" THE STORY OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR."--SHAKESPEAEE. ALL THE TEAR ROUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N°-1.] SATURDAY, APEIL 30, 1S59. [PRICE Id.

entertained herself, besides, with such humane A TALE OF TWO CITIES. achievements as sentencing a youth to have his %a ^xtt ISoo&s. hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not BT CHAKUES DICKENS. kneeled do^vn in the rain to do honour to a dirtj • procession of monks which passed within his BOOK, THE PIRST. EECALLED TO LITE, view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. CHAPTER I. THE PEKIOD. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of IT was tlie best of times, it was tlie worst France and Norway, there were growing trees, of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the when that suffererwas put to death, already marked age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, by the Woodman, Eate, to come down and be it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the sawn into boards, to make a certain movable frame­ season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, work with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of history. It is Hkely enough that in the rough despair, we had everything before us, we had outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands ad­ notliing before us, we were aU going direct to jacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the Heaven, we were all going direct the other way weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered —^in short, the period was so far like the present with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and period, that some of its noisiest authonties in­ roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, sisted on its being received, for good or for evil, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the in the superlative degree of comparison only. Bevolution. But, that Woodman and that There were a king with a large jaw and a Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work queen with a plaia face, on the throne of England; silently, and no one heard them as they went there were a king with a large jaw and a queen about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch with a fair face, on the throne of France. In as to entertain any suspicion that they were both countries it was clearer than crystal to the awake, waS to be atheistical and traitorous. lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, In England, there was scarcely an amount of that things in general were settled for ever. order and protection to justify much national It was the year of Our Lord one thousand boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual reve­ highway robberies, took place in the capital itself lations were conceded to England at that every mght; families were publicly cautioned not favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had to go out of town without removing their fur­ recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed niture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the the highwayman in the dark was.a City trades­ Life Guards had heralaed the subhme appearance man in the light, and, being recognised and chal­ by announcing that arrangements were made for lenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped the swallowing up of London and Westminster. in his character of " the Captain," gallantly shot Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only him throiigh the head and rode away; the mail a round dozen of years, after rapping out its was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot messages, as the spirits of this very year last past three dead, and then got shot dead himself by (supematurally deficient in originality) rapped the other four, " in consequence of the failui-e of out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order his ammunition:" after which the mail was of events had lately come to the English Crown robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the and People, from a congress of British subjects Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and in America: which, strange to relate, have deliver on Tumham Green, by one highwayman, proved more important to the human race than who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of iuay communications yet received through any of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of iVance, less favoured on the whole as to the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at hill, making paper money and spending it. Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she Giles's, to search for .contraband goods, and the

VOL, I. [Conducted by 2 [April 30,1859.] ALL THE YEAB. ROUND. mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was fir^d on the mob; and nobody thought any of dense enough to shut out everything from the these occurrences much out of the common way. light of the coach-lamps but these its own work­ In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy ings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of and ever worse than useless, was in constant re­ the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they quisition ; now, stringing up long rows of miscel­ had made it.all. '7say» laneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker Two other passengers, besides the one, were on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; plodding up the hul by the side of the mail. now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by All three were wrapped to the cheek-bones and the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the over the ears, and wore iack-boots. Not one of door of Westminster HaU; to-day, taking the tne three could have saia, from anything he saw, life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a what either of the other two was like; and wretched pUferer who had robbed a fanner's boy each was hidden under almost as many wrappers of sixpence. from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of All these things, and a thousand like them, the body, of his two companions. In those came to pass in and close upon the dear old year days, travellers were very shy of being confi­ one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. dential on a short notice, for anybody on the Environed by them, while the Woodman and the road might be a robber or in league with Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large robbers. As to the latter, when every posting- jaws, and those other two of the plain and the house and ale-house could produce somebody m fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried " the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord their divine rights with a high l^d. Thus did to the lowest stable nondescript, it was the the year one thousand seven hundred and likeliest thing upon the. cards. So the guard of seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this night in November one thousand seven hundi-ed chronicle among the rest—along the roads that and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, lay before them. as he stood on his own particular perch be­ hind the maU, beating his feet, and keeping an CHAPTEK, n. THE MAIL. eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, IT was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six night late in November, before the first of the or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a persons with whom this history has business. substratum of cutlass. