very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose
moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest
is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley,
with one caudal point--a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore
Hall, all point, covered with spikes: every where we boast ourselves an
ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals--a Rumour painted
full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets. The
feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be
studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace's simple
tongue may teach the sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and
Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give
lessons to his master: that master, also, is far better than you think
him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity's sake: so we get a mint of
morals, set aside the story. It is not raw material, but the
workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our
grand-dames' sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun
silk-worms' interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of
clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped
it, and chiselled it, and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This
story of '_The Crock of Gold_' purports to be a Dutch picture, as
becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that,
after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that
gives it any value.

Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic
phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away
at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as
we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no
wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite
Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery