"
Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat.
"It were a deliberate suicide," he said. "London, when everybody has
left--all the bodies we count worthy to live, _par exemple_--is a more
delightful place than you can imagine. There are a host of vulgar
amusements which you would not dare to visit when your friends are in town;
and which are ten times as amusing as the pleasures you know by heart. Have
you ever been to the Bear Garden? I'll warrant you no, though 'tis but
across the river at Bankside. We'll go there this afternoon, if you like,
and see how the common people taste life. Then there are the gardens at
Islington. There are mountebanks, and palmists, and fortune-tellers,
who will frighten you out of your wits for a shilling. There's a man at
Clerkenwell, a jeweller's journeyman from Venice, who pretends to practise
the transmutation of metals, and to make gold. He squeezed hundreds out of
that old miser Denham, who was afraid to have the law of him for imposture,
lest all London should laugh at his own credulity and applaud the
cheat. And you have not seen the Italian puppet-play, which is vastly
entertaining. I could find you novelty and amusement for a month.
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