ill-wisher was considered complete, when the second, and third, and all the other children, were found to be equally distinguished by this feature; and, what gave the triumph still more piquancy, was, that the daughters were found to be no more excepted than the sons from the family doom. In the second generation, moreover, instead of being softened or diluted away, the mouth rather increased; and so it had done in every successive generation since that time. The race having been very prolific, it was now spread so much, that there was scarcely a face in Tullibody altogether free of the contagion: the people there had almost ceased to regard a large mouth as a joke: it was so common as not to be noted; or there were so many, that there was not one mouth to laugh at another. Fate and fortune are said to be very favourable to people with large mouths. So it proved in this case. After the mouth came into the family, luck also came; and still as the mouth had increased with successive generations, just so had riches increased. The third in line from the “first man,” a cooper by profession, became so wealthy before he died, that he might have got his name handed down to immortality on a certain conspicuous, though dusty and illegible, board in the parish church, along with those of other charitable persons by leaving “ane hunder merks Scots to ye pvir.” Despising the humble glory of making such a legacy, and being too poor to found a college, and too wise to endow a cat, he did better; he _founded a spoon_--a spoon which should go down to future ages as a traditionary joke upon his family-feature, and remain for ever in the hands of those who could appreciate his beneficence. He left it under certain provisions, or statutes of foundation. The main scope of his intentions, was, simply, that the spoon should always be possessed by his largest-mouthed descendant. In the first place, after his own death it was to fall into the hands of his eldest son, a youth of highly promising mouth; or, indeed, whose mouth was fully entitled to the proverbial praise bestowed upon the cooper of Fogo,--“that it was his father’s equal and mair,” and who moreover, entertained such a respect for the will of his parent, that he seemed likely to preserve and transmit the precious heir-loom with all due zeal and care. At his death, it was to become the property of the son, daughter, nephew, or niece (for it was not limited _heredibus masculis_, but, with laudable regard for the claims of the fairer sex, destined _heredibus quibuscunque_), who should appear to him, judging conscientiously, and in his right mind, to have the mouth most fitted to enjoy it in all its latitude. At the death of that person, it was to go to the next largest mouth (_isto vel ista, judice_), and so on, in all time coming. After passing the second generation, of course uncles, cousins, and grand-nephews, might become eligible, provided that the family should spread itself out into these