that he might soon join his sainted aunt, though he had never taken the least trouble to pay her a visit while she lived in St. John's Wood. This touching dirge was printed upon mourning paper, and distributed among Mr. Blackbrook's friends. The death of an aunt was an affecting incident, but still it fell short of the brink of despair. Mr. Blackbrook's natural abiding-place was the edge of a precipice.