This carding of wool, however, did in those days bring with it much profit, so that our ancient friend, when dying, was declared, in whatever slang then prevailed, to cut up exceeding well. For sons and daughters there was ample sustenance with assistance of due industry; for friends and relatives some relief for grief at this great loss; for aged dependents comfort in declining years. This was much for one old man to get done in that dark fifteenth century. But this was not all: coming generations of poor wool-carders should bless the name of this rich one; and a hospital should be founded and endowed with his wealth for the feeding of such of the trade as could not, by diligent carding, any longer duly feed themselves.
'Twas thus that an old man in the fifteenth century did his godlike work to the best of his power, and not ignobly, as appears to me.
We will now take our godly man of latter days. He shall no longer be a wool-carder, for such are not now men of mark. We will suppose him to be one of the best of the good, one who has lacked no opportunities. Our old friend was, after all, but illiterate; our modern friend shall be a man educated in all seemly knowledge; he shall, in short, be that blessed being,--a clergyman of the Church of England!
And now, in what perfectest manner does he in this lower world get his godlike work done and put out of hand? Heavens! in the strangest of manners. Oh, my brother! in a manner not at all to be believed, but by the most minute testimony of eyesight. He does it by the magnitude of his appetite,--by the power of his gorge; his only occupation is to swallow the bread prepared with so much anxious care for these impoverished carders of wool,--that, and to sing indifferently through his nose once in the week some psalm more or less long,--the shorter the better, we should be inclined to say.
Oh, my civilised friends!--great Britons that never will be slaves, men advanced to infinite state of freedom and knowledge of good and evil;--tell me, will you, what becoming monument you will erect to an highly-educated clergyman of the Church of England?
Bold certainly thought that his friend would not like that: he could not conceive anything that he would like less than this. To what a world of toil and trouble had he, Bold, given rise by his indiscreet attack upon the hospital!