“My dear Miss Zenobia,” he said, while the tears stood in his eyes, “is there anything else I can do to promote the success of your laudable undertaking?  Let me reflect!  It is just possible that you may not be able, so soon as convenient, to —­ to —­ get yourself drowned, or —­ choked with a chicken-bone, or —­ or hung, —­ or —­ bitten by a —­ but stay!  Now I think me of it, there are a couple of very excellent bull-dogs in the yard —­ fine fellows, I assure you —­ savage, and all that —­ indeed just the thing for your money —­ they’ll have you eaten up, auricula and all, in less than five minutes (here’s my watch!) —­ and then only think of the sensations!  Here!  I say —­ Tom! —­ Peter! —­ Dick, you villain! —­ let out those” —­ but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another moment to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my departure, and accordingly took leave at once —­ somewhat more abruptly, I admit, than strict courtesy would have otherwise allowed.

It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view I spent the greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh, seeking for desperate adventures —­ adventures adequate to the intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the article I intended to write.  In this excursion I was attended by one negro —­ servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had brought with me from Philadelphia.  It was not, however, until late in the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking.  An important event then happened of which the following Blackwood article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance and result.

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A PREDICAMENT

What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?

   —­COMUS.

IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the goodly city of Edina.  The confusion and bustle in the streets were terrible.  Men were talking.  Women were screaming.  Children were choking.  Pigs were whistling.  Carts they rattled.  Bulls they bellowed.  Cows they lowed.  Horses they neighed.  Cats they caterwauled.  Dogs they danced.  Danced!  Could it then be possible?  Danced!  Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over!  Thus it is ever.  What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and anon be awakened in the mind of genius and imaginative contemplation, especially of a genius doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and continual, and, as one might say, the —­ continued —­ yes, the continued and continuous, bitter, harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike, and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable —­ nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously