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Behold those two chimney-sweeps; glance at their attire and their complexions; and think for one moment of the state of the thermometer. Who does not remember, among the legends of his earlier days, a pathetic but harrowing story of an interesting child who was stolen, in a highly fashionable neighbourhood, from under the maternal roof, and subsequently brought up by his kidnappers to the sooty employment of Masters White and Baggs? The touching conclusion of the tale, where the young gentleman comes at last to sweep his own Mamma's chimney, has beguiled many a fair eye of a pearl or two. Is it possible,—can it be,—that we may have too hastily included those youths among the Children of the Mobility; and that they also may have been snatched, by some felonious hand, from the mansions of their distinguished,—perhaps noble parents? Can we have unwittingly indulged in a smile at aristocratic misfortune? No, no; away with such a fear! Instinct, as unerring as that which at once enabled the tender mother to recognise her disguised cherub, would have revealed to us lustre of birth in spite of obscurity of skin. Whatever may be the similarity of their external circumstances, there is always an essential difference, which we filter ourselves we can instantly detect, between patricians and plebians, Cholmondeleys and Chummies.
The following piece of impassioned poesy, forming the "Thoughts of a Young Gentleman," suggested by their situation and appearance, may not be unacceptable to our feeling readers:—
Ye sable youths, ye reck not
How sweet and sad a train
Of thoughts which I can check not,
Ye rouse within my brain.
Sweep on!—and join the light ones—
Yet no: a moment stay;
I would not have that bright one's
Fair image swept away!
Oh! do not look so darkling!
The sight I cannot bear—
Methinks I see them sparkling
Those eyes! that raven hair!
And are ye chill'd and frozen?
Alas! and so am I;
And she—my loved,—my chosen—
Congeals me with her eye.
Gaze not, with orbs of sadness,
On Nature's mantle white;
Her heart,—oh! thought of madness,—
Is just as cold and bright.
That bell—oh! mournful token!—
Ye vainly seek to ring,
For ah!—the link is broken;—
Frail, fickle, faithless thing!
And you and I, deceived ones,
What waits us here below,
But sighing, like bereaved ones,
To murmur "Herb 'sago!"
PLATE VII. Miss Moody and her infant sister Miss Martha Moody, Master George Dummer, and the Misses Ann and Sarah Grigg.
