Many a man has happiness within his reach if he but knew it.  The tailor had been, hitherto, miserable because he pursued a wrong object.  The schoolmaster, however, suggested a train of thought upon which Neal now fastened with all the ardor of a chivalrous temperament.  Nay, he wondered that the family spirit should have so completely seized upon the fighting side of his heart, as to preclude all thoughts of matrimony; for he could not but remember that his relations were as ready for marriage as for fighting.  To doubt this, would have been to throw a blot upon his own escutcheon.  He, therefore, very prudently asked himself, to whom, if he did not marry, should he transmit his courage.  He was a single man, and, dying as such, he would be the sole depository of his own valor, which, like Junius’s secret, must perish with, him.  If he could have left it, as a legacy, to such of his friends as were most remarkable for cowardice, why, the case would be altered; but this was impossible—­and he had now no other means of preserving it to posterity than by creating a posterity to inherit it.  He saw, too, that the world was likely to become convulsed.  Wars, as everybody knew, were certainly to break out; and would it not be an excellent opportunity for being father to a colonel, or, perhaps, a general, that might astonish the world.

The change visible in Neal, after the schoolmaster’s last visit, absolutely thunder-struck all who knew him.  The clothes, which he had rashly taken in to fit his shrivelled limbs, were once more let out.  The tailor expanded with a new spirit; his joints ceased to be supple, as in the days of his valor; his eye became less fiery, but more brilliant.  From being martial, he got desperately gallant; but, somehow, he could not afford to act the hero and lover both at the same time.  This, perhaps, would be too much to expect from a tailor.  His policy was better.  He resolved to bring all his available energy to bear upon the charms of whatever fair nymph he should select for the honor of matrimony; to waste his spirit in fighting would, therefore, be a deduction from the single purpose in view.

The transition from war to love is by no means so remarkable as we might at first imagine.  We quote Jack Falstaff in proof of this, or, if the reader be disposed to reject our authority, then we quote Ancient Pistol himself—­both of whom we consider as the most finished specimens of heroism that ever carried a safe skin.  Acres would have been a hero had he won gloves to prevent the courage from oozing out at his palms, or not felt such an unlucky antipathy to the “snug lying in the Abbey;” and as for Captain Bobadil, he never had an opportunity of putting his plan, for vanquishing an army, into practice.  We fear, indeed, that neither his character, nor Ben Jonson’s knowledge of human nature, is properly understood; for it certainly could not be expected that a man, whose spirit glowed to encounter a whole host, could, without tarnishing his dignity, if closely pressed, condescend to fight an individual.  But as these remarks on courage may be felt by the reader as an invidious introduction of a subject disagreeable to him, we beg to hush it for the present and return to the tailor.