GllKSHAM GRASHOPPER. 693 



home will the mourning of his followers go deeper than the colour of 

 the clothes they wear ! 



Yonder goes another : his eye wanders abroad ; he distributes a nod 

 to one, an how-d'ye-do to another ; a shake by the hand to a third, 

 which would be agreeable enough if the heart went with it, but even 

 that he mimics so that many would be deceived. This man is a 

 speculator, whose pulse beats to the tune of the present moment. He 

 is not content with the dull, crooked, plodding ways of ordinary 

 thrift, but breaks out into new channels, catches at new objects, de- 

 vises new schemes. Like the devil, he is always busy stirring up a 

 storm, and then proudly rides in the midst of it. He was in poverty 

 and distress a week ago; to-day he is master of every thing. He 

 rules the market in the commodity he buys ; he will be a beggar next 

 Saturday, and on Monday he will begin again, and play the golden 

 ass once more. Look at him : his cheek is flushed, and his eye speaks 

 of hope and expectation. When the 'Change bell has rung he will 

 go and swallow his hasty dinner with a feverish appetite, and then, 

 after seeing all his doings fairly registered in his diary, home he goes, 

 and in the delusive dreams of to-morrow consumes those hours of re- 

 pose in which the heart should beat tranquilly to acquire a renovated 

 strength for the efforts of the day that is to come. 



How different from these is that man now advancing with a broken, 

 tremulous step ; he has been the plodding business man all his days. 

 He is the child of misfortune, the dupe of the designing ; he has 

 borne poverty's keen touch, and disappointment's destroying blow 

 still he clings to the delusive scene of all he has done and all he has 

 been, in hopes, upon the fragment of credit which yet remains to 

 build up something out of the wrecks of former years. Yet he goes 

 on as if a spell followed him : he dreams of profits never to be 

 realized, and sighs for riches, but finds still that their proverbial 

 wings waft them from him. From day to day his mind wanders 

 over these things, and the hard labours of his daily round are re- 

 warded only by that slender pittance which barely keeps him from 

 the bitterest ills of poverty. His hair is white with thejjfrost of years. 

 The night will, ere long, close over him ; the thread of his long life 

 will soon be spun ; and not one record of happy feeling will be left 

 upon the shore of his memory (unwashed by the briny waves of sor- 

 row) to console him in his last days. I'll tell you a story touching 

 pelf. 



Yew-tree Lodge is a moderate-sized, square-built erection, stand- 

 ing in all the majesty of white plaster, within two dozen paces of the 

 high road from London to Dover. I never could ascertain that it 

 was celebrated for any thing before it became the residence of its 

 present owner, Sir Crab Numberwell, knight and retired merchant 

 save the trees, whence it derived its name. The fantastical shapes, 

 into which it had been cut, proved the unconscious cause of a re- 

 christening to wit, "The Dog and Duck!" and nothing could 

 sooner arouse the irritability of the rich and respected citizen than 

 to allude, even in the most indirect manner, to this appellation. 



