O! here’s a partic’lar mess,
Vot vill mother say to me now? 
For he vas her lap-dog and pet,
Oh!  I’ve slaughtered her darling bow-wow!

SCENE XI.

“Mother says fishes comes from hard roes, so I chuck’d in the roe of a red-herring last week, but I doesn’t catch any fish yet.”

How beautiful is the simplicity of unsophisticated youth!  Behold with what patience this innocent awaits a bite, trusting with perfect faith in the truth of his affectionate mother’s ichthyological knowledge.  Wishing to behold a live fish dangling at the end of his line, he has, with admirable foresight, drawn up the bucket, that in the ascent the finny prey may not kick it!  It must be a hard roe indeed, that is not softened by his attentions; but, alas! he is doomed never to draw up a vulgar herring, or a well-bred fish!

Folks who are a little deeper read than the boy—­(or the herring!)—­may smile at his fruitless attempt, but how many are there that act through life upon the same principle, casting their lines and fishing for—­compliments, who never obtain even a nibble—­for why? their attempts at applause, like his red-herring, are smoked.  He does not know that herrings are salt-water fish—­and, in fact, that the well-water is not the roes—­water!

But after all, is not such ignorance bliss?—­for he enjoys the anticipated pleasure; and if anticipation be really greater than reality —­what an interminable length will that pleasure be to him!  Ever and anon he draws up his line, like a militia captain for a review;—­puts fresh bait on the crooked pin, and lets it slowly down, and peeps in, wondering what the fish can be at!—­and is quite as much in the dark as his float.  But he may at last, perhaps, discover that he is not so deep as a well—­and wisely resolve to let well—­alone; two points which may probably be of infinite importance to him through life, and enable him to turn the laugh against those who now mock his ignorance and simplicity.

SCENE XII.

Ambition.

“He was ambitious, and I slew him.”

What carried Captain Ross to the North Pole?  “A ship to be sure!” exclaims some matter-of-fact gentleman.  Reader!  It was ambition!

What made barber Ross survey the poll, make wigs, and puff away even when powder was exploded?  What caused him to seek the applause of the ‘nobs’ among the cockneys, and struggle to obtain the paradoxical triplicate dictum that he was a werry first-rate cutter!’ What made him a practical Tory? (for he boasts of turning out the best wigs in the country!)

What induces men to turn theatrical managers when a beggarly account of empty boxes nightly proves the Drama is at a discount—­all benefits visionary, and the price of admission is regarded as a tax, and the performers as ex-actors?——­when they get scarcely enough to pay for lights, and yet burn their fingers?—­Ambition