Comforts of LIFE has no pretensions to claim. I have naturally availed myself of the Public's previous acquaintance with Messieurs TESTY and SENSITIVE. I should be fortunate indeed, if my friend MERRYFELLOW and I, who am, after all, but amanuensis to the party, might share with them, the kindness of such as love occasionally to meditate, in a lounging picktooth humour, over the concerns of Human Life. We detail but a small share of its Comforts. When the reverend Author shall complete, according to his promise, the Catalogue of Miseries; we may then probably be induced to enlarge our display of Human Joys. CHARLES CHEARFUL. COMFORTS OF HUMAN LIFE. Scene-THE Park. DIALOGUE THE FIRST. To SAMUEL SENSITIVE and TIMOTHY TESTY, enter CHARLES CHEARFUL and MARTIN MERRYFELLOW. Merry fellow. HA! whom have we here? Peevish and Deplorable, arm in arm? The very phizzes of unappeasable Discontent and sneaking Despondency close together, like those of Philip and Mary on a shilling! Did you ever before see two such figures, Chearful? That meagre person, that withered brow, those ferret eyes, those cheeks shrivelled as a bit of parchment forsaking the pasteboard on the cover of an old book, that short peaked nose, that pursed, potting mouth, bespeak a mind that has deformed and worn out the frame it animates, by incessant toil, to extract from every subject of thought, continual matter of dissatisfaction. To what a mixed expression of sourness and affected wisdom he twists his features! Chearful. But, how rueful the look of his companion! What a sunken eye! What a droop of the chin! What a lifeless stoop in the shoulders! With what languid, painful effort he drags his legs! He starts at that fly alighting on his hand, as if its touch were the bite of a scorpion. His comrade seems to inthral him with the power of an evil genius. He shrinks from every grasp of the other, and shudders at his every word,—yet still cleaves to him. Merry. Sure, I have seen that figure before. Is it not our old college-companion, SAMUEL SENSITIVE? Chear. Sensitive?-Ha! It is, indeed! -And the other is, positively, Sensitive's constant chum at college, TIM TESTY. Merry. Mr. Testy! Mr. Sensitive! Old friends! How have you fared these twenty years? Testy. Very miserably! Most miserably! It seemed that nothing could be so bad as the plagues of the life we led at college. But, the world is the same, every where: a pitfal beset with snares; a wilderness of thorns, briars, thistles, nettles, and prickly pear trees, tearing one's flesh in the tenderest parts at every movement one makes, however slight; at the best, a bed of down bespread with cow-itch between the sheets; a Chear. What afflictions have my old friends experienced? Have you been robbed of your fortunes? Have you been precipitated into unmerited infamy? Have your friends proved unfaithful, or your relations unkind? Have you been disappointed in love, or cuckolded in marriage? Have your children died by sudden illness? Or, have your mortal enemies undeservedly risen to wealth and honours, by those very events which were the springs of your misfortunes? I address you both: for, it is but |