be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a
tester.

There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to
be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind
of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some
tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate
may relish it; for myself, with every deference to the judicious Mr.
Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he
avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant
beverage, on the south side of Fleet-street, as thou approachest
Bridge-street--_the only Salopian house_,"--I have never yet
adventured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended
ingredients--a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly
whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due
courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise not
uninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup it up with avidity.

I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens,
but I have always found that this composition is surprisingly
gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper--whether the oily
particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften
the fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections)
to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners;
or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter
wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth
her sassafras for a sweet lenitive--but so it is, that no possible
taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a
delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they
will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify
one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic
animals--cats--when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian.
There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can
inculcate.

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the
_only Salopian house;_ yet be it known to thee, reader--if thou art
one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant
of the fact--he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from
stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury mess to humbler
customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the
rake, reeling home fro