Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: children; but the present is, perhaps, the most distressing instance that has happened for many years in England.—August 1842. The following literary retrospect of Dr. Maginn will be read with interest: Before I close my desk, as I sit in my moonlit chamber this fine summer evening, let me recall one sufferer, now at rest,—slightly known to me, indeed, but remembered with a fearful distinctness—so slightly, that if you were to ask me his Christian name I could not tell it. A clear remembrance of his blanched cheek and wandering eye dwells in my memory. Who when I add the faltering voice, the symmetrical features, the grey hair, even in comparative youth,— the slashing reply, the sweet, good-natured smile,— who will not recall the name of Dr. Maginn ? I saw him one evening—how well I remember it, and with what throes and throbs the remembrance is even now recalled!—yes, even now. It was in an evening-party where;—but what has the world to do with our private reminiscences ? And what am I, a stupid old man, (to night in one of my low-spiritedseasons,) that I should aim at exciting the interest of the bright-eyed, blooming creatures who will bend over this page next month, perhaps as the travelling- carriage carries them far from London and distraction, to read the newspaper to papa, maybe, in some country parsonage, or to listen to the recital of Brother Tom's first essay in hunting and shooting, or to be the handmaiden of mamma's charities, or the happy representative of Aunt Bountiful at the Sunday-school. Let me return to Dr. Maginn; and for an instant mingle with the thoughts of him the recollections still dear to this elderly heart. It was a low, long, narrow room through which I made my way into the throng of a party. That gentle confusion prevailed whieh shows ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.