reading; which turns upon difficulties encountered, battles fought,
and enemies overcome, four or five hundred by the prowess of one
single hero, the more improbable the better: in short, that their man
should be a hero to every one living but themselves; and to them know
no bound to his humility. A woman has some glory in subduing a heart
no man living can appall; and hence too often the bravo, assuming the
hero, and making himself pass for one, succeeds as only a hero should.

But as for honest Hickman, the good man is so generally meek, as I
imagine, that I know not whether I have any preference paid me in his
obsequiousness. And then, when I rate him, he seems to be so
naturally fitted for rebuke, and so much expects it, that I know not
how to disappoint him, whether he just then deserve it, or not. I am
sure, he has puzzled me many a time when I have seen him look penitent
for faults he has not committed, whether to pity or laugh at him.

You and I have often retrospected the faces and minds of grown people;
that is to say, have formed images for their present appearances,
outside and in, (as far as the manners of the persons would justify us
in the latter) what sort of figures they made when boys and girls.
And I'll tell you the lights in which HICKMAN, SOLMES, and LOVELACE,
our three heroes, have appeared to me, supposing them boys at school.

Solmes I have imagined to be a little sordid, pilfering rogue, who
would purloin from every body, and beg every body's bread and butter
from him; while, as I have heard a reptile brag, he would in a winter-
morning spit upon his thumbs, and spread his own with it, that he
might keep it all to himself.

Hickman, a great overgrown, lank-haired, chubby boy, who would be