DANIEL CATHIE, TOBACCONIST.

DANIEL CATHIE was a respectable dealer in snuff, tobacco, and candles, in a considerable market-town in Scotland. His shop had, externally, something neat and enticing about it. In the centre of one window glowed a transparency of a ferocious-looking Celt, bonneted, plaided, and kilted, with his unsheathed claymore in one hand, and his ram's-horn mull in the other; intending, -no doubt, to emblem to the spectator, that from thence he recruited his animal spirits, drawing courage from the titillation of every pinch. Around him were tastefully distributed jars of different dimensions, bearing each the appropriate title of the various compounds within, from Maccuba and Lundyfoot, down to Beggar's Brown and Irish Blackguard. In the other, one half was allotted to tobaccopipes of all dimensions, tastefully arranged, so as to form a variety of figures, such as crosses, triangles, and squares; decorated, at intervals, with rolls of twist, serpentinings of pigtail, and monticuli of shag. The upper half displayed candles, distributed with equal exhibition of taste, from the prime four in the pound, down to the halfpenny dip; some of a snowy whiteness, and others of an aged and delicate yellow tinge; enticing to the eyes of experienced housewives and spectacled cognoscenti. Over the door rode a swarthy son of Congo, with broad nostrils, and eyes whose whites were fearfully dilated,-astride on a tobacco hogshead,-his woolly head bound with a coronal of feathers, a quiver peeping over his shoulder, and a pipe in his cheeks, blown up for the eternity of his wooden existence, in the puffy ecstacy of inhalation.

Daniel himself, the autocrat of this domicile, was a little squat fellow, five feet and upwards, of a rosy complexion, with broad shoulders, and no inconsiderable rotundity of paunch. His eyes were quick and sparkling, with something of an archness in its twinkle, as if he loved a joke occasionally, yet could wink at any one who presumed too far in tampering with his shrewdness. His forehead was bald, as well as no small portion of either temple; and the black curls, which projected over his ears, gave to his face the appearance of more than its actual breadth, which was scantily relieved by a light-blue spotted handkerchief, loosely tied around a rather apoplectic neck.

His dress was commonly a bottle-green jacket, single-breasted, and square in the tails; a striped cotton waistcoat; velveteen breeches, and light-blue ridge-and-furrow worsted stockings. A watch-chain, of a broad steel pattern, hung glittering before him, at which depended a small gold seal, a white almond-shaped shell, and a perforated Queen Anne's sixpence. Over all this lower display, suppose that you fasten a clean, glossy linen apron, and you have his entire portrait and appearance.

NO. XXXI.-VOL. III.

[VOL. 3.

From very small beginnings, he had risen, by careful industry, to a respectable place in society, and was now the landlord of the property he had for many years only rented. Daniel was a man of the world, and considered, perhaps not wrongly, that, in society, wealth stamped value upon worth, which otherwise was often little better than useless bullion; and that the voice of virtue, unless sustained by its able assistance, was little better than sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

All men have a ruling passion; some more, and others less praiseworthy. Daniel's was that of adding guinea to guinea. For this end he was up early and lay down late; toiled all day" in the eye of Phœbus," (his shop was on the sunny side of the street), and was, at all times, to be found at the head of his concerns. This was Daniel's way of getting rich; and it was not the least sure one: others might sound as well in theory, but this answered to his satisfaction in practice.

Daniel had inherited nothing from his parents. His mother was widowed while he was yet in the fourth year of his age; and she had endeavoured by a thousand honest shifts, to feed, clothe, and give him a tolerable education. At the age of fourteen he entered into the great arena of the world, as apprentice to a tallow-chandler; and passed five long years beside the melting-tub and the dipping-frame, to his own improvement, and his master's satisfaction, who always prophesied that his industry would make him something. Talents, in any degree, he never could be said strictly to have exhibited; but he had early shown, what are of surer service to temporal advancement, industry, sobriety, and a patient temper. From his small allowance of board-wages, something, even then, was contrived to be laid aside. "A pin a day's a groat a year," Daniel considered a wholesome maxim. He was at length promoted to the degree of journeyman, and weekly spared from back and stomach to the increase of his treasury.

his plans

He consulted with his old mother on of life; and the result of their deliberations was the taking a small, cheap shop, and the appearance of Daniel Cathie, as tobacconist and tallow-chandler, on his own footing.

Matters prospered, and he got on by slow, but steady paces. Business began to extend its circle around him, and his customers became more respectable and genteel. Old Mysie saw the prosperity of her son before she died. She had continued his housekeeper from the time of his commencing business; and he had always behaved towards her with the utmost filial respect. He parted from her, therefore, with sincere regret; but it was the will of Heaven, and he repined not at its decrees.

In a short time Daniel opened accounts with his banker. His establishment became more extensive;

M