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover The Dover mail was in its usual genial posi­ mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill. He tion that the guard suspected the passengers, walked up-hiU in the mire by the side of the the passengers suspected one another and the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not be­ guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the cause they had the least relish for walking ex­ coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; ercise, under the circumstances, but because the as to which cattle he could with a clear con­ hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, science have taken his oath on the two Testa­ were all so heavy, that the horses had three ments that they were not fit for the journey. times already come to a stop, besides once " Wo-ho!" said the coachman. " So, then ! drawing the coach across the road, with the One more pidl and you're at the top and be mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. damned to you, for I have had trouble enough Reins and whip and coachman and guard, how­ to get you to it!—Joe !" ever, in combmation, had read that article of " Halloa!" the guard replied. war which forbad a purpose otherwise strongly " What o'clock do you make it, Joe ?" ' in favour of the argument, that some brute ani­ " Ten minutes good, past eleven." mals are endued with Reason; and the team had " My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, capitulated and returned to their duty. "and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! lah! With drooping heads and tremulous tails, Get on with you!" they mashed then* way through the thick mud, The emphatic horse, cut short by the wMp in floundering and stumbling between whiles as if a most decided negative, made a scramble for it, they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. and the three other horses followed suit. Once , As often as the driver rested them and brought more, the Dover maL struggled on, with the them to a stand, with a wary " Wo-ho! so-ho jack-boots of its passengers squashii^ along by then!" the near leader violently shook his head its side. They had stopped when the coach and everything upon it—like an unusually em­ stopped, and they kept close company with it. phatic horse, denying that the coach could be got If any one of the three had had the hardihood up the hill. Whenever the leader made this to propose to another to walk on a little ahead rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous pas­ into the mist and darkness, he would have put senger might, and was disturbed in mind. himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly There was a steaming mist in aU the hollows, as a highwayman. and it had roamed in its forlomness up the hiU, The last burst carried the mail to the summit like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. of the hiU. The horses stopped to breathe A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel slow way through the aar in ripples that visibly for the descent, and open the coach door to let foUowcd and overspread one another, as the the passengers in,

^ ChariM Dioksni.] A TALE OF TWO CITIES. [AprU -M, 18S».] 3 " Tst! Joe!" cried the coachman in a warning "I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. voice, looking down from his box. Lorry, getting down into tne road—assisted from " What do you say, Tom!" behind more swiftly than politely by the other They both listened. two passengers, who immediately scrambled into "I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe." the coach, shut the door, and puUed up the iQK,,^ "J say a horse at a gallop, Tom," returned window. " He may come close; there's nothing '" the guaid, leaving his nola of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. " Gentlemen! "I hope there ain't, but I can't make so In the king's name, aU of you!" 'Nation sure of that," said the guard, in gruff With tms hurried adjuration, he cocked his soliloquy. " HaUo you!" blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive. " Well! And hallo you!" said Jerry, more The passenger booked by this history, was on hoarsely than before. the coach step, getting in; the two other pas­ " Come on at a footpace; dy'e mind me ? sengers were close behind him, and about to And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' follow. He remained on the step, half in the youm, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. coach and half out of it; they remained in the For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I road below him. They all looked from the make one it takes the form of Lead. So now coachman to the guard, and from the guard to let's look at you." the coachman, and listened. The coachman The figures of a horse and rider came slowly looked back, and the guard looked back, and through the eddying mist, and came to the side even the emphatic leader pricked up his eai's of the mail, where the passenger stood. The and looked back, without contradicting. rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the The stillness consequent on the cessation of guard, handed the passenger a small folded the rumbling and labouring of the coach, added paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both to the stiUness of the night, made it very quiet horse and rider were covered with mud, from indeed. The panting of the horses communi­ the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man. cated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it " Guard!" said the passenger, in a tone of were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the quiet business