Some in their folly take black-draught and blue-pill,
And ask ABERNETHY their fate to delay;
I'd he an Alderman, WAITHMAN'S apt pupil,
Failing when dinner things are clearing away.
_Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
A PROVINCIAL REPUTATION.
I once resided in a country town; I will not specify whether that town
was Devizes or Doncaster, Beverley or Brighton: I think it highly
reprehensible in a writer to be _personal_, and scarcely more venial do
I consider the fault of him who presumes to be _local_. I will, however,
state, that my residence lay among the manufacturing districts; but lest
any of my readers should be misled by that avowal, I must inform them,
that in my estimation _all_ country towns, from the elegant Bath, down
to the laborious Bristol, are (whatever their respective polite or
mercantile inhabitants may say to the contrary), positively,
comparatively, and superlatively, manufacturing towns!
Club-rooms, ball-rooms, card-tables, and confectioners' shops, are the
_factories;_ and gossips, both male and female, are the _labouring
classes_. Norwich boasts of the durability of her stuffs; the
manufacturers I allude to weave a web more flimsy. The stuff of tomorrow
will seldom be the same that is publicly worn to-day; and were it not
for the zeal and assiduity of the labourers, we should want novelties to
replace the stuff that is worn out hour by hour.
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