with the golden goose, you get a cold, fireless parlour, or a colder hall
reception for your importunity; and, perchance, the silver ore being all
gone, you must put up with the French plate. One of the most equivocal,
if not dangerous, forms of correspondence is that beginning with "I take
the liberty;" for it either portends some well tried "sufferer" as Lord
Foppington calls him; a pressing call from a fundless charity; or at best
but a note from an advertising tailor to tell you that for several years
past you have been paying 50 per cent. too high a price for your clothes;
but, like most good news, this comes upon crutches, and the loss is past
redemption.

What is called the liberty of the subject we must leave for a dull
barrister to explain: in the meantime, if any reader be impatient for the
definition, a night's billeting in Covent Garden watchhouse will initiate
him into its blessings; he is not so dull as to require to be told how to
get there. The liberty of the press is another ticklish subject to handle--
like a hedgehog--all points; but we may be allowed to quote, as one of the
most harmless specimens of the liberty of the press--the production of THE
MIRROR, as we always acknowledge the liberty by reference to the sources
whence our borrowed wealth is taken. This is giving credit in one way, and
taking credit for our own honesty.

Liberty-boys and brawlers would be new acquaintance for us. We are not old
enough to remember "Wilkes and 45;" the cap of liberty is now seldom
introduced into our national arms, and this and all such emblems are fast
fading away. People who used to spout forth Cowper's line and a half on
liberty, have given up the profession, and all men are at liberty to think
as they please. Still ours is neither the golden nor the silver age of
liberty: it is more like paper and platina liberty, things which have the
weight and semblance without their value.