But the bad ones?
I tell you that the sight of those blank windows in Northumberland
Street--through which, as it were, my mind could picture the awful
tragedy glimmering behind--set me thinking, "Mr. Street-Preacher, here
is a text for one of your pavement sermons. But it is too glum and
serious. You eschew dark thoughts: and desire to be cheerful and
merry in the main." And, such being the case, you see we must have no
Roundabout Essay on this subject.
Well, I had another arrow in my quiver. (So, you know, had William Tell
a bolt for his son, the apple of his eye; and a shaft for Gessler, in
case William came to any trouble with the first poor little target.)
And this, I must tell you, was to have been a rare Roundabout
performance--one of the very best that has ever appeared in this series.
It was to have contained all the deep pathos of Addison; the logical
precision of Rabelais; the childlike playfulness of Swift; the manly
stoicism of Sterne; the metaphysical depth of Goldsmith; the blushing
modesty of Fielding; the epigrammatic terseness of Walter Scott; the
uproarious humor of Sam Richardson; and the gay simplicity of Sam
Johnson;--it was to have combined all these qualities, with some
excellences of modern writers whom I could name:--but circumstances have
occurred which have rendered this Roundabout Essay also impossible.
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