THE CASTLE-BUILDER. 



bore presenting no further claims to our ambition than the simple 

 opportunity then afforded for cramming the pockets of our relations 

 with the public treasure ; and the liberty, moreover, of talking the 

 utmost conceiveable quantity of nonsense, without a licence from the 

 Lord Mayor. But this is neither here no there. Will you pretend 

 to say that your bachelor is happy poor solitary wretch ! or your 

 Benedictpoor hen-pecked misanthrope ? Think you the bishop's 

 mitre surmounts a head tortured with fewer troubles, of some kind or 

 other, than the goodly triangular ornament that decorates the cranium 

 of your dogmatic beadle ? No such thing. Is your peasant happy ? 

 your milk-girl ? your shepherd ? your chimney-speep ? (alas ! 

 his calling now is o'er) your huntsman, or your angler ? your cox- 

 comb? your gamester, or your poet? none of them; not one. 

 There is only one truly happy being (of course I mean one class), 

 and that is, in one word, which I am appehensive may be adjudged 

 to be two your Castle-builder. 



I maintain, and will through thick and thin, that Imyself am one of 

 the happiest men alive, #nd I have been a castle-builder from my boy- 

 hood. The wealth of Golconda is small and contemptible compared 

 with the exhaustless wealth that is ever within my reach t( king's 

 barbaric" are but beggars to me. A thought will lay open the richest 

 mines of earth, with all their precious stores, and with magician ex- 

 pedition, mint the prolific gold in what impression I shall please ; 

 while, with another thought, the whole is deposited, in sound, smooth, 

 bilious little jockeys, safe and secure in the sacred precincts of my 

 breeches-pocket. By the aid of this astonishing power, I have been 

 enabled to travel through every country of the world, though at the 

 game time I have never been an inch from my own. I have mingled 

 in the gaities of Paris visited the Alhambra and Escurial (I believe 

 they call them in Spain) Berlin, Vienna, Leipsic, Brussels, Con- 

 stantinople, Naples, Milan, Florence, and the United States* I 

 have skipped more than once over the Alps taken the Pyrenees in 

 a hop-step-and-jump while the Andes have been kind enough to 

 give me a back, and I have, accordingly, gone over his huge shoul- 

 ders a la leap-frog. I am, likewise, very familiar with the Ganges, 

 as also with the Nile : to which latter I am sincerely indebted for a 

 polite introduction to a crocodile or two. The Mississippi commands 

 my very best regards. In short, where is the limit to my vagaries ? 

 or to the delight and entertainments which my Castle-building pro- 

 pensities furnish for my daily recreation ! Am I meanly attired ? in 

 a moment and less than that I have immediate access to number- 

 less different and unwearoutable vestments, to a wardrobe replete 

 with every various costume of every various nation. I am hungry, 

 and behold ! a banquet arises before me, richer than those described 

 in the Arabian Nights, and other oriental works abounding in every 

 luxury substantial as well as delicate hot and cold fruits from all 

 climates, and wines from all shores. I sit me down. I nod permis- 

 sion for my guests to do the same. The covers are removed, and the 

 steaming odours administer to the appetite delicious vigour. Some 

 ten or dozen little black fellows, with snub noses, and large kidney 

 lips, stand at my back, fanning me with the plumes of the ostrich, 



