ght for his _ore_ in vain. He attended
agricultural meetings, and endeavoured to comprehend that debatable query,
the corn question; he argued the point, like other great people, as if he
_did_ understand it, and got into repute with the leading Chiropodists, or
corn cutters, of the day. He went to Cheltenham, and became proprietor of
an acre of ground, on which he dug a score wells, and professed to find at
the bottom of each of them, a spring of water sufficiently saline to
pickle the constitutions of all valetudinarians. He was horticultural to a
most praiseworthy extent, offering prizes to the ingenious young Meadowses
who bring forth gigantic gooseberries, supernatural strawberries, and
miraculous melons. He went into the country, and endeavoured to penetrate
beyond the mere surface of things, listening to the speeches of county
members, and dining diligently in warm weather with mayors, and people
with _corporations_. He endeavoured to detect the root of all evil,
investigated the ramifications of radical reform, and exposed the
ephemeral bulbous roots of speculation. Prejudice he found too deeply
rooted to be dug up very easily, whilst the fashions and follies of the
day seemed to him to lie so entirely on the surface of the soil, and to be
so shortlived, that to throw away any manual labour in an attempt to
eradicate them, would be absurd."

_"Impossible" Amusements_.

"At many of your amusements, the chief attraction consists in the extreme
bodily peril in which the exhibiter is placed. You took me to see a man
walk up a rope, to an immense height, and had his foot slipped, he must
have been dashed to pieces: the place was crowded with persons who were in
raptures; yet had the man been dancing on level ground, he would have
danced far better; and the merit of the dancer seemed to consist in his
giving the audience a _chance_ of seeing him break his neck or dash his
brains out! If a foreigner were to announce that he would dance on a
pack-thread, he would ruin the ropedancer; because, as the thread would in
all probability break, his danger would be greater, and therefore his
exhibition would be incomparable! Then you all delight in distortions; if
a man can bend his back bone, or sit upon his head, you are in raptures,
and seem to think it a good joke to see a fellow creature shortening his
life. Then if any man will ride a dozen horses at once, without saddle or
bridle; or go into an oven and be baked brown, o