wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the 

epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything 

before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we 

were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the 

present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being 

received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

      There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the 

throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair 

face, on the throne of France.  In both countries it was clearer than crystal 

to the lords 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 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.