1826.) Letter on Affairs in General. 67 
oot'was literally “ up and mount!” The dog that squatted down to 
scratch his ear when the adventure began, had not got up again when 
it concluded! In five minutes after quitting the tea-gardens “ Miss 
Stocks” was in the milky way; and in five seconds after being in the 
milky way, she was in the tea-gardens—or some other gardens again 
Clap! clap! went the balloon as its sides collapsed. Down they came, 
faster than the Irishman in Crofton Croker’s legend; and without even 
meeting a black eagle to stop them. Poor Mr. Harris (this was no joke 
though!) was dead, and “ Miss Stocks” was speechless! By a strange 
fatality—neither party even dreaming of such a possible transaction— 
the same six minutes cost Mr. Harris his life, and made Miss Stocks a 
“Jady.”—Distinction, no matter how it comes, like money, is every 
thing. People would pay their money to see the young woman that 
fell all the way out of the clouds and never hurt herself. So “ Miss 
Stocks” defied the gingerbread, and took to “ air-ballooning,” not as 
an amusement, but a trade; had her name printed in large letters, and 
her story told in the papers, and has been out with the “ shew-people” 
regularly ever since. This is the way in which impenetrable people 
occasionally succeed—from the very sheer stupidity that prevents their 
seeing the odds that are against them. A man walks drunk—and is 
saved—by the edge of a precipice, which he could not have approached 
without giddiness, if he had been sober. 
* A fair paraphrase of Horace’s ode, “ Ne sit ancille” &c., in the 
“Sun” of last night, which has given up selling two hundred, and 
means tomake way. The old proprietor, John Taylor, has become an 
“oculist,” I hear. Very odd! Though a good deal of what he used, 
” 
todo-always seemed to me to be “my eye! 
To a Gentleman who Married his Cook-maid, 
* Nesit ancillx, &c.”—Lib. ii. Ode 5. 
fis Oh ! let not your passion for Lucy the maid 
aril O’ershadow your cheek with a blush, 
When beauty ennobles, how speedily fade 
Birth, parentage, duster and brush. 
“4 How many like you have thus sighed for a prize, 
When they found a Cook’s figure bewitching, 
Or feeling the force of a Housekeeper’s eyes, 
gn Haye married the Queen of the Kitchen. 
Then let not your smiles from her presence recoil, e 
Bn: Her charms must anxiety soften, 3 
Are KO. Vor who is so likely to make the pot boil 
palo! As she who has boil’d it so often ? ts 
sbic Her pedigree, too, may, for aught that you know, . $ 
: SESS Be worthy your tenderest love, Re 
Then raise her at once from the regions below, 
To shine in the regions above. ; 
i es “ ‘ 
e paper. has a supposed epitaph on “ Falstaff” (Elliston’s fall in 
am “Prince Hal.” pg 
cf 
ono on het o) o. Marky hark! ‘tis the death warrant’s toll, . reticle 
gtx “au sa __ Poor Falstaff is gone like a noddy ; tee 
leas sit he Bac Ket Satan fly off with his soul, aa 
ve clea) susie And T'llfeteh a cart for‘his body. ao ee 
This is a little too hard, however, upon Elliston; wha, though he “has 
not madea great many friends, or rather never kept a great many, hag 
K 2 STs Shr 