confidence. passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be The watchful guard, with his right hand at heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at audibly expressive of people out of breath, and the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered holding the breath, and having the pulses curtly, "Sir." quickened by expectation. " There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast TeUson's Bank. You must know TeUson's Bank and furiously up the hiU. in London. I am going to Paris on business. " So-ho!" the guard sang out, as loud as he A crown to drink. I may read this ?" could roar. "Yo there! Stand! I shall fire !" " If so be as you're quick, sir." The pace was suddenly checked, and, with He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp much splashing and floundering, a man's voice on that side, and read—ficrst to himself and then called from the mist, "Is that the Dover aloud: "' Wait at Dover for Ma'amseUe.' It's mail?" not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my " Never you mind what it is ?" the guard re­ answer was, BECAT

^ ^ Cbarlu Dickens.] SURE TO BE HEALTHY, WEALTHY, AND WISE. [AprU3o,i85».] 5 honoured in five minutes than even TeUson's, dows within. The real Banking-house by Temple- with all its foreign and home connexion, ever bar, the real business of the past day, the real paid in thrice the time. Then, the strong­ strong-rooms, the real express sent after him, rooms underground, at TeUson's, vrith such of .and the real message retumbd, would aU be there. their valuable stores and secrets as were known Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would to the passenger (and it was not a little that he rise, and he would accost it again. knew aoout them), opened before him, and he "Buried how long?" went in among them with the great keys and the " Almost eighteen years." feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and " I hope you care to Uve ?" 'tn» strong, and sound, and stUl, just as he had last "I can't say." seen mem. Dig—dig—dig—untU an impatient move­ But, though the bank was almost always with ment from one of the two passengers would him, and though the coach (in a confused way, admonish him to puU up the window, draw his like the presence of pain under an opiate), was arm securely through tlie leathern strap, and always with him, there was another current of speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until impression that never ceased to run, all through his mind lost its hold of them, and they again the night. He was on his way to dig some one sHd away into the bank and the grave. out of a grave. " Buried how long ?" Now, which of the multitude of faces that " Almost eighteen years." showed themselves before him was the true face " You had abandoned aU hope of being dug of the buried person, the shadows of the night out ?" did not indicate; but they were dl the faces " Long ago." of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they The words were stiU. in his hearing as just differed principaUy in the passions they ex­ spoken—distinctly in his hearing as ever spoken pressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn words had been in his life—^when the weary pas­ and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, senger started to the consciousness of daylight, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, suc­ and found that the shadows of the night were ceeded one another; so did varieties of sunken gone. cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and He lowered the window, and looked out at the figures. But the face was in the main one face, rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, and every head was prematurely white. A with a plough upon it where it had been left hundred times the dozing passenger inquired last night when the horses were unyoked; be­ of this spectre: yond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves "Buned how long?" of burning red and golden yeUow stUl remained The answer was always the same: " Almost upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and eighteen years." wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, "You had abandoned all hope of being dug placid, and beautiful. out?" " Eighteen years!" said the passenger, look­ " Long ago." ing at the sun. " Gracious Creator of Day ! " You know that you are recaUed to life ?" To be buried aUve for eighteen years!" " They teU me so." " I hope you care to Hve ?" "I can't say." SURE TO BE HEALTHY, WEALTHY " ShaU I show her to you ? WUl you come AND WISE. and see her ?" The answers to this question were various and I HAVE much pleasure in announcing my­ contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, self as the happiest man alive. My charac­ "Wait! It would kiH me if I saw ner too ter is, I have reason to believe, new to soon." Sometimes, it was given in a tender the world. NoveUsts, Dramatists, and Enter­ rain of tears, and then it was, " Take me to her." tainers of an easily-amused pubUc have Sometimes, it was staring and bewildered, and never yet, to my knowledge, laid hands on then it was, " I don't know her. I don't un­ me. Society is obscurely aware of ray existence; derstand." is frequently disposed to ask questions about After such imaginary discourse, the passenger me; is always wanting to get face to face with in his fancy would dig, and dig, dig—now, with a me, and see what I am like; and has never been spade, now with a great key, now with his hands fortunate enough yet to make the desired disco­ —^to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at very. I come forward of my own accord, ac­ "last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, tuated by motives of the most purely amiable he would suddenly Ml away to dust. The pas­ sort, to dispel the mists in which I have hitherto senger would then start to nimself, and lower the been hidden, and to gratify the public by dis­ window, to get the reality of mist and rain on his closing myself. Behold me, then, self-confessed cheek. and self-announced—the long-sought type; the Yet even when his eyes were opened on the representative Individual; the interesting Man mist and rain, on the moving patch of light who believes in Advertisements. from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside In using the word Advertisements, I mean retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the to imply all those public announcements (made coach would faUjuto the traia of the night sha­ chiefly through the medium of the newspapers) (JWW [Conducted fcf 6 [April ao^ isw.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND.

