which enables him to bleed you! O mankind!" continued Augustus, "what
noble creatures you ought to be! You have keys to all sciences, all
arts, all mysteries, but one! You have not a notion how you ought to be
governed; you cannot frame a tolerable law, for the life and soul of you!
You make yourselves as uncomfortable as you can by all sorts of galling
and vexatious institutions, and you throw the blame upon 'Fate.' You lay
down rules it is impossible to comprehend, much less to obey; and you
call each other monsters, because you cannot conquer the impossibility!
You invent all sorts of vices, under pretence of making laws for
preserving virtue; and the anomalous artificialities of conduct
yourselves produce, you say you are born with; you make a machine by the
perversest art you can think of, and you call it, with a sigh, 'Human
Nature.' With a host of good dispositions struggling at your breasts,
you insist upon libelling the Almighty, and declaring that he meant you
to be wicked. Nay, you even call the man mischievous and seditious who
begs and implores you to be one jot better than you are. O mankind! you
are like a nosegay bought at Covent Garden. The flowers are lovely, the
scent delicious. Mark that glorious hue; contemplate that bursting
petal! How beautiful, how redolent of health, of nature, of the dew and
breath and blessing of Heaven, are you all! But as for the dirty piece
of string that ties you together, one would think you had picked it out
of the kennel."

So saying, Tomlinson turned on his heel, broke away from the crowd, and
solemnly descended the hill. The party of pleasure slowly followed; and
Clifford, receiving an invitation from the squire to partake of his
family dinner, walked by the side of Lucy, and felt as if his spirit were
drunk with the airs of Eden.

A brother squire, who among the gayeties of Bath was almost as forlorn as