CHAPTER XLIII.

Lo the good man still dreams of HORNS-appears

AFTER my Aunt's unlucky lying-in of an ape, Jacob became affected by all the terror of cuckoldom. I thought something like a phrenzy was working on his spirits by his incessant discussions on the same eternal

topic with CACO-NOUS-Whether cuckoldom in society was to be tolerated? They agreed it was!--but when my Uncle examined whether it was tolerable at home? he would not allow this! Jealousy makes a philosopher so inconsequent in his nice reasonings! CACO-Nous argued much in favour of "public utility." Jacob rested on Blackstone for "private wrongs." They went to it ding-dong, day after day. My Uncle declared that CACO-NOUS argued as if a man's horns were a corona civica! while CACONOUS replied, that if my Uncle persisted in his absurd prejudices, he would come in time to wish his most intimate friends were castrati!-Would not that be a violation of "public utility?" But my Uncle was bit by a mad dog-CACO-NOUS's arguments were all so much water to him, who was in a state of hydrophobia.

A familiar intercourse existed between my Aunt and CONTOUR.-Doubtless it sprung out of a congenial passion-for the fine arts! But all your enthusiasts in the fine arts, whose heads and tongues are less judicious than their eyes, make use, like the Methodists, of strange indecent languageand gestures too! Such "words that burn," accompanied by such attitudes! such simpering! such glances !—that to a mere experimental philosopher, with my Uncle's temperate blood-they appeared at least what I want delicate language to express. I attempted to soften his irritation by describing the quick feelings of delicate taste; he had no conception of them! But he was long restrained from breaking out in the terrific manner he afterwards did, by recollecting the place he occupied in the eye of the pub

lic.-Jacob was one of the Presidents of PoLITE ARTS in the ADELPHI !

In favour of my Aunt, I must say, that she had of late been sensible of Jacob's coolness towards her since the affair of the ape-and whether she proposed to inflame him, either by way of revenge, or out of the thoughtless vanity of the sex, or to reclaim his lost affections, she and CONTOUR were eternally disserting about the NUDE-ideal gracesusceptibility, &c.—which generally closed with a mutual attack on some part of their bodies-before the enquiring eyes of the experimental philosopher!

There was a circumstance which greatly tended to inflame the ardours of CONTOUR for my Aunt, and was the source of a hun

dred of those enamouring attentions, those sweet civilities, which my Uncle beheld with a pair of magnifying eyes, that made them most horrible to look on.

CONTOUR, touched with the tenderest passion for my Aunt, broke her arm for her!-and this, of course, was a trial for them both; she still doated on him with a more tender enthusiasm, he with perpetual gratitude!

'Twas done when she sat to him as a model, in attempting to adjust my Aunt's arms and legs to one of the figures of MICHAEL ANGELO, or FUSELI-her arm could not bear the twist, and snapped!