which address personal interests, and wliich re­ And how is he to know himself? I may be quire an exercise of personal faith in the indi­ asked. Quite easUy, I answer, by accepting '0V vidual who reads them. Advertisements which the means of information offered in the foUowing divert an unthinking public, which excite con­ terms, and in aU the newspapers, by a bene­ temptuous astonishment in superficial minds, factress of mankind: which set flippant people asking each other, "Know Thyself! The Original Graphiologist, " Who believes in this ? Where are the people Miss Blank, continues her interesting and useful de­ who can possibly be taken in by it ?" and so on, lineations of character, from examination of the are precisely the Advertisements to which I now handwridng, in a style peculiarly her own, and aUude. To my wise belief in these beneficent which can be but badly imitated by the ignorant '\ public offers of assistance to humanity, I am pretenders and self-styled professors who have lately indebted for the unruffled mental tranquiUity in laid claim to a knowledge of this beautiful science. which my life—a model Ufe, as I venture to Persons desirous of knowing their own character, or think it — is now passed. I see my feUow- that of any friend, must send a specimen of writing, creatures around me the dupes of their own fatal stating sex and age, or supposed age, with fourteen incredulity; worn by cares, which never trouble uncut penny postage stamps, to Miss Blank, for which me; beset by doubts, from which I have escaped will be returned a detail of the gifts, defects, talents, for ever—I see tliis spectacle of general anxiety tastes, affections, &c., of the writer, with other things and general wretchedness; and I find it inva­ previously unsuspected, calculated to guide in the riably associated with a sarcastic suspicion, an everyday afifairs of life," &c. &c. irreverent disregard of those advertised roads to This advertisement is no invention of my own. happiness and prosperity along which I have Excepting the lady's name, it is a true copy of traveUed, in my own personal case, with such an original, which does reaUy appear in all the imdeniable and such astonishing results. My newspapers. nature has been soft from infancy. My bosom is Off went my handwriting, and my fourteen animated by a perpetual glow of philanthropy. uncut stamps, by the next post. Back, in a day I behold my species suffering, in all directions, or two (for Graphiology takes its time), came through its own disastrous sharpness—and I that inestimable revelation of my character compassionately come forward, in consequence, which wiU keep me to the last day of my life on to persuade humanity that its business in this the best and highest terms with myself. I in­ world is, not to make itself miserable by fighting with troubles, but to keep itself healthy, wealthy, corporate my own notes with the letterj as an and wise, by answering Advertisements, unquestionable guarantee of the truth of its assertions, and a pleasing evidence, likewise, of I ask, believe me, veryUttle. Faith and a few its effect upon my mind on a first reading: postage stamps—I want nothing more to rege­ nerate the civilised world. With these treasures " The handwriting of our correspondent is wanting in ourselves; and with (to quote a few widely- in firmness and precision." (Solely in consequence known advertisements) "Graphiology," "Ten of my having a bad pen.) " There is apparent in­ sincerity towards those who do not know you, but it Pounds weekly reaUsed by either Sex," is only putting a covering on your really warm " Matrimony Made Easy," and " The Future heart." (How true!) "Large-minded, and in­ Foretold," aU gently lUuminating our path clined to be very forgiving. Generous, but through Ufe, we may amble forward along our not very open." (Well, if I must be one or the flowery ways, and never be jolted, never be other, and not both together, I would rather be driven back, never be puzzled about our right generous than open—for who can blame the closed road, from, the beginning of the journey to the heart when accompanied by the open hand?) "Of end. Take my own case, as an instance; and sterling integrity and inflexible perseverance." hear me whUe I record the results of personal (Just so!) " You are clever in whatever yon experience. undertake — kindly — original —vivacious—full of I shaU abstain, at the outset, from quoting glee and spirit." (Myself!—! blush to own it, but any examples to establish the connexion be­ this is myself, drawn to the life!) "You conceal your real nature not so much from hypocrisy as tween advertisements and health; because I may prudence—yet there is nothing sordid or mean about fairly assume, from the notoriously large sale of you." (I should think not, indeed!) " You show advertised medicines, that the sick pubUc is least when you appear most open, and yet you are well aware of the inestimable benefit to be candid and artless." (Too true—alas, too true!) derived from an implicit confidence in quacks. " You are good-humoured, but it partakes more of The means, however, of becoming, not healthy volatile liveliness than wit." (I do not envy the only, but wise and wealthy as well, by dint of nature of the man who thinks this a defect.) beheving in advertisements, are far less gene- "There is a melancholy tenderness pervades your raUy known. To this branch of the subject I manner"—(there is, indeed 1)—" when succouring may, therefore, address myself, with the encou­ any one requiring your aid, which is at variance raging conviction that I am occupying compara­ with your general tone. Indisposition you are re­ tively new ground. fined and sensitive." Allow me, to begin by laying down two first With this brief, gratifying, and neatly-ex­ principles. No man can feel comfortably pressed sentence, the estimate of my character ^vise, untU he is on good terms with him­ ended. It has been as genuinely copied from a self ; and no man can, rationally speaking, be on genuine original as the specimen which precedes good terms with himself untU he knows himself. it; and it was acoompanied by a pamphlet pre-

mm ^ cu.ri..Diok.n..] SURE TO BE HEALTHY, WEALTHY, AND WISE. [Apmso.im]

