e, relished by himself
alone. But his love of a pun was a serious attachment: he loved it with
a solemn affection--with him it was no laughing matter.

In person Dominie Dobiensis was above six feet, all bone and sinews.
His face was long and his lineaments large; but his predominant feature
was his nose, which, large as were the others, bore them down into
insignificance. It was a prodigy--a ridicule; but he consoled himself--
Ovid was called Naso. It was not an aquiline nose, nor was it an
aquiline nose reversed. It was not a nose snubbed at the extremity,
gross, heavy, or carbuncled, or fluting. In all its magnitude of
proportions, it was an intellectual nose. It was thin, horny,
transparent, and sonorous. Its snuffle was consequential and its sneeze
oracular. The very sight of it was impressive; its sound, when blown in
school hours, was ominous. But the scholars loved the nose for the
warning which it gave: like the rattle of the dreaded snake, which
announces its presence, so did the nose indicate to the scholars that
they were to be on their guard. The Dominie would attend to this world
and its duties for an hour or two, and then forget his scholars and his
school-room, while he took a journey into the world of Greek or algebra.
Then, when he marked _x_, _y_, and _z_, in his calculations, the boys
knew that he was safe, and their studies were neglected.

Reader, did you ever witness the magic effects of a drum in a small
village, when the recruiting party, with many-coloured ribbons, rouse it
up with a spirit-stirring tattoo? Matrons leave their domestic cares,
and run to the cottage door: peeping over their shoulders, the maidens
admire and fear. The shuffling clowns raise up their heads gradually,
until they stand erect and proud; the slouch in the back is taken out,
their heavy walk is changed to a firm yet elastic tread, every muscle
appears more braced, every nerve, by degrees, new strung; the blood
circulates rapidly: pulses quicken, hearts throb, eyes brighten, and as
the martial sound pervades their rustic frames, the Cimons of the plough
are converted, as if by magic, into incipient heroes for the field;--and
all this is produced by beating the skin of the most gentle, most
harmless animal of creation.

Not having at hand the simile synthetical, we have resorted to the
antithetical. The blowing of the Dominie's nose produced the very
contrary effects. It was a signal that he had returned