I could not rise, turn round, and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to the tufted tail, "roar you an't were any nightingale," and so lie down again like a well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer.

And I could ill stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady of the evening indulges her show-monsters on such occasions, as she crams her parrots with sugar-plums, in order to make them talk before company.

I cannot be tempted to "come aloft" for these marks of distinction, and, like imprisoned Samson, I would rather remain--if such must be the alternative--all my life in the mill-house, grinding for my very bread, than be brought forth to make sport for the Philistine lords and ladies.
This proceeds from no dislike, real or affected, to the aristocracy of these realms.

But they have their place, and I have mine; and, like the iron and earthen vessels in the old fable, we can scarce come into collision without my being the sufferer in every sense.

It may be otherwise with the sheets which I am now writing.