bitual
expression is one of weariness and profound indifference to the world--a
look that is deeply pathetic and depressing, until some transient cause
of irritation or the words of a sprightly talker rouse him into
animation. But the most noticeable quality of his face is its look of
extreme age. Only yesterday a keen observer said of him, "Lord Thurlow
is, I believe, only seventy-four; and from his appearance I should think
him a hundred years old."

So quiet is the reclining form, that the pianist thinks her father must
be sleeping. Turning on the music-stool to get a view of his
countenance, and to satisfy herself as to his state, she makes a false
note, when, quick as the blunder, the brown wig turns upon the
pillow--the furrowed face is presented to her observation, and an
electric brightness fills the big black eyes, as the veteran, with deep
rolling tones, reproves her carelessness:--"What are you doing?--what
are you doing? I had almost forgotten the world. Play that piece again."

Twelve months more--and the lady will be playing Handel's music on that
same instrument; but the old man will not be a listener.

From Brighton, in 1805, let readers transport themselves to Canterbury
in 1776, and let them enter a barber's shop, hard by Canterbury
Cathedral. It is a primitive shop, with the red and white pole over the
door, and a modest display of wigs and puff-boxes in the window. A small
shop, but, notwithstanding its smallness, the best shop of its kind in
Canterbury; and its lean, stiff, exceedingly respectable master is a man
of good repute in the cathedral town. His hands have, ere now, powdered
the Archbishop's wig, and he is specially retained by the chief clergy
of the city and neighborhood to keep their false hair in order, and trim
the natural tresses of their children. Not only have the dignitaries of
the cathedral taken the worthy barber under their special protection,
but they have extended to his little boy Charles, a demure, prim lad,
who is at this present time a pupil in the King's School, to which
academy clerical interest gained him admission. The lad is in his
fourteenth year; and Dr. Osmund Beauvoir, the master of the school,
gives him so good a character for industry and dutiful demeanor, that
some of the cathedral ecclesiastics have resolved to make the little
fellow's fortune--by placing him in the office of a Chorister. There is
a vacant place in the cathedral choir; and the boy who is luc