young gentlemen is considerably on the increase.

We know a poetical young gentleman-a very poetical young gentleman.
We do not mean to say that he is troubled with the gift of poesy in
any remarkable degree, but his countenance is of a plaintive and
melancholy cast, his manner is abstracted and bespeaks affliction
of soul: he seldom has his hair cut, and often talks about being
an outcast and wanting a kindred spirit; from which, as well as
from many general observations in which he is wont to indulge,
concerning mysterious impulses, and yearnings of the heart, and the
supremacy of intellect gilding all earthly things with the glowing
magic of immortal verse, it is clear to all his friends that he has
been stricken poetical.

The favourite attitude of the poetical young gentleman is lounging
on a sofa with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, or sitting bolt
upright in a high-backed chair, staring with very round eyes at the
opposite wall. When he is in one of these positions, his mother,
who is a worthy, affectionate old soul, will give you a nudge to
bespeak your attention without disturbing the abstracted one, and
whisper with a shake of the head, that John's imagination is at
some extraordinary work or other, you may take her word for it.
Hereupon John looks more fiercely intent upon vacancy than before,
and suddenly snatching a pencil from his pocket, puts down three
words, and a cross on the back of a card, sighs deeply, paces once
or twice across the room, inflicts a most unmerciful slap upon his
head, and walks moodily up to his dormitory.

The poetical young gentleman is apt to acquire peculiar notions of
things too, which plain ordinary people, unblessed with a poetical