"Behold him, while he is doing--it seemeth rather a refreshing
warmth than a scorching heat, that he is passive to. How equably he
twirleth round the string! Now he is just done. To see the extreme
sensibility of that tender age; he hath wept out his pretty
eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars....
"His sauce should be considered. Decidedly a few bread crumbs done
up with his liver and brains, and a dish of mild sage. But banish,
dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your
whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out
with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic, you cannot poison
them or make them sharper than they are--but consider he is a
weakling--a flower."
Lamb gives his opinion that you can no more improve sucking pig than you
can refine a violet.
Thus he proceeds along his sparkling road--his humour and poetry
gleaming one through the other, and often leaving us in pleasant
uncertainty whether he is in jest or earnest. Though not gifted with the
strength and suppleness of a great humorist, he had an intermingled
sweetness and brightness beyond even the alchemy of Addison. We regret
to see his old-fashioned figure receding from our view--but he will ever
live in remembrance as the most joyous and affectionate of friends.
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