THE HAT. 211 



hemp, there arrived on the coast of England a ship 

 from Germany, freighted with a cargo of no ordi- 

 nary importance. In it was a sovereign remedy for 

 all manner of national grievances. Royal expen- 

 diture was to be mere moonshine, taxation as light 

 as Camilla's footsteps, and the soul of man was to 

 fly up to heaven its own way. But the poet says, 



' dicique beatus 



Ante obitum nemo, supremaque funera debet ; " 



that is, we must not expect supreme happiness on 

 our side of the grave. As a counterpoise to the 

 promised felicity to be derived from this super- 

 excellent German cargo, there was introduced, 

 either by accident or by design, an article destined, 

 at no far distant period, to put the sons of Mr. Bull 

 in mind of the verses which I have just quoted. 



This was no other than a little grey-coloured 

 short-legged animal, too insignificant, at the time 

 that the cargo was landed, to attract the slightest 

 notice. It is known to naturalists, sometimes by 

 the name of the Norwegian, sometimes by that of 

 the Hanoverian, rat. Though I am not aware that 

 there are any minutes, in the zoological archives 

 of this country, which point out to us the precise 

 time at which this insatiate and mischievous little 

 brute first appeared among us ; still, there is a 

 tradition current in this part of the country, that 

 it actually came over in the same ship which con- 

 veyed the new dynasty to these shores. My father, 

 who was of the first order of field naturalists, was 

 always positive on this point ; and he maintained 

 p 2 



