of the State

preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled

for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and

seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at

that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently

attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a

prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime

appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the

swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane

ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past

(supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere

messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the

English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in

America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to

the human race than any communications yet received through

any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than