"Why didn't they let him out to hire," said Mr. Cavil, "to the Expositors of Mesmerism; he must have been made to stick pins into. Think of a human creature being turned into a pincushion! It fills all my flesh with a sense of glass splinters and Whitechapel blunts."
Here our young acquaintance, Charles Hookeywalker, with delicate tenderness, proposed a relief to the feelings of the speaker by volunteering a sonnet.
"Another sonnet!" cried Mr. Cavil, "worse and worse, I hate sonnets."
But the subject in this especial instance was voted to contain a saving grace, for it was addressed to the Princess Royal, while yet she is
O Royal Cherub! first-born of the queen!
Sweet babe! bright creature! light of all our eyes!
Young heavenly visitant! from the blue skies,
And from the Guelphs, descended! thou hast been