sented gratis, on the " Management of the Human hungry for any little addition to their scanty in­ Hair." Apparently, there had been pecuUarities comes. Would anybody believe that we persist in in my handwriting which had betrayed to the recognising the clerical profession, the medical unerring eye of the Graphiologist, that my hair profession, the legal profession, and that the was not totaUy free from defects; and the pam­ Ten-Pounds-Weekly profession is, as yet, unac­ phlet was a (lelicate way of hinting at the cir­ knowledged among us! cumstance, and at the remedial agebts to which WeU, I despatch my directed envelope. The I might look for relief. But tms is a minor reply is returned to me in the form of two docu­ matter, £uid has nothing to do with the great ments, one lithographed and one printed, and triumph of Graphiology, which consists in in­ both so long that they generously give me, at troducing us to ouBselves, on terms that make the outset, a good shilling's worth of reading us inestimably precious to ourselves, for the for my expenditure of a penny stamp. The trifling consideration of fourteenpenn'orth of commercial pivot on which the structure of my postage stamps. To a perfectly unprejudiced enormous future income revolves, I find, on —^that is to say, to a wisely credulous mind— perusal of the documents—the real documents, such a science as this carries its own recom­ mind, not my imaginary substitutes for them mendation along with it. Comment is super­ —to be a "FABRIC"—described as some­ fluous—except in the form of stamps trans­ what simUar in appearibce to " printed velvet." mitted to the (iraphiologist. I may continue the How simple and surprising! how comprehen­ record of my personal experiences. sive and satisfactory—especially to a poor man, Having started, as it were, afresh in life, with a longing for that little addition to his meagre new and improved opinion of myself—having income! The Fabric: is certain to make discovered that I am clever in whatever I under­ everybody's fortune. And why? Because take, kindly, original, vivacious, fuU of glee and it is a patent Fabric, and because it can imitate spirit, and that my few faults are so essentially everything, at an expense of half nothing. The modest and becoming as to be more of the Fabric can copy flowers, figures, landscapes, and nature of second-rate merits than of positive de­ historical pictures; paper-hangings, dress-pieces, fects—I am naturaUy in that bland and wisely shawls, scarfs, vests, trimmings, book-covers, contented frame of mind which pecuUarly fits a and " other manufactures too numerous to de­ man to undertake the choice of his vocation in tail." The Fabric can turn out " hundreds of life, with the certainty of doing the fullest thousands of articles at one operation." By justice to himself. At this new point in my skilful mancBuvring of the Fabric " ninety per career, I look around me once again among my cent, of material is saved." In the miUtitudinous sceptical ani unhappy feUow-mortals. What manipulations of the Fabric—and this is a most turbulence, what rivalry, what heart-breaking de­ cheering circumstance—" sixty veneers have lays, disappointments, and discomfitures do I not been cut to the inch." In the public disposal behold among the disbeUevers in advertisements of the Fabric—and here is the most surprising- —the dupes of incredulity, who are waiting for discovery of aU—the generous patentee (who prizes in the lottery of professional existence! answers my application) wiU distribute its Here is a man vegetating despondingly in a advantages over the four quarters of the wretched curacy; here is another, pining briefless globe, m shares — five-shilling shares—each at the unproductive Bar; here is a third, slaving one of which is "probably worth several away his youth at a desk, on the chance of hundred pounds." But why talk of hundreds ? getting a partnership, if he lives to be a middle- Let clergymen, doctors, and barristers talk of aged man. Inconceivable infatuation! Every hundreds. The Ten-Pounds-Weekly profession one of these victims of prejudice and routine takes its stand on the Fabric, and counts by sees the advertisements—as I see them. Every milUons. We can prove this (I speak as a one might answer the foUowing announcement, Fabricator) by expUcit and incontrovertible re­ issued by a disinterested lover of his species— ference to facts and figures. as I answer it: How much (the foUowing iUustrations and ar­ guments are not my own: they are derived en­ "Tffif Pomros WEEKLY.—May be permanently tirely from the answer I receive to my applica­ realised by either sex, with each pound expended. tion)—how much does it cost at present to dress a Particulars clearly shown that these incomes are so lady, shawl a lady, and bonnet a lady; to parasol well secured to those investing' that to fail in rea­ ana slipper a lady, and to make a lady quite lising them is impossible. Parties may commence happy after that, with a porte-monnaie, an album, with small investments, and by increasing them out and a book-cover? Eight pounds—and dirt of their profits, can, with unerring certainty, cheap, too. The Fabric wiU do the whole realise an enormous income. No partnership, risk, liability, or embarking in business. Incontestable thing—now that " sixty veneers have been cut authorities given in proof of these statements. En­ to the inch," mind, but not before—for Two close a directed stamped envelope to," &c. &c. pounds. How much does it cost to carpet, rug, curtain, chair'cover, decorate, table-coyer, and '• AU this information for a penny stamp! paper-hang a small house ? Assume ruin to the It is offered—reaUy offered in the terms quoted manufacturer, and say, as a joke. Ten pounds. above—in. the advertising columns of half the The Fabric, neatly cuttmg its sixty veneers to newspapers in England; especially in the cheap the inch, wiU furnish the house, as it furnishes newspapers, which have plenty of poor readers, the lady, for Two pounds. What follows?

