s discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions of nature
betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropped it out of his
mouth half a dozen times, and picked it up again. God help thee,
Jack! said I, thou hast a bitter breakfast on't, and many a bitter
blow, I fear, for its wages--'tis all, all bitterness to thee, whatever
life is to others. And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is
as bitter, I dare say, as soot (for he had cast aside the stem), and
thou hast not a friend, perhaps, in all this world that will give thee a
macaroon. In saying this I pulled out a paper of 'em, which I had
just purchased, and gave him one; and, at this moment that I am
telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in
the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon, than of
benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. When the
ass had eaten his macaroon I pressed him to come in. The poor
beast was heavy loaded, his legs seemed to tremble under him, he
hung rather backwards, and as I pulled at his halter it broke short
in my hand. He looked up pensive in my face. 'Don't thrash me
with it; but if you will, you may.' 'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d----d.'"

Well might Thackeray say of this passage that, "the critic who refuses
to see in it wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real
sentiment, must be hard indeed to move and to please." It is, in
truth, excellent; and its excellence is due to its possessing nearly
every one of those qualities, positive and negative, which the two
other scenes above quoted are without. The author does not here
obtrude himself, does not importune us to admire his exquisitely
compassionate nature; on the contrary, he at once amuses us and
enlists our sympathies by that subtly humorous piece of self-analysis,
in which he shows how large an admixture of curiosity was contained
in his benevolence. The incident, too, is well chosen. No forced
concurrence of circumstances brings it about: it is such as any man
might have met with anywhere in his travels, and it is handled in a
simple and manly fashion. The reader is _with_ the writer throughout;
and their common mood of half-humorous pity is sustained, unforced,
but unbroken, from first to last.

One can hardly say as much for another of the much-quoted pieces from
the _Sentimental Journey_--the description of the caged starling.
The passage is ingeniously worked into