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answers to it, — the quick, lively and 

 sudden turns of fancy in conversation. I 

 have sometimes seen a proser quite forlorn 

 in the company of a man of brilliant 

 imagination ; he seemed " dazzled with 

 " excess of light," his dull faculties totally 

 unable to keep pace with the other's rapid 

 ideas. I have afterwards observed the 

 same man get close to a brother proser; 

 and the two snails have travelled on so 

 comfortably upon their own slime, that 

 they seemed to feel no more impression 

 either of pleasure or envy from what they 

 had heard, than a real snail may be sup- 

 posed to do, at the active bounds and leaps 

 of a stag, or of a high-mettled courser. 



This is exactly the case with that prac- 

 tical proser, the true improver : carry him 

 to a scene merely picturesque, he is bewil- 

 dered with its variety and intricacy, the 

 charms of which he neither relishes nor 

 comprehends ; and longs to be crawling 

 anions his clumps, and debating about the 

 tenth part of an ipch in the turn of a gra- 



