“No, my child, not any. Your excellent Aunt Eudoxia has it all under lock and key. Now I will mount according to Xenophon, though I do not find that he anywhere prescribes a Windsor chair. ‘When he has well prepared himself for the ascent, let him support his body with his left hand, and stretching forth his right hand let him leap on horseback, and when he mounts thus he will not present an uncomely spectacle to those behind. There, I am up, most accurately; excellent horse, and great writer! And now for the next direction: ‘We do not approve of the same bearing a man has in a carriage, but that an upright posture be observed, with the legs apart’”. “How could they be otherwise, pa, when the horse is between them”? “Your criticisms are rash, my child. Jem, how dare you laugh, sir? I will buy a pair of spurs, I declare, the next time I go to Ringwood. Good–bye, darling; Aunt Doxy will take you up to the park, when the sun comes out, to see all the wonderful doings. I shall be home in time to dress for the dinner at the Hall”. Sweet Amy kissed her hand, and curtseyed—as she loved to do to her father; and, after two or three wayward sallies (repressed by Jem with the gardening broom), Coræbus pricked his little ears, and shook himself into a fair jog–trot. So with his elbows well stuck out, and shaking merrily to and fro, his right hand ready to grasp the pommel in case of consternation, and one leg projected beyond the other, after the manner of a fowlʼs side–bone, away rode John Rosedew in excellent spirits, to begin his Wednesday parochial tour. Being duly victualled, and thoroughly found, for a voyage of long duration and considerable hazard, the good ship “John Rosedew” set sail every Wednesday for commerce with the neighbourhood. This expedition was partly social, partly ministerial, in a great measure eleemosynary, and entirely loving and amicable. There was no bombardment of dissenters, no firing of red–hot shot at Papists, no up with the helm and run him down, if any man launched on the mare magnum, or any frail vessel missed stays. And yet there was no compromise, no grand circle sailing, no luffing to a trade–wind; straight was the course, and the chart most clear, and the good ship bound, with favour of God, for a haven beyond the horizon. Barnacles and vile teredoes, algæ and desmidious trailers:—I doubt if there be more sins in our hearts to stop us from loving each other than parasites and leeching weeds to clog a stout shipʼs bottom. Nevertheless she bears them on, beautifies and cleanses them, until they come to temperate waters, where the harm has failed them. So a good man carries with him those who carp and fasten on him; content to take their little stings, if the utterance purify them.