^^'mw:r>t' ^msmmss^ssm^ 8 [April 30,1856.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted l^ Houses of smaU size and ladies of all sizes em­ their necessary existence, and nine-tenths of our ploy the Fabric. What returns pour in ? Look successful novels are fiUed with the sympathetic at the population of houses and ladies, and say recital of them in successions of hysterical chap­ Seventy Millions Sterling per annum. Add ters. And yet, singular as it may appear, the most foreign houses and foreign ladies, under the cursory reference to the advertising columns of head of Exports, and say Thirty Millions per the newspapers is sufficient to show the fallacy aiinum more. Is this too much for the ordinary of this view, if readers would only exercise (as mind to embrace? It is very good. The pa­ I do) their faculties of impUcit belief. As there tentee is perfectly wUling to descend the scale at are infallible secrets for discovering character by a jump; to address the narrowest comprehen­ handwriting, and making fortunes by Fabrics, sion ; and to knock off nine-tenths. Remainder, so there are other infaUible secrets for faUing in Ten MUUons. Say that "the royalty" will be love with the right woman, fascinating her in thirty per cent., and " such profit would give the right way, and proposing to her at the right three mUUons of pounds sterling to be divided time, which render doubt, disappointment, or among the shareholders." Simple, as the sim­ hesitation, at any period of the business, so plest sum in the MultipUcation Table: simple many absolute impossibilities. Once again, let as two and two make four. me confute incredulous humanity, by quoting I am aware that the obstinate increduUty of my own happy experience. the age wiU inquire why the fortunate Patentee Now, mark. I tlunk it desirable to settle in does not keep these prodigious returns to him­ life. Good. Do I range over my whole ac­ self. How base is Suspicion! How easUy, in quaintance ; do I frequent balls, concerts, and this instance, is it answered and rebuked! " The public promenades; do I spend long days in Patentee refrains from keeping the returns to wearisome country-houses, and sun myself per­ himself, because he doesn't want money. His sistently at the watering-places of England—^all lithographed circular informs me—really and for the purpose of finding a woman to marry ? truly does inform me, and wiU inform you I am too wise to give myself any such absurd if you have to do with him—that he has had amount of trouble. I simply start my prelimi­ " a good fortune" left him, and that he is " heir nary operations by answering the foUowing ad­ to several thousand pounds a year," With vertisement : these means at his disposal, he might of course work his inestimable patent with his own re­ " To THE UNMARRIED.—If you wish to Marry, sources. But no!—he will let the public in. send a stamped-addressed envelope to the Adver­ What a man! How noble his handwnting must tiser, who will put 3'ou in possession of a Secret by be, in a graphiological point of view! What means of which you can win the affections of as many of the opposite sex as your heart may desire. phrases are grateful enough to acknowledge his This is suitable for either sex; for the old or young, personal kindness in issuing shares to me at rich or poor, whether of prepossessing appearance or " the totaUy-inadequate sum"—to use his own otherwise.—^Address, Mr. Flam, London." modest words—of five shilUngs each ? Happy, happy day, when I and the Fabric and the When the answer reaches me, I find Mr. Flam Patentee were aU three introduced to one —although undoubtedly a benefactor to man­ another! kind—to be scarcely so ready of access and so When a man is so fortunate as to know him­ expansive in his nature as the Proprietor of the self, from the height of his "volatUe liveU- Faoric. Instead of sending me the Secret, he ness" to the depth of his " melancholy tender­ transmits a printed paper, informing me that he ness"—as I know myself—when, elevated on a wants two shillings worth of postage stamps multiform Fabric, he looks down from the first. To my mind, it seems strange that he regions of perpetual wealth on the narrow should have omitted to mention this in the necessities of tne work-a-day world beneath Advertisement, But I send the stamps, never­ him—but one other action is left for that man theless; and get the Secret back from Mr. Flam, in to perform, if he wishes to make the sum of his the form of a printed paper. Half of this paper earthly felicity complete. The ladies wiU already is addressed to the fair sex, and is therefore, I have anticipated that the action which I now fear, of no use to me. The other half, however, refer to as final may be comprehended in one addresses the lords of the creation; and I find word—Marriage. the Secret summed up at the end, for their The course of aU disbeUevers in advertisements, benefit, in these few but most remarkable where they are brought face to face with this words: grand emergency, is more or less tortuous, troubled, lengthy, and uncertain. No man of " To THE MALE SEX.—TjT a woman is clean and this unhappy stamp can fall in love, bUl and coo, neat in her dress, respects the Sabbath, and is dutiful and finaUy get himself married, without a consi­ towards her parents, happy will be the man who makes derable amount of doubt, vexation, and disap­ her his wife." pointment occurring at one period or other in the general transaction of his amatory affairs. Most astonishing! AU great discoveries are Through want of faith and postage stamps, simple. Is it not amazing that nobody should mankind have agreed to recognise these very have had the smallest suspicion of the subUme disagreeable drawbacks as so many inevitable truth expressed above, until Mr. Flam suddenly misfortunes: dozens of popular proverbs assert hit on it ? How «heap, too—^liow scandalously cheap at two shUlings! And this is the man

mmmm ^ Charles Diokeiu.i SURE TO BE HEALTHY, WEALTHY, AND WISE. [April so, 1859.] 9 whose generosity I doubted—the man who not look deeper, any such injurious theory as this is only bursts on me with a new revelation, but inadmissible, because it impUes that a benefactor adds to it a column of advice, every sentence of to mankind is capable of dividing himself in two which is more than worth its tributary postage for the sake of fraudulently procuring from the stamp. Assuming that I have fixed on my pubUc a double allowance of postage stamps. young woman, Mr. Flam teaches me how to This is, under the circumstances, manifestly im­ " circumvent" her, in the foUowing artful and possible. Mr. Flam, therefore, in my mind, re­ irresistible manner: mains a distinct and perfect Flam, and Mr. I must see her as often as possible. I must Hum, a distinct and perfect Hum ; and the simi­ have something fresh to relate to her at every larity of their ideas and expressions is simply interview; and I must get that "something another canfirmation of the well-known adage fresh" out of the newspapers. I must tell her which refers to the simultaneous jumping of two where I have been, and where I am going to, great wits to one conclusion. So much for my and what I have seen, and what I expect to see; first discovery. and if she wants to go with me, I must take The second revelation bursts out on me from her, and, what is more, I must he lively, and the second part of Mr. Hum's pamphlet, which I " come out with a few witty remarks, and be as may remark, in parenthesis, is purely and en­ amusing as possible"—for (and here is another tirely his own. I have been previously in the Secret, another