ke of Cumberland, under
whom he had the honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engagement
of Fontenoy--or if not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under
General Sir John Cope, when the wild highlanders broke through all the
laws of discipline and the English lines; and, being on the spot, did
he see the famous ghost which didn't appear to Colonel Gardiner of
the Dragoons? My good creature, is it possible you don't remember that
Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford, as you justly say),
old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year
of your birth? What a wretched memory you have! What? haven't they a
library, and the commonest books of reference at the old convent of
Saint Lazarus, where you dwell?"

"Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr. Swift, Atossa, and Mr.
Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says old Goody,
with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like an old parrot--you know they live
to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is
comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an
immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are
there now, with great humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they
could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak--but they
are very silent, carps are--of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what
has been thy long life, old Goody, but a dole of bread and water and a
perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What
are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a
grandchild of England who brings bread to feed them?

No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old and have
nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and the history of
friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard labor,
hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most
days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven,
I am not as one of these?" If I were eighty, would I like to feel the
hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when
Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss
Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were eighty,
I own I should not like to have to sleep with another gentleman of my
own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old dreams, and snoring;
to march down my vale of