Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/39

 dancing, shimmering, brawling, foaming, ebbing, flowing, before my eyes; and as for my ears there is ever a humming, a surging on the Brim, a deep thorough Bassus sounding in them, with treble, tenor, and counter-tenor, duly falling in and making up the concert in more descants, symphonies, antiphons, fugues, madrigals, rounds, canons, and catches, than it is convenient for one man to listen to. And the chime of silver cans is still changing, ringing, and tingling against the tympanum, the meatus, and Eustachius his tubes, running back and fore from the outer ear to the inner, so that I can hear nothing else. In fine, all my five senses (some naughty fellow has added a sixth, fye on him!) rational and vegetal soul, sensus communis, memory, understanding, will, and phantasy, are quite absorbed in this one object; and, if you talk to me of letters, I can but think of the Library of Burgavenny, where are so many great embossed books clothed in skins, and bound in chains; such chests of parchments and rolls, where is kept the Silver Oar borne before the High Tosspot, where are desks, lecterns, and stalls for learned Silurists, where in the midst hangs a silver lamp, fed with pure and quintessential ale, and such a store of wonderful and joyous histories, and phantastic inventions that a London bookseller would go raving mad to think thereon. Am I not, then, a complete and special Tankard Marshall, and a true Silurian? One of that company who cannot laugh too much or turn the tap too often; and in truth, whether it be good or bad, that is all our philosophy. As for the rest; reform-