great discovery thrown in for habit of believing that offers of marriage might nothing) I must recollect that " the funny man extend themselves in the matter of verbal ex­ is always a favourite with the ladies." Amazing pression, to an almost infinite variety of forms. insight! How does Mr. Flam get down into Mr. Hum, however, taking me up at the poin'; these deep, these previously-unsuspected weU- where Mr. Flam has set me down, amazes and springs of female human nature ? One would like deUghts me by showing that the matrimonial ad­ a brief memoir of this remarkable person, accom­ vances of the whole population of bachelors may panied by his portrait from a photograph, and be confidently made to the whole population of enriched by a fac-simUe (for graphiological pur­ spinsters, in one short and definitely-stated form poses) of his handwriting. of words. Mr. Flam has told me when to de­ To return once more, and for the last time, to clare my love; and Mr. Hum, in the foUowing myself. It may be objected that, although Mr. paragraph, goes a step further, and tells me how Flam has Uluminated me with an inestimable to do it: secret, has fortified me with invaluable advice for making myself agreeable, and has assured " When the gentleman has somewhat familiarised me that if I attend to it, I may, " after a few himself with the lady, and perceived that he is not, at all events, an object of aversion or ridicule, he weeks, boldly declare my love, and make certain should seek a favourable opportunity, and speak to of receiving a favourable answer," he has, appa­ this eflfect:—' I have come (miss, or madam, as the rently, omitted, judging by my abstract of his case may be) to take a probably final leave of you.' reply, to inform me of the terms in which I am The lady will naturally ask the reason; when the to make my offer, when I and my young woman lover can add (and if he is a fellow of any feeling, are mutually ready for it. This is true. I am the occasion may give a depth of tone and an efiect told to declare my love boldly; but I am not to his eloquence, that may turn the beam in his told how to do it, because Mr. Flam, of London, favour, if it was an even balance before):—' Because, is honourably unwiUing to interfere with the madam, I find your society has become so dear to me, province of a brother-benefactor, Mr. Hum, of that I fear I must fly to save myself, as I may no^ HuU, who for twenty-six postage stamps (see dare to hope that the suit of a stranger might Lo Advertisement) wiU continue the process of my crowned with success.'" enUghtenment, from the point at which it left No more—we single men may think it short off, in "the most wonderful, astonishing, and —but there is actually not a word more. Maid curious work ever pubUshed in the EngUsh or widow, whichever she may be, " crowned with language, entitledMATKIMOIIYMADE EASY; OR. success," is the last she wUl get out of us men. How TO WIN A LOVEH." It is unnecessary If she means to blush, hesitate, tremble, and to say that I send for this work, and two new sink on our bosoms, she had better be quick discoveries fiash upon me at the first perusal about it, on the utterance of the word " success." of it. Our carpet-bag is in the hall, and we shall take My firstdiscover y is, that identicaUy the same that " final leave" of ours, to a dead certainty, ideas on the subject of matrimony, and iden­ unless she looks sharp. Mr. Hum adds, that she ticaUy the same phrases in expressing them, ap­ probably will look sharp. Not a doubt of it. pear to have occurred to Mr. Flam, of London, Thank you, Mr. Hum; you have more than and to Mr. Hum, of Hull. The whole first part earned your postage stamps; we need trouble of Mr. Hum's pamphlet is, sentence for sentence, you no further. and word for word, an exact repetition of the I am now thoroughly prepared for my future printed paper previously forwarded to me by Mr. transactions with the fair sex—but where,it may Flam. To superficial minds this very remark­ be objected, is the woman on whom I am to able coincidence might suggest that Mr. Flam exercise my little arts ? It is all very well for and Mr. Hum, in spite of the difference in their me to boast that I am above the necessity respective names and addresses, were one and of toiUng after her, here, there, and everywhere the same individual. To those who, Uke myself, —toil for her, I must: nobody will spare me

jm 10 [April so, MM.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by that trouble, at any rate. I beg pardon— of cares, doubts, and anxieties, who can say that | Destiny (for a consideration of post^ stamps) I have not accurately described myself as " the will willingly spare me the trouble. Destiny, if happiest man alive;" and who can venture to I will patiently bide my time (which I am only dispute that tliis position of perfect bUss is the too willing to do), will hunt out a woman of the obvious and necessary consequence of a wise right complexion for me, and wiU bring_her belief in Advertisements ? within easy bearing-distance of the great Hum formula, at tlie proper moment. How can OCCASIONAL REGISTER. I possibly know this ? Just as I know every­ thing else, by putting my trust in advertisements, WANTED. and not being stingy with my postage stamps. T/'ERY PARTICULARLY; the chief engi- Here is the modest offer of service which Des­ T neer of the steam-ship Bagota, who or­ tiny, speaking through the newspapers, makes dered a man to be roasted to death at a furnace. to mankind : Which order was obeyed, under circumstances of bnitaUty, both active and passive, so abo­ "THE FUTURE FORETOLD.—Any persons wishing to minable, that the earth can hardly be expected have their future lives revealed to them correctly, to produce grains and fruits after their several should send their age, sex, and eighteen stapips, to Mr. Nimbus (whose prophecies never fail)." kinds while the said engineer remains unhanged upon it. I send my age, my sex, and my eighteen If this should meet the eye of the magistrate stamps; and Mr. Nimbus, as the mouthpiece of who permitted that murderer to go at large on Destiny, speaks thus encouragingly in return: baU, he is informed that he is not likely to hear of anything to his advantage. " PRIVATE.