If it be impossible to think without materials, there must necessarily be minds that do not always think; and whence shall we furnish materials for the meditation of the glutton between his meals, of the sportsman in a rainy month, of the annuitant between the days of quarterly payment, of the politician when the mails are detained by contrary winds?

THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE Reader, in thy passage from the Bankwhere thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant like myself)to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly,didst thou never observe a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the leftwhere Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishopsgate?

They are content to be annuitants on the land, and sub-infeudation has gone to incredible lengths.