,
but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton!
One of the best of physicians our city has ever known, is kind, cheerful,
merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest
prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton
mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor any cliff so pleasant
to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack
shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. I fancy myself in Mrs.
Honeyman's lodgings in Steyne Gardens, and in enjoyment of all these
things.
If the gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to
cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of
starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no
means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been
invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations--the
news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance at
the banker's; you assemble your family and make them a fine speech; the
wife of your bosom goes round and embraces the sons and daughters
seriatim; nestling in your own waistcoat finally, in possession of which,
she says (with tender tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ, God bless
her!), and of the darlings round about, lies all her worldly treasure:
the weeping servants are dismissed, their wages paid in full, and with a
present of prayer- and hymn-books from their mistress; your elegant house
in Harley Street is to let, and you subside into lodgings in Pentonville,
or Kensington, or Brompton.
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