Excerpt from Reuben Medlicott, Vol. 1 of 3: Or, the Coming Man By way of argument to our first book, let it suffice to say, that the subject of our story (whom we deliberately refrain from styling its hero) is born herein; nor can there be a doubt that he made a speech upon the occasion, and one that was exceedingly well received by the audience, although it was altogether unpremeditated, and no report of it has been preserved. Escaping all the fatalities that often cut the mysterious thread of life while it is yet a short one, he graduates in the nursery with eclat, and, arriving at the green age of thirteen or fourteen, is sent to a public school, to him a momentous event, though, in itself, no startling or extra ordinary occurrence. Among our earliest acquaintances, as well as his, will be a reverend father and an accomplished mother; we shall pop upon the gentleman cultivating his cabbages, and surprise the lady in her white dimity, green spectacles, and blue stockings. Possibly, if the father had cultivated his cabbages less, and his son more, the latter might have succeeded as well as the early York did, or the brocoli. Possibly, too, if the mother's hose had been of another hue, it might have changed the complexion of the boy's fortunes. But a truce to possibilities. It is time for our overture, or prologue, to end, and the curtain rise upon the performance, such as it is for we know not well how to describe it, unless in the words of Polonius: Comedy, history, pastoral, pas toral - comical, comical historical-pastoral, scene undividable, or poem unlimited. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.