CHAPTER I

----We’ll not stop two moments, my dear Sir, --only, as we have got through these five volumes,[6.1] (do, Sir, sit down upon a set----they are better than nothing) let us just look back upon the country we have pass’d through.----

----What a wilderness has it been! and what a mercy that we have not both of us been lost, or devoured by wild beasts in it!

Did you think the world itself, Sir, had contained such a number of Jack Asses? ----How they view’d and review’d us as we passed over the rivulet at the bottom of that little valley! ----and when we climbed over that hill, and were just getting out of sight--good God! what a braying did they all set up together!

----Prithee, shepherd! who keeps all those Jack Asses? * * *

----Heaven be their comforter ----What! are they never curried? ----Are they never taken in in winter? ----Bray bray--bray. Bray on, --the world is deeply your debtor; ----louder still--that’s nothing: --in good sooth, you are ill-used: ----Was I a Jack Asse, I solemnly declare, I would bray in G-fol-re-ut from morning, even unto night.

[Footnote 6.1: In the first edition, the sixth volume began with this chapter.]

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