In one of those beautiful valleys, through which the Thames (not yet polluted by the tide, the scouring of cities, or even the minor defilement of the sandy streams of Surrey) rolls aclear flood through flowery meadows, under the shade of old beech woods, and the smoothmossy greensward of the chalk hills (which pour into it their tributary rivulets, as pure andpellucid as the fountain of Bandusium, or the wells of Scamander, by which the wives anddaughters of the Trojans washed their splendid garments in the days of peace, before thecoming of the Greeks); in one of those beautiful valleys, on a bold round-surfaced lawn, spotted with juniper, that opened itself in the bosom of an old wood, which rose with asteep, but not precipitous ascent, from the river to the summit of the hill, stood thecastellated villa of a retired citizen. Ebenezer Mac Crotchet, Esquire, was the London-bornoffspring of a worthy native of the "north countrie," who had walked up to London on acommercial adventure, with all his surplus capital, not very neatly tied up in a not veryclean handkerchief, suspended over his shoulder from the end of a hooked stick, extractedfrom the first hedge on his pilgrimage; and who, after having worked himself a step or twoup the ladder of life, had won the virgin heart of the only daughter of a highly respectablemerchant of Duke's Place, with whom he inherited the honest fruits of a long series ofingenuous dealing
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