At
six precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to
drink it; and then occurs an interval of time which
most old bachelors find heavy on their hands. The
theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if
Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence
shines forth; but it is distant, and so are one or
two public societies to which I belong; besides,
these evening walks are all incompatible with the
elbow-chair feeling, which desires some employment
that may divert the mind without fatiguing
the body.
Under the influence of these impressions, I have
sometimes thought of this literary undertaking. I
must have been the Bonassus himself to have mistaken
myself for a genius, yet I have leisure and
reflections like my neighbours. I am a borderer
also between two generations, and can point out
more perhaps than others of those fading traces of
antiquity which are daily vanishing; and I know
many a modern instance and many an old tradition,
and therefore I ask---
What ails me, I may not, as well as they,
Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay
In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires
To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires?
No man his threshold better knows, than I
Brute's first arrival and first victory,
Saint George's sorrel and his cross of blood,
Arthur's round board and Caledonian wood.
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