"
No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to that, our slavery.
No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny which this
necessity exercised upon us. Half a dozen jests in a day (bating Sundays
too), why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number every day in our
lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But
then they come into our head. But when the head has to go out to
them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet--
Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth.
It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings came up; but
mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic
impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature, upon which no
smile could play; some flint, from which no process of ingenuity could
procure a distillation. There they lay; there your appointed tale of
brick-making was set before you, which you must finish, with or without
straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon--_the Public_--like him in
Bel's temple--must be fed; it expected its daily rations; and Daniel,
and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we could on this side
bursting him.
MISS PATE
[Sidenote: _M.M. Betham_]
A Miss Pate (when he heard of her, he asked if she was any relation to
Mr. John _Head_, of Ipswich) was at a party, and he said, on hearing her
name, "Miss Pate I hate.
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