lightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost
of Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeus
of Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict
you in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as for
Corinthian Tom in light blue pantaloons and hessians, and Jerry
Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendour
of real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the
wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion,
with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparkling
vivacious rattle?

Who knows? They _may_ have kept those very books at the library
still--at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell
that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I wend my
way to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, a
hundred years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure.
Is it possible, that in the past century, gentlefolks of the first
rank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the _Cornhill
Magazine_) assembled here and entertained each other with gaming,
dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, and
trumpeters performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but
where is the fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, bishops,
and magnificent embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children and
their nurses are listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a
poke bonnet passes; and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting
population of native tradesmen. As for the library, its window is full
of pictures of burly theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues,
and so forth. Can I go in and ask the young ladies at the counter for
"Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the
Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esquire, and their
friend Bob Logic"?--absurd. I turn away abashed from the
casement--from the Pantiles--no longer Pantiles--but Parade. I stroll
over the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills around,
twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have sprung up over
this charming ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene of
peace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes over the heath, blows
the cloud-shadows across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees!
Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a
portion of it when I look up from the