; "the poet of nature--of nature
without its vulgarity." I wished very much to ask these people whether
they were ever bad sleepers, and whether they had read the poet, so
called, from a desire of being set to sleep. Within a few days, however,
I learned that it had of late become very fashionable and genteel to
appear half asleep, and that one could exhibit no better mark of
superfine breeding than by occasionally in company setting one's ronchal
organ in action. I then ceased to wonder at the popularity, which I
found nearly universal, of . . .'s poetry; for, certainly in order to
make one's self appear sleepy in company, or occasionally to induce
sleep, nothing could be more efficacious than a slight pre-lection of his
poems. So, poor Byron, with his fire and emotion--to say nothing of his
mouthings and coxcombry--was dethroned, as I had prophesied he would be
more than twenty years before, on the day of his funeral, though I had
little idea that his humiliation would have been brought about by one
whose sole strength consists in setting people to sleep. Well, all
things are doomed to terminate in sleep. Before that termination,
however, I will venture to prophesy that people will become a little more
awake--snoring and yawning be a little less in fashion--and poor Byron be
once more reinstated on his throne, though his rival will always stand a
good chance of being worshipped by those whose ruined nerves are
insensible to the narcotic powers of opium and morphine.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DRIVERS AND FRONT OUTSIDE PASSENGERS--FATIGUE OF BODY AND MIND--UNEXPECTED
GREETING--MY INN--THE GOVERNOR--ENGAGEMENT.

I continued my journey, passing through one or two villages. The day was
exceedingly hot, and the roads dusty. In order to cause my horse as
little fatigue as possible, and not to chafe his back, I led him by the
bridle, my doing which brought upon me a shower of remarks, jests, and
would-be witticisms from the drivers and front outside passengers of
sundry stagecoaches, which passed me in one direction or the other. In
this way I proceeded till considerably past noon, when I felt myself very
fatigued, and my horse appeared no less so; and it is probable that the
lazy and listless manner in which we were moving on tired us both much
more effectually than hurrying along at a swift trot would have done, for
I have observed that when the energies of the body are not exerted a
languor frequently comes over