cond Mr. Callythorpe, and the third
Sir Christopher Findlater. We will sketch them to you in an instant.
Mr. Trollolop was a short, stout gentleman, with a very thoughtful
countenance,-that is to say, he wore spectacles and took snuff.

Mr. Trollolop--we delight in pronouncing that soft liquid name--was
eminently distinguished by a love of metaphysics,--metaphysics were in
a great measure the order of the day; but Fate had endowed Mr. Trollolop
with a singular and felicitous confusion of idea. Reid, Berkeley,
Cudworth, Hobbes, all lay jumbled together in most edifying chaos at
the bottom of Mr. Trollolop's capacious mind; and whenever he opened
his mouth, the imprisoned enemies came rushing and scrambling out,
overturning and contradicting each other in a manner quite astounding
to the ignorant spectator. Mr. Callythorpe was meagre, thin, sharp,
and yellow. Whether from having a great propensity for nailing stray
acquaintances, or being particularly heavy company, or from any
other cause better known to the wits of the period than to us, he was
occasionally termed by his friends the "yellow hammer." The peculiar
characteristics of this gentleman were his sincerity and friendship.
These qualities led him into saying things the most disagreeable, with
the civilest and coolest manner in the world,--always prefacing them
with, "You know, my dear so-and-so, I am your true friend." If
this proof of amity was now and then productive of altercation,
Mr. Callythorpe, who was ha great patriot, had another and a nobler
plea,--"Sir," he would say, putting his hand to his heart,--"sir, I'm an
Englishman: I know not what it is to feign." Of a very different stamp
was Sir Christopher Findlater. Little cared he for the subtleties of
the human mind, and not much more for the disagreeable duties of "an
Englishman." Honest and jovial, red in the cheeks, empty in the head,
born to twelve thousand a year, educated in the country, and heir to an
earldom, Sir Christopher Findlater piqued himself, notwithstanding his
worldly advantages, usually so destructive to the kindlier affections,
on having the best heart in the world, and this good heart, having a
very bad head to regulate and support it, was the perpetual cause of
error to the owner and evil to the public.

One evening, when Clarence was alone in his rooms, Mr. Trollolop
entered.

"My dear Linden," said the visitor, "how are you?"

"I am, as I hope you are, very well," answered Cla