in the county papers, and the six-shilling advertisement in the
~Times~.

"Progidy" though he was, even as a baby, yet Mr. Verdant Green's
nativity seems to have been chronicled merely in this everyday
manner, and does not appear to have been accompanied by any of those
more monstrous phenomena, which in earlier ages attended the
production of a ~genuine~ prodigy. We are not aware that Mrs.
Green's favourite Alderney spoke on that occasion, or conducted
itself otherwise than as unaccustomed to public speaking as usual.
Neither can we verify the assertion of the intelligent Mr. Mole the
gardener, that the plaster Apollo in the Long Walk was observed to be
bathed in a profuse perspiration, either from its feeling compelled
to keep up the good old classical custom, or because the weather was
damp. Neither are we bold enough to entertain an opinion that the
chickens in the poultry-yard refused their customary food; or that
the horses in the stable shook with trembling fear; or that any
thing, or any body, saving and excepting Mrs. Toosypegs, betrayed any
consciousness that a real and genuine prodigy had been given to the
world.

However, during the first two years of his life, which were passed
chiefly in drinking, crying, and sleeping, Mr. Verdant Green met with
as much attention, and received as fair a share of approbation, as
usually falls to the lot of the most favoured of infants. Then Mrs.
Toosypegs again took up her position in the house, and his reign was
over. Faithful to her mission, she pronounced the new baby to be
~the~ "progidy," and she was believed. But thus it is all through
life; the new baby displaces the old; the second love supplants the
first; we find fresh friends to shut out the memories of former ones;