This sounds rather paradoxical, but an old Jacobite song will illustrate our meaning. The story goes that a gudewife concealed a north country cousin, one of the adherents of Charlie, in the house, unknown to the gudeman; and her ingenuity is sorely puzzled to account for certain suspicious phenomena which strike him on his coming home:— “Hame came our gudeman at e’en, And hame came he, And there he saw a pair o’ boots, Where nae the boots should be. “‘And how came these boots here, And whase can they be? And how came thæ boots here Without the leave of me?’ ‘Boots!’ quo’ she; (_with amazement_) ‘Aye, boots!’ quo’ he. “‘Ye auld blind dotard carle, And blinder mat ye be! (_indignantly_) It’s but a pair o’ water-stoups, My minnie sent to me.’ ‘Water-stoups?’ quo’ he, ‘Aye, water-stoups;’ quo’ she.” (_with impudent determination_). And so in like manner she unblushingly persists, in order to preserve her guest’s life, that a saddle-horse is a milking cow, and a man’s coat a pair of blankets. Now we are sure this dear woman had a Celestial Nose; nothing else would have had the ready wit and impudent assurance to attempt so to befool her gudeman, and to persist, with the addition of no slight abuse of his dotard blindness, in her palpable falsehoods; yet we defy any one not to love the good woman, and excuse her breaches of morality for the sake of her hospitable benevolence. Whenever two persons, the one having a large Nose and the other a small one, come into collision, the latter must inevitably yield, unless it is feminine, and takes a Celestial turn. It may then conquer, not by its wisdom or the force of argument, but by its persevering impudence, and harassing petty skirmishing. A wise man may, for the sake of peace and quiet, ostensibly yield to a noisy woman; though there is no real conquest, for he remains unconvinced. But a Snub-nosed man must succumb, body and soul, to a Roman-nosed wife; she will assume the masterdom; she will endue the breeches; he cannot help himself; under her his nature is subdued, as Marc Antony’s was by Cæsar. Take warning, therefore, ye Snub Noses; and if ye would be masters at home, marry your likes. Aspire not to wed feminine beauty; it is not for such as you. Marry Snubs; beget Snubs, till the race is extinct. We are conscious that in discussing female Noses, we are treading on delicate ground. It is a difficult and nervous subject. We have endeavoured, however, to say nothing but what appeared to us to be plain truth. Nevertheless we would apologize if we have given offence to any one, were it not that we forcibly feel the truth of the homely adage, “the least said the soonest mended,” and therefore hasten to close a chapter which has given us more trouble and anxiety than all the rest together. CHAPTER IX. OF NATIONAL NOSES.