eternal semblance of labor that was ended, and pleasure that could be
felt no more. Anon, however, the old gentleman turned the handle of a
barrel-organ, the first note of which produced a most enlivening
effect upon the figures, and awoke them all to their proper
occupations and amusements. By the self-same impulse the tailor plied
his needle, the blacksmith's hammer descended upon the anvil, and the
dancers whirled away on feathery tiptoes; the company of soldiers
broke into platoons, retreated from the stage, and were succeeded by a
troop of horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets
and trampling of hoofs, as might have startled Don Quixote himself;
while an old toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black
bottle and took off a hearty swig. Meantime the Merry-Andrew began to
caper and turn somersets, shaking his sides, nodding his head, and
winking his eyes in as life-like a manner as if he were ridiculing the
nonsense of all human affairs, and making fun of the whole multitude
beneath him. At length the old magician (for I compared the showman
to Prospero, entertaining his guests with a mask of shadows) paused
that I might give utterance to my wonder.

"What an admirable piece of work is this!" exclaimed I, lifting up my
bands in astonishment.

Indeed, I liked the spectacle, and was tickled with the old man's
gravity as he presided at it, for I had none of that foolish wisdom
which reproves every occupation that is not useful in this world of
vanities. If there be a faculty which I possess more perfectly than
most men, it is that of throwing myself mentally into situations
foreign to my own, and detecting, with a cheerful eye, the desirable
circumstances of each. I could have envied the life of this gray-
headed showman, spent as it had been in a course of safe and