our village Packwood used to communicate the news of the
morning, than all Antoine's gambols could have expressed in a week, and more of
human and dog-like sympathy in the wag of old Trusty's tail, than if his rival
Touton had stood on his hind-legs for a twelvemonth.
    These signs of repentance come perhaps a little late, and I own (for I must
be entirely candid with my dear friend the Public) that they have been somewhat
matured by the perversion of my niece Christy to the ancient Popish faith by a
certain whacking priest in our neighbourhood, and the marriage of my aunt
Dorothy to a demi-solde captain of horse, a ci-devant member of the Legion of
Honour, and who would, he assures us, have been a Field-Marshal by this time had
our old friend Bonaparte continued to live and to triumph. For the matter of
Christy, I must own her head had been so fairly turned at Edinburgh with five
routs a-night, that, though I somewhat distrusted the means and medium of her
conversion, I was at the same time glad to see that she took a serious thought
of any kind; - besides, there was little loss in the matter, for the Convent
took her off my hands for a very reasonable pension. But aunt Dorothy's marriage
on earth was a very different matter from Christian's celestial espousals. In
the first place, there were two thousand three-per-cents as much lost to my
family as if the sponge had been drawn over the national slate - for who the
deuce could have thought aunt Dorothy would have married? Above all, who would
have thought a woman of fifty years' experience would have married a French
anatomy, his lower branch of limbs corresponding with the upper branch, as if
one pair of half-extended compasses had been placed perpendicularly upon the top
of another, while the space on which the hinges revolved quite sufficed to
represent the body? All the rest was mustache, pelisse, and calico trowser. She
might have commanded a Polk of real Cossacks in 1815 for half the wealth which
she surrendered to this military scarecrow. However, there is no more to be said
upon the matter, especially as she had come the length of quoting Rousseau for
sentiment - and so let that pass.
    Having thus expectorated my bile against a land, which is, notwithstanding,
a very merry land, and which I cannot blame, because I sought it, and it did not
seek me, I come to the more immediate purpose of this Introduction, and