hout, and banquets of stalled oxen where there is
care and hatred--ay, and kindness and friendship too, along with the
feast. It does not follow that all men are honest because they are poor;
and I have known some who were friendly and generous, although they had
plenty of money. There are some great landlords who do not grind down
their tenants; there are actually bishops who are not hypocrites; there
are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the Radicals themselves are
not all aristocrats at heart. But who ever heard of giving the Moral
before the Fable? Children are only led to accept the one after their
delectation over the other: let us take care lest our readers skip both;
and so let us bring them on quickly--our wolves and lambs, our foxes
and lions, our roaring donkeys, our billing ringdoves, our motherly
partlets, and crowing chanticleers.

There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it
appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century; when
the zest of life was certainly keener; when tavern wines seemed to
be delicious, and tavern dinners the perfection of cookery; when the
perusal of novels was productive of immense delight, and the monthly
advent of magazine-day was hailed as an exciting holiday; when to
know Thompson, who had written a magazine-article, was an honour and
a privilege; and to see Brown, the author of the last romance, in the
flesh, and actually walking in the Park with his umbrella and Mrs.
Brown, was an event remarkable, and to the end of life to be perfectly
well remembered; when the women of this world were a thousand times more
beautiful than those of the present time; and the houris of the theatres
especially so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to set the
heart in motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half an
hour previously at the door of the pit; when tailors called at a man's
lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy waistcoats; when it seemed
necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing-case, so as to be ready
for the beard which was not yet born (as yearling brides provide lace
caps, and work rich clothes, for the expected darling); when to ride in
the Park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the height of fashionable
enjoyment, and to splash your college tutor as you were driving down
Regent Street in a hired cab the triumph of satire; when the acme of
pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of Trinity at the Bedford, and to
make