Literary cadet and Rhode-Island statesman. [volume] (Providence, R.I.) 1827-1829, 1827-06-27


venture with bare eyes. He can peep,
and pry, and feel, and handle, with sn
efirontery never equalled by an unspec-
tacled man. lie can ask the name and
parentuge Of every body in company
toss over every book; examine every
note and card; pull the flowers from the
vases; take the pictures from the wall;
the embroidery from your work-box; and
the shawl from your back; and all with
the mos: provoking composure, and just
as if he was doing the right thing.
The propensity seems to have been
born with him. He pants after secrets,
just as the magpies thieve, and the mon
keys steal china, by instinct. His nurse
reports Of him, that his experiments in
physics were SO many, and so danger
Gus, that before he was four years old,
she was fain to tie his hands behind him
and lock him in dark closet, to keep
him out of harms way, chiefly moved
thereto by his ripping open his own bed
TO see what it was made o., and throw
ing her best gown into the fire to try if
silk would burn. Then he was sent to
school, preparatory school, and very
soon sent home again for incorrigble
mischief. Then private tutor under
took to instruct him on the interrogative
system, which, in his case, was Obliged
to be reversed, he asking the questions
and the tutor delivering the responses
new cast ofthe didactic drama. Then
he went to college; then sailed forth to
ask his way over Europe; then came
back to fix on his paternal estate of
Linx-hall, where, except occasional
short absences, he has sojourned ever
since, signa!izing himself at every stage
of existence, from childhood to youth,
from youth to manhood, from manhood
to age, by the most lively and persever-
ing curiosity, and by no. other quality
under heaven
Mere quiet guessing is not active
enough for his stirring and searching
faculty. He delights in the difficult, the
inaccessible, the hidden, the obscure
A forbidden place is his paradise; a
board announcing steel traps and
spring guns" will draw him over a wall
twelve feet high; he would, undoubtedly
have entered Blue Boards closet, al
though certain to share the fate of his
wives; and has had serious thoughts of
visiting Constantinople, just to indulge
his taste in stealing glimpse at the Sc
cluded beauties of the seraglo ali ad-
venture, which ould probably have had ]
no very favourable termination. In
deed, our modern Peeping Tom has en-
countered several mishaps at home in
the course Of his long search after
knowledge; and has generally had the
very great aggravation Of being alto
gether unpitied. Once, as he was taxi
ing morning ride, in trying to look
over a wall a little higher than his head,
he raised himself in the saddle. and the
sagacious quadruped, his gray poney,
an animal of most accommodating and
congeniaIspirit, having been, for that
day, discarded in favour Of a younger,
gayer, less inquisitive, and less patient
stced, the new beast sprang on, and left
him sprawling. Once, when in imita-
ton of Ranger, he had perched himself
on the topmost rundle of ladder,
which he found placed beneath win
dow in Upper Berkley street, he lost his
balance, and was pitched suddenly in
through the sash, to the unspeakable
CONSERVATION of house-maid, who was
rubbing the panes in The inside. Once
he was tossed into an open carriage, full
of ladies', as he stood up to look at them
from the box of a stage coach And
once he got griewous knock from
chimney sweeper, as he poked his head
into the chimney to watch his opera
tions. He has been blown up by a
rocket; carried away in the strings ofa
balloon; all but drowned in a diving
bell; lost finger in MASKING mill
and broken great toe by drawing
lead pincushion off work table.
These are only few of the mischiefs
that have befallen poor Mr. Link. The
moral scrapes into which his unlucky
propensity has brought him, are past all
count. In his<youth, although SO little
amorous that have reason to think, the
formidable interrogatory which is en-
Phatically called popping the question:
is actually the only question which he
has never popped. In his youth he was
very nearly drawn into wedlock, by the
sedulous attention which he paid to
young lady, whom he suspected of car
rying on candestine correspondence.
The mother scolded-the father storm
ed-the brother talked Of satisfaction
and poor Mr. Link, who is as pacific as
a quaker, must certainly have been
married, had not the fair nymph eloped