Let the
reader who has never had a fever in chambers pity the wretch who is
bound to undergo that calamity.
A committee of marriageable ladies, or of any Christian persons
interested in the propagation of the domestic virtues, should employ a
Cruikshank, or a Leech, or some other kindly expositor of the follies
of the day, to make a series of designs representing the horrors of a
bachelor's life in chambers, and leading the beholder to think of
better things, and a more wholesome condition. What can be more
uncomfortable than the bachelor's lonely breakfast?--with the black
kettle in the dreary fire in Midsummer; or, worse still, with the fire
gone out at Christmas, half an hour after the laundress has quitted
the sitting-room? Into this solitude the owner enters shivering, and
has to commence his day by hunting for coals and wood: and before he
begins the work of a student, has to discharge the duties of a
housemaid, vice Mrs. Flanagan, who is absent without leave. Or, again,
what can form a finer subject for the classical designer than the
bachelor's shirt--that garment which he wants to assume just at
dinner-time, and which he finds without any buttons to fasten it? Then
there is the bachelor's return to chambers after a merry Christmas
holiday, spent in a cozy country-house, full of pretty faces, and kind
welcomes and regrets.
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