"Was there not Whitlow, beadle of the parish of St. Scraggs? What a man-beast was Whitlow! how would he, like an avenging ogre, scatter apple-women! how would he foot little boys guilty of peg-tops and marbles! how would he puff at a beggar--puff like the picture of the north wind in a spelling book! What a huge heavy purple face he had, as though all the blood of his body were stagnant in his cheeks! and then when he spoke, would he not growl and snuffle like a dog? How the parish would have hated him, but that the parish heard there was a Mrs. Whitlow; a small fragile woman, with a face sharp as a penknife, and lips that cut her words like scissors! and what a forlorn wretch was Whitlow with his head brought once a night to the pillow! poor creature! helpless, confused; a huge imbecility, a stranded whale! Mrs. Whitlow talked and talked; and there was not an apple-woman that in Whitlow's sufferings was not avenged: not a beggar that, thinking of the beadle at midnight, might not in his compassion have forgiven the beadle of the day. And in this punishment we acknowledge a grand, a beautiful retribution. A Judge Jeffreys in his wig is an abominable tyrant; yet may his victims sometimes smile to think what Judge Jeffreys suffers in his night cap!" It is almost unnecessary to observe that the writer of Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures was somewhat severe upon the fair sex. His idea of a perfect woman is that of one who is beautiful, "and can do everything but speak." In the "Chronicles of Clovernook"--_i.e._ of his little retreat near Herne Bay--he gives an account of the Hermit of Bellyfulle, who lives in "the cell of the corkscrew," and among many amusing paradoxes, maintains the following, "Ay, Sir, the old story--the old grievance, Sir, twixt man and woman," said the hermit. "And what is that, Sir?" we asked. The hermit shaking his head, and groaning cried, "Buttons." "Buttons!" said we.