It is Prophetical, inasmuch as it not only presenteth the present, but futurizeth the future.
Taurus, the Bull (egregious John!), having, through a plethora of purse, fallen into a dreamy mood, yielded himself up to a somniferous influence, which becloudeth, with a misty obfuscation, his natural senses; whereupon the megrims of his crazy brain do set themselves to work, and conjure up certain airy visions of speculative aggrandizement.
Floating in nubibus before his fancy's eye, are sundry bubbles, blown by an Imp of Speculation, who ruleth the phantasies which do take John's imagination captive. Gemini (the Twins) in the similitude of a joint-stock Company proffer him wealth;—baseless castles, of unsubstantial fabric, resting on ether, do shadow forth his brick-and-mortar predilections;—and a rail-road betwixt Dover and Calais, uniting that which nature had dissevered, accomplisheth that propinquity, which John ever affecteth for good neighbourhood and fellowship; while Luna, who hath established a reciprocity rail-road with our planet, grinneth at his gullibility, and marketh him for her own.
Descending from the clouds, note we the state of his household matters, while he thus dreameth in complacent security.
Thou mayest observe, gentle Reader, certain satellites of Mercury (the planet of thieves), who, under the impersonation of rooks, by an immersion of their long beaks into the profundity of his pockets, are abstracting his treasure. At the right hand of the dreamer, a cutpurse knave of Spades, the apt symbol of rail-road diggers and miners, hath, by an undermining trick, possessed himself of his bullion; while the Demon of Gin, in the likelihood of a crafty serpent, entwined round his lower extremities, shadoweth forth the ruin with which the fiend spirit threateneth the props of the body politic,—the Industrious Classes. The rats, those rogues in grain, are devouring his corn; and his faithful Tray is gnawing at his dinner.
Surrounded as he is by wealth and plenty, shall we marvel, that when the master of the house sleepeth on his post, knaves will cheat, thieves will steal, and servants will pilfer?
A MAY-DAY LAY.
Hip, hip, huzza!
For Merry May!
More dear than tongues can tell,