I invite him, on
the contrary, to ramble gently on with me, as he would saunter out
into the fields, stopping occasionally to gather a flower, or listen
to a bird, or admire a prospect, without any anxiety to arrive at the
end of his career. Should I, however, in the course of my loiterings
about this old mansion, see or hear anything curious, that might serve
to vary the monotony of this every-day life, I shall not fail to
report it for the reader's entertainment:
For freshest wits I know will soon be wearie
Of any book, how grave so e'er it be,
Except it have odd matter, strange and merrie,
Well sauc'd with lies and glared all with glee.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mirror for Magistrates_.]
THE BUSY MAN.
A decayed gentleman, who lives most upon his own mirth and my
master's means, and much good do him with it. He does hold my
master up with his stories, and songs, and catches, and such tricks
and jigs, you would admire--he is with him now.
--_Jovial Crew_.
By no one has my return to the Hall been more heartily greeted than by
Mr. Simon Bracebridge, or Master Simon, as the Squire most commonly
calls him. I encountered him just as I entered the park, where he was
breaking a pointer, and he received me with all the hospitable
cordiality with which a man welcomes a friend to another one's house.
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