From A Parent to a Child - Page 2

tarnished with
ignoble smoke; flakes of soot had fallen on his bright green shawl-
-his pride in days of yore--the steam condensed in the tunnel from
which we had just emerged, shone upon his hat like rain. His eye
betokened that he was thinking of the coachman; and as it wandered
to his own seat and his own fast-fading garb, it was plain to see
that he felt his office and himself had alike no business there,
and were nothing but an elaborate practical joke.

As we whirled away, I was led insensibly into an anticipation of
those days to come, when mail-coach guards shall no longer be
judges of horse-flesh--when a mail-coach guard shall never even
have seen a horse--when stations shall have superseded stables, and
corn shall have given place to coke. 'In those dawning times,'
thought I, 'exhibition-rooms shall teem with portraits of Her
Majesty's favourite engine, with boilers after Nature by future
Landseers. Some Amburgh, yet unborn, shall break wild horses by
his magic power; and in the dress of a mail-coach guard exhibit his
TRAINED ANIMALS in a mock mail-coach. Then, shall wondering crowds
observe how that, with the exception of his whip, it is all his
eye; and crowned heads shall see them fed on oats, and stand alone
unmoved and undismayed, while counters flee affrighted when the
coursers neigh!'

Such, my child, were the reflections from which I was only awakened
then, as I am now, by the necessity of attending to matters of
present though minor importance. I offer no apology to you for the
digression, for it brings me very naturally to the subject of
change, which is the very subject of which I desire to treat.

In fact, my child, you have changed hands. Henceforth I resign you
to the guardianship and protection of one of my most intimate and
valued friends, Mr. Ainsworth, with whom, and with you, my best
wishes and warmest feelings will ever remain. I reap no gain or
profit by parting from you, nor will any conveyance of your
property be required, for, in this respect, you have always been
literally 'Bentley's' Miscellany, and never mine.

Unlike the driver of the old Manchester mail, I regard this altered
state of things with feelings of unmingled pleasure and
satisfaction.

Unlike the guard of the new Manchester mail, YOUR guard is at home
in his new place, and has roystering highwaymen and gallant
desperadoes ever within call. And if I might compare you, my
child, to an engine; (not a Tory engine, nor a Whig engine, but a
brisk and rapid locomotive;) your friends and patrons to
passengers; and he who now stands towards you in loco parentis as
the skilful engineer and supervisor of the whole, I would humbly
crave leave to postpone the departure of the train on