"Dreams are the children of an idle brain." Yet ours was a busy one through the live-long night. The grotesque scene acted itself over again, with those fantastical additions that belong to "Death's counterfeit." Legions of Anthropophagi; giants o'ertopping Pelion and Ossa; hideous abortions; grinning nondescripts; the miniature, mischievous court of Queen Mab, and the fiddling, dancing troop of Tam O'Shanter passed before us in every variety of unearthly combination. Clouds of incense arose, and the vision, growing dim, gradually melted away,--a low, solemn chant leaving its dying notes upon the ear.
|The sentinel sleeps when off his post; the Moorfields barker enjoys some interval of repose; moonshine suffers a partial eclipse on Bank holidays among the _omnium gatherem_ of Bulls and Bears; the doctor gives the undertaker a holiday; Argus sends his hundred eyes to the Land of Nod, and Briareus puts his century of hands in his pockets.--But the match-maker, ante and post meridian, is always at her post!
"The News teems with candidates for the noose:--A spinster conjugally inclined; a bachelor devoted to Hymen; forlorn widowers; widows disconsolate; and why not 'A daughter to marry?' Addresses paid per post, post paid! For an introduction to the belle, ring the bell! None but principals (with a principal!) need apply."
"Egad," continued Mr. Bosky, as we journeyed through the fields a few mornings after our caravan adventure, to pay Uncle Timothy a visit at his new _rus in urbe_ near Hampstead Heath, "it will soon be dangerous to dine out, or to figure in; for a dinner may become an action for damages; and a dance, matrimony without benefit of clergy! But yesterday I pic-nic'd with the Muffs; buzzed with Brutus; endured Ma, was just civil to Miss; when early this morning comes a missive adopting me for a son-in-law!"
We congratulated Mr. Bosky on the prospect of his speedily becoming a Benedick.
"_Bien oblige!_ What! ingraft myself on that family Upas tree of ignorance, selfishness, and conceit! Couple with triflers, who, having no mental resources or amusement within themselves, sigh 'O! another dull day!' and are happy only when some gad-about party drag them from a monotonous home, where nothing is talked of or read, but petty scandal, fashions for the month, trashy novels, mantua-makers' and milliners' bills! I can laugh at affectation, but I loathe duplicity; I can pity a fool, but I scorn a flirt. This is a hackneyed ruse of Ma's. The last coasting season of the Muffs has been comparatively unprolific. From Margate to Brighton Miss Matilda counts but five proposals positive, and half a dozen presumptive; in the latter are included some broad stares at Broadstairs from the Holborn Hill Demosthenes! and even these have been furiously scrambled for by the delicate sisters for their marriageable Misses! 'Everybody! says Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 'loves the virtuous, whereas the vicious do scarcely love one another."