CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



conveyance, a basket of game, red, black, or brown, 

 or peradventure a haunch of the red-deer. 



Reader! be thou a male, bold as the Tercel Gentle 

 — or a female, fair as the Falcon — a male, stern as 

 an old Stag — or a female, soft as a young Doe — we 

 entreat thee to think kindly of Us and of our Article 

 — and to look in love or in friendship on Christopher 

 in his Sporting Jacket, now come to the close of his 

 Three Fyttes, into which he had fallen — out of one 

 into another — and from which he has now been re- 

 vived by the application of a little salt to his mouth, 

 and then a caulker. Nor think that, rambling as we 

 have been, somewhat after the style of thinking com- 

 mon in sleep, there has been no method in our mad- 

 ness, no lucidus ordo in our dream. All the pages are 

 instinct with one spirit — our thoughts and our feel- 

 ings have all followed one another, according to the 

 most approved principles of association — and a fine 

 proportion has been unconsciously preserved. -The 

 article may be likened to some noble tree, which — 

 although here and there a branch have somewhat 

 overgrown its brother above or below it, an arm 

 stretched itself out into further gloom on this side 

 than on that, so that there are irregularities in the 

 umbrage — is still disfigured not by those sports and 

 freaks of nature working on a great scale, and stands, 

 magnificent object! equal to an old castle, on the cliff 

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