CHAPTER I.
Which the reader will find very easy to read.
Mr Nicodemus Easy was a gentleman who lived down in Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances.

Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them.
Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain.

After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job.
Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned philosopher, the very best profession a man can take up, when he is fit for nothing else; he must be a very incapable person indeed who cannot talk nonsense.

For some time, Mr Easy could not decide upon what description his nonsense should consist of; at last he fixed upon the rights of man, equality, and all that; how every person was born to inherit his share of the earth, a right at present only admitted to a certain length; that is, about six feet, for we all inherit our graves and are allowed to take possession without dispute.

But no one would listen to Mr Easy's philosophy.