has so chanced by a misfortune heretofore unheard of, that I, your
present petitioner, have been altogether forgotten by the Muse. Instead
of being able (as I naturally expected) to measure my ideas into six-
foot lilies, and tack a rhyme at each of their tails, I find myself,
this blessed morning, the same simple proser that I was yesterday, and
shall probably be to-morrow. And to my further mortification, being a
humble-minded little sinner, I feel no wise capable of talking to your
worships with the customary wisdom of my brethren, and giving sage
opinions as to what Time has done right, and what he has done wrong, and
what of right or wrong he means to do hereafter. Such being my unhappy
predicament, it is with no small confusion of face, that I make bold to
present myself at your doors. Yet it were surely a pity that my non-
appearance should defeat your bountiful designs for the replenishing of
my pockets. Wherefore I have bethought me, that it might not displease
your worships to hear a few particulars about the person and habits of
Father Time, with whom, as being one of his errand-boys, I have more
acquaintance than most lads of my years.

For a great many years past, there has been a woodcut on the cover of
the "Farmer's Almanac," pretending to be a portrait of Father Time. It
represents that respectable personage as almost in a state of nudity,
with a single lock of hair on his forehead, wings on his shoulders, and
accoutred with a scythe and an hour-glass. These two latter symbols
appear to betoken that the old fellow works in haying time, by the hour.
But, within my recollection, Time has never carried a scythe and an
hour-glass, nor worn a pair of wings, nor shown himself in the half-
naked condition that the almanac would make us believe. Nowadays, he is
the most fashionably dressed figure about town; and I take it to be his
natural disposition, old as he is, to adopt every fashion of the day and
of the hour. Just at the present period, you may meet him in a furred