Snatching the creature by her tiny gown,
He plants her on his shoulder,—All, all clap!
While all with praise the Infant Wonder crown,
She lisps in Rolla's ear,—"Look out, old chap,
Or else I'm blow'd if you don't have me down!"
SLIDING-SCALES.
The most remarkable sliding-scale of which Fiction has any record is the rainbow on which Munchausen, with such inimitable ease, effected his railroad descent from mid-air; but Fact has her extraordinary sliding-scales too. Take a modern example in the one which carried Napoleon from Moscow to Elba, equalled only by that which bore him afterwards from Waterloo to St. Helena.
Life in its several stages is but a succession of sliding-scales. Take a bird's-eye view of society, and what do you see but two classes; one endeavouring to slide up an ascent, and another endeavouring not to slide down. The world, instead of being represented as round as an O, might more aptly be figured by the letter A, which is composed of two inclined planes; the way up being narrow and hard to climb, but the way down being broad and open enough.