CHAPTER III. THE ELDER PROFFERS AN OPINION UPON WORDSWORTH. "I cannot mend it, I must needs confess, And do remain as neuter."-YORK, in RICH. II. THREE days had elapsed since the interview which closed with the last chapter, and in company with applications for professional " opinions from all sorts of people," Rowland Hill's emissary for the district in which my chambers were situate, deposited therein on the morning of the fourth day, the original of the following: 66 Ivy Lodge, 9th Ap. 41. "Did my parting salutation on Monday night include an 'Au revoir?'-My reminiscent faculties resolved into a committee of inquiry betimes this E morning, and the result is present pyrrhonism. Once for all, prithee cause the deep umbrage' of my locale to prate of your whereabouts whensoever you will, and consider the old man here as your friend. I seldom remember to invite; make therefore this injunction a standing one, like the whoop of " Hereditary Bondsmen!” "Your apprehension concerning the expediency of refixing the kalends to suit the disordered state of the months, may soothe itself in contemplating April, true to its ancient reputation of Inconstant, and not unlike a fair form torn by epilepsy. What a fit the poor month suffered on Friday! Would the Meteorological Society accept my theory of the frequent sulkiness of Friday?—a crude allegory upon practices in the Commons' House; to wit, that an elemental opposition goes on against the Tory Premier, Sol, on Fridays, and that the fine old fellow is sometimes overpowered for a brief space by an incongruous coalition, lashed into turmoil by a most obstreperous tail. "But he has recovered the mastery; and if any stormy malcontent, in the guise of a cloud, presumes to rise in his presence, and to cough or expectorate, the gorgeous Minister radiates the splenetic effusion with prismatic colors. The profound in these matters |