One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take all the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should have a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute my quota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, under a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a bit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the same principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch by main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy as a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own country in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous affection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fall in love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break all the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for some sublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), I have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid Anatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced at, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power. MR HILARY Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be in forcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, we shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine and music in the world. THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not have interrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dry conversation. MR FLOSKY I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that there are yet both music and sunshine-- THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favour of--(_turning over the pages of music._) All were silent, and Marionetta sung: Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar? Why are thy looks so blue? Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar, Than thou wast used to do:-- Say, what has made thee rue? Thy form was plump, and a light did shine In thy round and ruby face, Which showed an outward visible sign Of an inward spiritual grace:-- Say, what has changed thy case? Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar, I very well can see, That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar, 'Tis all for love of me,-- 'Tis all for love of me. But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar, Oh, breathe them not, I pray; For ill beseems in a reverend friar, The love of a mortal may; And I needs must say thee nay.