ading my horse; receiving the homage of ostlers instead of their
familiar nods; sitting down to dinner in the parlour of the best inn I
can find, instead of passing the brightest part of the day in the kitchen
of a village alehouse; carrying on my argument after dinner on the
subject of the corn-laws, with the best commercial gentlemen on the road,
instead of being glad, whilst sipping a pint of beer, to get into
conversation with blind trampers, or maimed Abraham sailors, {183}
regaling themselves on half-pints at the said village hostelries. Many
people will doubtless say that things have altered wonderfully with me
for the better, and they would say right, provided I possessed now what I
then carried about with me in my journeys--the spirit of youth. Youth is
the only season for enjoyment, and the first twenty-five years of one's
life are worth all the rest of the longest life of man, even though those
five-and-twenty be spent in penury and contempt, and the rest in the
possession of wealth, honours, respectability, ay, and many of them in
strength and health, such as will enable one to ride forty miles before
dinner, and over one's pint of port--for the best gentleman in the land
should not drink a bottle--carry on one's argument, with gravity and
decorum, with any commercial gentleman who, responsive to one's
challenge, takes the part of common sense and humanity against
'protection' and the lord of land.

Ah! there is nothing like youth--not that after-life is valueless. Even
in extreme old age one may get on very well, provided we will but accept
of the bounties of God. I met the other day an old man, who asked me to
drink. 'I am not thirsty,' said I, 'and will not drink with you.' 'Yes,
you will,' said the old man, 'for I am this day one hundred years old;
and you will never again have an opportunity of drinking the health of a
man on his hundredth birthday.' So I broke my word, and drank. 'Yours
is a wonderful age,' said I. 'It's a long time to look back to the
beginning of it,' said the old man: 'yet, upon the whole, I am not sorry
to have lived it all.' 'How have you passed your time?' said I. 'As
well as I could,' said the old man; 'always enjoying a good thing when it
came honestly within my reach; not forgetting to praise God for putting
it there.' 'I suppose you were fond of a glass of good ale when you were
young?' 'Yes,' said the old man, 'I was; and so, thank God, I am still.'
And he drank