Poor Frederick Figgins was so affected that I vow he began to cry; I'm sure he did, for I was close to him, and I saw a _drop in his eye_. He's a _nice young man_; and _I shouldn't wonder_ if he soon married Miss Briggs: Her father is a coarsish man, and says he shall, _please the pigs_. He wasn't very gracious, tho', at first, to Mr. Figgins; For when he ask'd his consent, he said to him (I had the whole story from Mr. Higgins) '_How are you off? for soap_ and candles, and such-like, got me all my money; And for my daughter to marry a poor man wouldn't be vastly funny. _How's your mother_ left you; or have you your fortune to get? If you have _I wish you may get it_ soon; but I can't let you marry Miss Bet; But while I'm describing his bluntness, I'm wand'ring away from my point. The limbs of my relation are indeed terribly out of joint. Well, Mr. Figgins help'd Miss B. home to _hop_: _the twig_, which happen'd to lay across her foot, Sav'd her other toes, to be sure, but there was a terrible large gash in her boot. But poor Mr. F.! how he _fretted_! _his fat_ cheeks than a mummy's were thinner; He never could eat any breakfast, and seldom could eat any dinner. His eyes were once bright as a _star_: _the glaze_ on them now was quite ghostly; A cloud seem'd to _darken his day_—_light_some and gay he'd been mostly. A party he join'd at Vauxhall; but its gaieties fail'd to delight him: He did nothing but swallow rack-punch; as to eating, 'twas vain to invite him. He call'd to his friend: '_Jemmy Johnson, squeeze me_ a lemon;' and turning to me then, He said, in a voice that quite shock'd me, and looking as wild as a heathen: 'My spirits I cannot _keep up; your pluck_'d flowers droop slower than I do; I'm sure that I make _no mistake_,—my fate will be that of poor Dido.' (I declare I am talking pentameters; quite forgetting you're not a Blue Stocking; But that I am sure you'll excuse.)—Well, isn't the story quite shocking? Miss Briggs, tho', got quite well at last; to the dolefuls he bade adieu quickly; Yet a long while he talk'd of her death, though he no longer look'd mournful and sickly. '_All round my hat_, while I liv'd,' he said, 'a crape hatband I should have worn,— _A shocking bad hat_, to be sure; but just fit for a lover forlorn. Think what would have been my despair, with no consolation to go to! But tho' I have not lost her quite, yet, alas! I have lost her in _toe-toe_.'" Paragraphs Extraordinary.