—O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah._—My mother’s whole wardrobe followed.—What a procession! her red damask,—her orange tawney,—her white and yellow lutestrings,—her brown taffata,—her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats.—Not a rag was left behind.—“_No,—she will never look up again_,” said _Susannah._ We had a fat, foolish scullion—my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity;—she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy.—He is dead, said _Obadiah_,—he is certainly dead!—So am not I, said the foolish scullion. ——Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as _Trim_ stepp’d into the kitchen,—master _Bobby_ is dead and _buried_—the funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah_’s—we shall have all to go into mourning, said _Susannah._ I hope not, said _Trim._—You hope not! cried _Susannah_ earnestly.—The mourning ran not in _Trim_’s head, whatever it did in _Susannah_’s.—I hope—said _Trim_, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered _Obadiah;_ and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the ox-moor.—Oh! he’s dead, said _Susannah._—As sure, said the scullion, as I’m alive. I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said _Trim_, fetching a sigh.—Poor creature!—poor boy!—poor gentleman! —He was alive last _Whitsontide!_ said the coachman.—_Whitsontide!_ alas! cried _Trim_, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon,—what is _Whitsontide, Jonathan_ (for that was the coachman’s name), or _Shrovetide_, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)—and are we not—(dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment!—’Twas infinitely striking! _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears.—We are not stocks and stones.—_Jonathan, Obadiah_, the cook-maid, all melted.—The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous’d with it.—The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in church and state,—and possibly the preservation of the whole world—or what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal’s eloquence—I do demand your attention—your worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.