The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAI EVENING, JULY 3, IMS.

visible hurt to call for the coroner ; and so the victim may
die, and show, as gossips have it, a very handsome corpse,
whilst homicidal avarice with no drop of outward gore upon
his hands—no damning spots seen by the world's naked eye
—mixes in the world, a very respectable old gentleman ; a
man who has a file of receipts to show for everything ; a
man who never did owe a shilling ; and above all, a man
who takes all the good he gets as nothing more than a proper
payment for his exceeding respectability. He is a pattern
man ; and for such men heaven rains manna ; only in these
days the shower comes down in gold. Ebenezer Snipeton,
we say, had a high and therefore marketable opinion of him -
self. And vet, did Ebenezer's wife—his ripe, red-lipped
spouse of two-and-twenty—somehow touch her husband with
a strange, a painful humility. He had sixty iron winters—
and every one of them plain as an iron bar—in his face.
'fine had used his visage as Robinson Crusoe used his wooden
calendar, notching every day in it. And what was worse.
though Time had kept an honest account—and what, indeed,
so honest, so terribly honest as Time?—nevertheless, he had
so marked the countenance—it is a shabby, shameless trick
Time has with some faces,—and every mark to the thought-
less eye counted well• nigh double. And Snipeton knew this.
He knew, too, that upon his nose—half-way, like sentinel on
the middle of a bridge—there was a wart very much bigger
than a pea, with bristles, sticking like black pins in it. Now,
this wart Ebenezer in his bachelor days had thought of like
a philosopher; that is, he had never thought about it. Nay,
his honeymoon had almost waned into the cold, real moon
that was ever after to blink upon his marriage life, ere
Ebenezer thought of his wrinkled, pouch-like cheeks; of his
more terrible wart. And then did every bristle burn in it,
as though it was turned into red hot wire; then was he
plagued, tormented by the thought of the wart, as by some
avenging imp. He seemed to have become all wart: to be
one unsightly excrescence. The pauper world envied the
happiness of Ebenezer Snipeton—with such wealth, with
such a wife, oh, what a blessed man ! But the world knew
not the torments of the wart ! And wherefore was Ebenezer
thus suddenly mortified ? We have said that he had a wife
as young and fresh, and beautiful as spring. And therefore,
after a short season, was Ebenezer in misery. Ile looked at
his wife's beauty, and then he thought of his withered face—
that felon warti In her loveliness—like a satyr drinking at
a crystal fount—he saw his deformity. Was it possible she
could love him ? The self-put question—and lie could not
but ask it,—with her, alone, in bed, at board—that torment-
ing question still would whisper, snake voiced in his ear,—
could she love him ? And his heart—his heart that here-
tofore had been cold and blooded like a fish—would shrink
and tremble, and dare not answer. True it was, she was
obedient—too obedient. She did his bidding promptly, hum-
bly, as though he had bought her for his slave. And so, in
truth, he had : and there had been a grave man of the church,
grave witnesses, too, to bind the bargain. Verily, he had
bought her ; and on her small white finger—it was lain to all
who saw her—she wore the manacle of her purchaser."
Snipeton returns and finds St. James at his house.
His jealousy is aroused, and devoutly does he hope the
wound may prove mortal. St. James, however, recovers
his strength in the course of a few hours. St. Giles
is brought to Dovesnest to be identified, but on entering
the room of St. James it is found that he is gone.
These chapters are succeeded by an admirable apology
for those whom the world is pleased to misname misan-
thropes, after which we have an excellent paper on the
state of the town poor in Scotland. " Unfashion-
able Movements" is the title of a series of stories
illustrative of the trials of the poor, and the
" Corn Lords Tragedy" is a fine Coleridge-like ballad
from the pen of the author of Orion—a poem not
unworthy to stand by the side of the Ancient Mariner.
Juniper Hedgehog continues his quaint •pnd caustic
comments on the events of the month, and -the historian
for Young England gives us the reign of Henry the
First. This History for Young England promises to be
a very valuable work.