A NOVEL. by Mr Steward "Do thou, my soul, the destin'd period wait, IN THREE VOLUMES, BIBLIO VOL. I. LONDON: T. & W. BOONE, 29, NEW BOND, STREET. 751. THE INTERDICT. CHAPTER I. I sit entranc'd in mem'ry's silent hall; The now fades into nothingness; the friend I loved oblit'rates him I love; the blaze Which noontide splendours to life's autumn lend, Is dimm'd by thronging thoughts of calm spring-days. Ir may happen that I shall be pronounced vain and egotistical for shadowing forth the following story under the first person, and for placing myself foremost of the corps dramatique; but he of whom nobody else would speak, may be excused for saying a little of himself, and he at whom nobody would look, were goodlier forms in view, should, modestly -it being stated that he must be dragged in somewhere come forward when he may hope to escape the odium of comparison; just as ཞ the minor member of a drama shuffles with panting heart to the proscenium, to set the chairs and smooth the cushions for more exalted debutanti. Furthermore, the following sketch will prove that I have little demonstrable excuse for selfcomplacency. I was a poor-looking weed, whom no physical culture, however salutary, could warm into healthfulness; a pale, abstracted book-worm, with dark-browed deepseated eyes, which saw no fairer object than a musty classic. A halt in my gait, and a difficulty of utterance, occasioned, not by malformation of the articulating organs, but by sheer fright at finding myself talking, increased to very painfulness my constitutional shyness and reserve. Of our family circle the next in plainness, but prior to all others in the art of plaguing, was a cousin named Quinilla-Miss Quinny O'Toole as Slauveen, her serving lad, used to dignify her.-Oh, she was a wearisome woman! -not a whit less slighted than myself by comeliness, yet she thought herself a beauty. She was spare in every thing but words. She had thin red hair, a thin red nose, her lips were thin, her jaws such as we vulgarly call lantern; her residue of structure was equally attenuated. She built her beauty on two keen grey eyes, and what she called a splendid foot and ankle. Our cousin was no favorite of mine. She was verbose by nature and cultivation; her velocity of speech distracted me; it was a hurricane of syllables, drifted, as it were, into one hissing, whistling, never ending sentence. Measured with her ideas her words were in the ratio of a bushel to a grain. Talk of poverty of language!-our cousin never knew such indigence-she could help you on occasion to a lac of vocables, or edge in, generously, the very word you panted to bring out. Quinilla (she clings to my pen like an officious hair) was not our genuine cousin; she was sister to my uncle's wife, but, fearing we might call her aunt, had dubbed herself by a less matronly appellative. She piqued herself on ancient blood, and made boast of her propinquity to the great O'Tooles of Glendalough. Her sister, my aunt Laurentia, had nothing |