the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked
themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a
previous weeping, and soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through all with
such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth--but Hogarth has
got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley,
grinning at the pye-man--there he stood, as he stands in the picture,
irremovable, as if the jest was to last for ever--with such a maximum
of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth--for the grin of a
genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it--that I could have
been content, if the honour of a gentleman might endure it, to have
remained his butt and his mockery till midnight.

I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine
set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is
a casket, presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should
take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or
fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must
I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to
ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as
an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It
is, as when

A sable cloud
Turns forth her silver lining on the night.

It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of
better days; a hint of nobility:--and, doubtless, under the obscuring
darkness and double night of their forlorn disguisement, oftentimes
lurketh good blood, and gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry,
and a lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender