e
sharp east wind was moaning angrily in the chimney; but as my eye glanced
from the cheerful blaze of the fire to the ample folds of my closed
window-curtains--as the hearth-rug yielded to the pressure of my foot,
while, beating time to my own music, I sung, in rather a louder tone than
usual, my favourite air of "_Judy O'Flannegan_;"--the whistling of the
wind, and the pattering of the rain, only served to enhance in my
estimation the comforts of my home, and inspire a livelier sense of the
good fortune which had delivered me from any evening engagements. It may
be questioned, whether there are any hours in this life, of such unmixed
enjoyment as the few, the very few, which a young bachelor is allowed to
rescue from the pressing invitations of those dear friends, who want
another talking man at their dinner tables, or from those many and
wilily-devised entanglements which are woven round him by the hands of
inevitable mothers, and preserve entirely to himself.--Talk of the
pleasure of repose! What repose can possibly be so sweet, as that which is
enjoyed on a disengaged day during the laborious dissipations of a London
life?--Talk of the delights of solitude! Spirit of Zimmerman!--What
solitude is the imagination capable of conceiving so entirely delightful,
as that which a young unmarried man possesses in his quiet lodging, with
his easy chair and his dressing-gown, his beef-steak, and his whisky and
water, his nap over an old poem or a new novel, and the intervening
despatch of a world of little neglected matters, which, from time to time,
occur to recollection between the break of the stanzas or the incidents of
the story?

Such were the reflections that hastily passed along my mind, on the
afternoon of Thursday, the 15th of February, 1827, as I sat with a volume
of the _Tor Hill_ in my hand, in the back drawing-room of my lodging in
Conduit-street. It was about ten o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was
just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and
irrepressible propensity of elocution, which result from a satisfied
appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became
more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eye around my apartment, and
contemplated my well-filled book-case, and the many articles of
convenience with which I had contrived to accommodate my nest; till, at
length, the emotions of satisfaction became too strong to be restrained
within the bonds of sile