SPECULATIVE FANCIES. 



337 



slumber, of the slave of the kettle that giant genius, Steam, 

 which had arisen, while he slept, at the bidding of the magician, 

 Science, to make a button, to compound a pill, and to transport 

 a sovereign ? 



Or suppose an individual of the present day, thrown by 

 mesmeric or ethereal influence into a deep, dead, bond fide 

 slumber, for the remaining half of this nineteenth century, who 

 shall venture to imagine the astounding marvels on which his 

 eyes would open at the beginning of the twentieth ? Marvels, 

 vastly curious and amusing in the speculative distance, but of 

 which the close reality might be attended by various sensations 

 something less agreeable. The old-fashioned courtier would 

 feel awkward enough in the position we have just supposed 

 amongst his modern brethren of the suite ; but how infinitely 

 more so one of these latter under circumstances wherein the 

 lapse of another half-century might place him, when called on, 

 perhaps, to attend his sovereign if sovereigns there be, or if 

 povereigns then have lords in waiting in a state balloon ! 





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<efje t&reabg of Sfngect %ife are bariouglg apportioned 



