lent bull-dogs in the
yard--fine fellows, I assure you--savage, and all that--indeed just the
thing for your money--they'll have you eaten up, auricula and all, in
less than five minutes (here's my watch!)--and then only think of the
sensations! Here! I say--Tom!--Peter!--Dick, you villain!--let out
those"--but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another
moment to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my departure, and
accordingly took leave at once--somewhat more abruptly, I admit, than
strict courtesy would have otherwise allowed.

It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into some
immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view I spent
the greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh, seeking
for desperate adventures--adventures adequate to the intensity of my
feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the article I intended to
write. In this excursion I was attended by one negro--servant,
Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had brought with me from
Philadelphia. It was not, however, until late in the afternoon that
I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An important event
then happened of which the following Blackwood article, in the tone
heterogeneous, is the substance and result.

A PREDICAMENT

What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

--COMUS.

IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the goodly
city of Edina. The confusion and bustle in the streets were terrible.
Men were talking. Women were screaming. Children were choking. Pigs were
whistling. Carts they rattled. Bulls they bellowed. Cows they lowed.
Horses they neighed. Cats they caterwauled. Dogs they danced. Danced!
Could it then be possible? Danced! Alas, thought I, my dancing days are
over! Thus it is ever. What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and
anon be awakened in the mind of genius and imaginative contemplation,
especially of a genius doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and
continual, and, as one might say, the--continued--yes, the continued and
continuous, bitter, harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the
expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike,
and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what
may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable--nay!
the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously ethereal, and, as it
were, the m