carrying a halberd at the famous engagement of Fontenoy -- or if
not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under General Sir
John Cope, when the wild Highlanders broke through all the laws
of discipline and the English lines; and, being on the spot, did
he see the famous ghost which didn't appear to Colonel Gardner of
the Dragoons? My good creature, is it possible you don't
remember that Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford,
as you justly say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr Pope, of
Twitnam, died in the year of your birth? What a wretched memory
you have! What? haven't they a library, and the commonest books
of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you
dwell?"

"Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr Swift, Atossa, and
Mr Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says
old goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like a old parrot -- you
know they live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a
parrot of a hundred is comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes,
and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some which
Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are there now, with great
humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they could tell all
sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak -- but they are
very silent, carps are -- of their nature peu communicatives.
Oh! what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread
and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a
Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones,
and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings bread
to feed them?

No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old