for
us, oh, my compatriots! Never again, unless we are destined to rejoin
our houris in heaven, and to saunter over fields of asphodel in
another and a greener youth--never again shall those joys be ours!
And what can ever equal them? 'Twas then, between sweet hedgerows,
under green oaks, with our feet rustling on the crisp leaves, that
the world's cold reserve was first thrown off, and we found that
those we loved were not goddesses made of buckram and brocade, but
human beings like ourselves, with blood in their veins, and hearts in
their bosoms--veritable children of Adam like ourselves.

"Gin a body meet a body comin' through the rye." Ah, how delicious
were those meetings! How convinced we were that there was no
necessity for loud alarm! How fervently we agreed with the poet! My
friends, born together with me in the consulship of Lord Liverpool,
all that is done and over for us. We shall never gang that gait'
again.

There is a melancholy in this that will tinge our thoughts, let us
draw ever so strongly on our philosophy. We can still walk with our
wives;--and that is pleasant too, very--of course. But there was
more animation in it when we walked with the same ladies under other
names. Nay, sweet spouse, mother of dear bairns, who hast so well
done thy duty; but this was so, let thy brows be knit never so
angrily. That lord of thine has been indifferently good to thee, and
thou to him has been more than good. Up-hill together have ye walked
peaceably labouring; and now arm-in-arm ye shall go down the gradual
slope which ends below there in the green churchyard. 'Tis good and
salutary to walk thus. But for the full cup of joy, for the brimming
spring-tide of human bliss, oh, give me back, give me back-- -- --!
Well, well, well; it is nonsense; I know it; but may not a man dream
now and again in his evening nap and yet do no harm?

_Vici puellis nuper idoneus, et militavi._ How well Horace knew all
about it! But that hanging up of the gittern--. One would fain have
put it off, had falling hairs, and marriage-vows, and obesity have
permitted it. Nay, is it not so, old friend of the grizzled beard?
Dost thou not envy that smirk young knave with his five lustrums,
though it goes hard with him to purchase his kid-gloves? He dines for
one-and-twopence at an eating-house; but what cares Maria where he
dines? He rambles through the rye with his empty pockets, and at the
turn of the field-path Maria will be there to m