"'Ye who listen with ignorant credulity to the whispering blandishments of fancy, and pursue with inconsiderate eagerness the enchanting and seductive phantoms of hope; who idly expect that grudging age will perform the rash but generous promise of thoughtless youth, and that the glaring deficiencies of the present day will be providentially supplied by the inexhaustible profusion of the morrow; attend to the moral history of Rasselas, Crown Prince of Abyssinia.'"
"There is much truth in what you observe," said a quiet modest-looking passenger on our left to the talkative Johnsonite, who deprecated long speeches; "much truth; and perhaps as you dislike exaggeration in whatever professes to imitate, you might be entertained with one of my 'Photographic Pictures,' warranted accurate. I am, sir, yours respectfully, H. G. A. Now as there happens to be one of these pictures distinctly present to my eye at this moment, though the scene is far from Fleet Street, I think I can copy it to the life, and if you please we'll call it--
"A ditch frequented much by water-rats, With velvet-headed rushes borderèd; Two little boys who fish for tittlebats With sticks, and crooked pins, and bits of thread; Three willow trees that stand with drooping boughs Upon the banks, and look disconsolate; A bull that flings his tail up as he lows-- He's coming at those boys, as sure as fate! A church spire peeping from amid the trees, With vane in semblance of a fiery cock; And Farmer Stubbles lolling at his ease, Across a gate to view his fleecy flock; A barn that seems just ready to fall down, And _would_, but for the shores that stay its falling; And, where yon row of elms the green slopes crown, Is Thomas Noakes, with hand to mouth, outcalling To Simon Simpson in the fields below, And telling him to mind that precious bull-- He's fresh from town, poor lad, and does not know What danger lurks amid the beautiful; Here a tall oak its branches flingeth out, As if it said--"I am of trees the king!" And there an aged hawthorn spreads about Its crooked arms--a queer misshapen thing; Far off you see a mill--more trees--some houses-- Look at this frisking colt, why what a kicker!-- _Feathers and parasols!_ here come the spouses Of Dr. Dobbs, and Mr. Trench, the vicar, The Smiths, the Joneses, and Jemimah Prescot-- I'm off, before they nail me for their escort!"