A country cousin visited a relation in the metropolis of some respectability, with the desire of soliciting his aid and advice as to his views in life. He was received by his relative with kindness, who having elsewhere heard that the young man was of a mechanic taste, and that he meditated being a maker of watches, complimented him on his supposed talent, and was leading the conversation to the subject of mechanism and the arts. The youth, in high dudgeon, disdained the idea and drudgery of a tradesman’s life, and interrupted his relative by exclaiming, What, Sir, do you think me a tradesman? Why I must confess that such a suggestion had been communicated to me. No, Sir, you need not be ashamed of your relationship; I am not a tradesman; I am a Professor of Dancing; which being interpreted, was found to mean neither more nor less than a Country dancing master. Fortunate was it for the old gentleman and his wife, that this eclaircissement took place in the evening, for on the morning following, they were awakened at an early hour by a most unaccountable noise in the chamber above that in which they slept, which would greatly have annoyed them, had they not conjectured, what in reality proved to be the fact, that their country cousin was practising the last new waltz, with one of the bed-room chairs. But to return to our Queer Bookseller. The epithet is not intended to express the smallest disrespect, but the person in question was characterized by a dryness of manner peculiarly his own. He was seldom betrayed into a smile, nor did he ever appear particularly exhilarated, even when the greatest wits of the day assembled at his house. He had to boast of the familiar acquaintance of Wilkes and Boswell, and Johnson and Cumberland, and Parr and Steevens, and a numerous tribe of popular writers. No one could exercise the rites of hospitality with greater liberality, and when enabled from success, to retire from the world with great opulence, he retained his kind feelings towards those, who had formerly been connected with him as authors, and gave them a frequent and cordial welcome at his table. But to evince the powerful effect of habit, he retained so strong a partiality for the situation in which he had passed the greatest part of his life, and where he had accumulated his wealth, that though it was in the very noisiest part of the noisiest street in the city, he invariably, and for ever afterwards, made it the standard by which he estimated how far any thing was handsome, convenient, or agreeable. “My house in the city” comprised every thing which was animating and delightful without, and comfortable and exhilarating within.