Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 580, Supplemental Number - Various - Страница 3

[MISS SHERIDAN presents us with her third volume of ladye mirth, as heretofore, over-flowing with fun and patter, and sprinkled with some sixty or seventy Cuts—many of them, to use a critical term, of "spirited design." Probably, the most humorous tale among the fifty is—]

THE FLYBEKINS, OR THE FIRE-ESCAPE

The Flybekins were distant connexions of the great Lord B., living "genteelly" in the west of England: and Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin were the only adult members of the family at the period of the incident which gave rise to this anecdote. It happened once that these "country cousins" were possessed with an uncontrollable desire to enter within the hitherto unapproached circle of London fashion and gaiety in which their noble relatives moved with such distinction. Every thing was propitious in furtherance of the meditated scheme: the spring was approaching, London filling, the country emptying, and the children could all go to school. A few weeks "in Town, just to see what was going on," would be fully worth the journey, especially as it would afford an opportunity for them to commence an acquaintance with their magnificent relation. And as the boys were growing up, it might be serviceable to their interests to tighten the bonds of connexion a little, which had, from lapse of time, and want of intercourse, become somewhat loosened. There is an old saying—"where there is a will, there is always a way."—In a short time Mr. and Mrs. Flybekin, being bent on the measure, argued themselves into a belief of the projected visit being nothing short of an imperative moral duty.