30 The Club-Room. [JAN. 



The Chairman, (looking round him with supreme scorn.) What, Sir ! 

 have / not said it? And who here presumes to thwart me. Here of 

 all places in the world in the midst of this set. Go, give them a glass 

 of water apiece, or ring for smelling bottles. 



( All recover instantly, bow towards the chair, and put themselves 



in attitudes oflhe most profound attention.) 



I dropped asleep when Rat had got through the first three sentences of 

 his speech on the Caricatures. I felt the well-known narcotic of his 

 voice, and sank into irresistible slumber. 



I thought that as I was galloping back to Town, I found myself 

 suddenly benighted on Runny mede, my horse ran against the column, and I 

 was forced to dismount, and left alone. But I was not long alone. Those 

 insolent Caricatures were busy in my brain ; and I thought that all their 

 monstrosities were embodied before me. The plain spread away further 

 and further, to a boundless extent ; and every spot of it was crowded 

 with every form of fierce ridicule, vengeance, scorn, and terror. Every 

 emblematic snake, spectre, and beast of fang, every wild grotesque of 

 the pencil, was suddenly living round me. The air was filled with 

 strange and horrible burlesques of the human form ; the ground teemed 

 with serpents, that tracked their way by poison, and curled their enor- 

 mous trains, glittering with venom and fire, above my head ; the roots 

 of the trees and weeds seemed instinct with a horrid life, and curled 

 and twined into monsters, that gnashed their fangs close to my eyes, and 

 bound me in hideous fleshly chains. 



I now heard tempests rising from all quarters of the horizon ; and 

 soon felt the whirlwind that lifted the dust and ashes in suffocating heaps 

 round me. The thunder roared, and the rain burst over me in torrents 

 and cataracts. 



Yet in the midst of the loudest rage of the elements I constantly heard 

 a voice, as low as a whisper, but as distinct as if it were uttered into my 

 ear ; and its perpetual word was " Ambition I" 



At length, maddened with terror, and in the strength of madness, I 

 made one tremendous spring; bounded into the air to an incredible 

 height, and alighted in a distant country. There all was quiet. The 

 landscape was new to me ; mighty rivers, luxuriant forests, nature all on a 

 magnificent scale. I was now surrounded by human beings ; and I felt 

 something of the play and cheerful motion of human feelings. But the 

 thunder roared again ; I was wrapped in the same furious storm ; the 

 ground teemed, swelled, and festered again with horrid life; and at 

 a new roll of the thunder, up burst from its corrupted bosom the 

 same terrible forms of unnatural torment. The serpent again crushed 

 my limbs ; the dragon again stooped on his pinions above my head, and 

 drenched me with gore from jaws fresh stained with carnage ; the 

 tyger dashed against rne in his speed ; and the lion howled and tore up 

 the sand at my feet. Still the same fearful voice muttered in my ear 

 " Ambition!" Agony unspeakable ! I once more tried to escape, and was 

 once more lifted into the elements. My feet now rested on the summit of a 

 range of mountains from which I looked down on a new land, diversified 

 with rich plains and ranges of mountain ; and with a sky over head 

 that was serenity itself. My spirit recovered its tension ; a new breath 

 of life seemed to penetrate my frame ; I heard martial shouts, and, like 

 the war horse, snuffed up the sounds of the battle afar off, and rejoiced 

 in the thunder of the captains and the shouting. 



