Ah, reader! when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that all things change or perish.  Even thunder and lightning, it pains me to say, are not the thunder and lightning which I seem to remember about the time of Waterloo.  Roses, I fear, are degenerating, and, without a Red revolution, must come to the dust.  The Fannies of our island—­though this I say with reluctance—­are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated.  Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—­that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast—­he is a slow coach.  I believe it is generally understood amongst naturalists, that the crocodile is a blockhead.  It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads.  Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed on the Nile.  The crocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own eating.  Man, taking a different view of the subject, naturally met that mistake by another; he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, but always to run away from.  And this continued until Mr. Waterton changed the relations between the animals.  The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred.  The two animals had misunderstood each other.  The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—­it is to be ridden; and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile by riding him a fox-hunting before breakfast.  And it is pretty certain that any crocodile, who has been regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done in the infancy of the pyramids.

Perhaps, therefore, the crocodile does not change, but all things else do:  even the shadow of the pyramids grows less.  And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the Bath road, makes me too pathetically sensible of that truth.  Out of the darkness, if I happen to call up the image of Fanny from thirty-five years back, arises suddenly a rose in June; or, if I think for an instant of the rose in June, up rises the heavenly face of Fanny.  One after the other, like the antiphonies in the choral service, rises Fanny and the rose in June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny.  Then come both together, as in a chorus; roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, without end—­thick as blossoms in paradise.  Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, or in a coat with sixteen capes; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail.  And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, and with the dreadful legend of TOO