—I have carefully studied your destiny, and I find that you were bom under the planet Mars. You have experienced in*life some changes, HE REASON WHY London aldermanic and all has not been found to answer your expecta­ T justice, in the current month of April, tions. There are brighter days and happier hours sentenced a ruffian, for a series of perfectly un­ before you, and the present year will bring to you provoked assaults of a most violent description, greater advantages than the past. You will marry beginning with a respectable young woman and a Female of Fair Complexion, most desirous of gain­ ending with the poUce in general, to one month's ing your hand." (That's the woman! I am per­ imprisonment only. The attention of Mr. Al­ fectly satisfied. Destiny will bring us together ; the derman Mechi is mvited. system of Mr. Flam will endear us to each other; and the formula of Mr. Hum will clench the tender business. All right, Mr. Nimbus—what next?) HE PHILANTHROPISTS who are so " You will make a most fortunate speculation with a T benevolent as to open the public-houses, Male of whom you have some knowledge"— free of expense, at election time. Also, the (evidently the proprietor of the Fabric)—"and, good Samaritans who pay arrears of rent for although there will be some difficulties arise for a people, at about the same period. time, they will again disappear, and your Star rises rn the ascendant. You will be successful in your N ACTION, an original EngUsh play of any undertakings and pursuits, and yon will attain to a I description within the Umits of the United position in life desirable to your future welfare." Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. I

I have done. All the advertisements pre­ FEW IDEAS for the waUs of the Royal sented here, I must again repeat, are real adver­ A Academy. One hundred cart-loads of '< tisements. Nothing is changed in any of them fancy dresses, dolls, and old furniture, may be | but the names of the advertisers. The answers taken in exchange. ' copied are genuine answers obtained, only a short time since, in the customary way, by formal appU- OME NEWER TUB for the whale-taking '\ cations. I need say no more. The lesson of S trade, than a cry of Revolution to catch a ; wise credulity which I undertook to teach, pension. Address, Buckinghamshire. ' '•. from the record of my own experience, is now before the world, and I may withdraw again A NATIONAL RECORD of the death of a i mto the healthy, wealthy, and wise retire­ -t^ true hero—DOKMAN by name—who, on ' ment from which I have emerged solely for the the inundation of a coUiery in South Wales, J good of others. during the present month, rejected the means of , Take a last fond look at me before I go. immediate escape which were offered to him, ' Behold me immovably fixed in my good opinion and perished, a sacrifice to his own noble efforts ! of myself, by the discriminating powers of to save the workmen committed to his charge. Graphiology; prospectively enriched by the vast future proceeds of my Fabric ; thoroughly ANTED, a Baby to Nurse, by a Fond weU grounded in the infallible rules °for W Mother, who has lost Five Courtship and Matrimony, and confidently Infants of her own." An advertisement havin appeared awaiting the Female of Fair Complexion, on in the Times the other day with this whom I shaU practise them. Favoured by these sgmning, Dr. HEROD undertakes to teach, to those per- circumstances, lavishly provided for in every pos­ sons who prefer the management of sible respect, free from everything in the shape their own chUdren, a Fond Mother's System in THKEE

^ m^m ^ JL- ***4» ChadM OioksBs.] THE CITY OF MRTHLY EDEN. [April 30, 1859.] 11

OEATIONS. The fii^st Oration wiU be upon office, Paris; or, at the branch estabUshment, Daffy, or Infant Medication. This wiU be suc­ Turin. ceeded by an Oration on Spoonmeat, demon­ strating the objectionable fluidity of milk, and HE SLIGHTEST SYMPATHY, in any the necessity of nourishing a ehUd on grits. The T pai-t of the civiUsed world, for the suffer­ third Oration will be on Bare Legs, with a most ings of the King of Naples. earnest exhortation to fond parents to try the effect of discarding leg-coverings themselves for NOTICE TO ECCLESIASTICAL MA­ at least one autumn and winter. An infant band A RINERS, pointing out the safe middle of Bronchitic Minstrels wiU attend to perform course to steer, between the Low Church Rocks, popular variations on the British Cough. and the High Church Quicksands. Also, a manual of instructions for the accurate trimming FOUND. of saUs, when the storms of clerical remonstrance A LWAYS. An immense flock of guUs to be- blow together from two different points of the -^*- Ueve in preposterous advertisements. compass. Address (post-paid), The Commanding Officer of her Majesty's Ship, Diocese of Oxford. GREAT DEAL OF MONEY belonging A to nobody, on its way to boroughs and counties to do nothing. THE CITY OF EARTHLY EDEN.

N EXCELLENT EXAMPLE, set by the SHEDDXD the Mighty, the great of limb. A treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Had the kings of the whole earth under him : who has mercifuUy employed himself in turning They held their thrones at his pleasure, and all the graveUed airing ground, which forms the Came and went at his beck and call. hospital quadrangle, into a garden for the benefit His heart sweU'd within him, and, mad with power. of couMalegcent patients. To his vassals he said, in an evil hour: "I have read in the ancient histories Of the gardens and cities of Paradise, LITTLE ESTIMATE of expenses for im­ Whereto the spirit of man is bidden A proving London, issued by the Metropo- When, passing the Gate of Death, now hidden, Utan Board of Works, and amounting to the sum It walks in the countries far away.— of (say) Twenty Millions sterling. The attention Let those who please await that day: of aU housekeepers, who may find their present The will of the crowd availeth not taxes too Ught for them, is particulariy directed To expedite their promis'd lot; to this gratifying document. But mine is strong and stem as Fate; And I on the earth will emulate CONSIDERABLE QUANTITY of ready- The pomp of that celestial state ; Till, like a planet vast and bright, A made poUtical sympathy for the working- That dazzles the day and kills the night. classes, scattered principaUy about the large elec­ And waneth never, nor taketh flight. toral districts. To be soldC in the course of the In the heavens shall hang the golden light next six weeks, for the benefit of the original Of the City of Earthly Eden. manufacturers. Apply at the hustings. " Depart, then, to the mines that lie N A FEW SHEETS of town and country In the caves of the mountains far and nigh. And out of the heat and the swarthy glooms I newspapers, supposed to have been dropped Of Nature's subterranean rooms by a gang of coiners, a mass of BASE TATTLE, Bring heavy lumps of burning gold. ticketed "Literary InteUigence," and sever^ And bars of silver, white and cold. FLASH NOTES, endorsed "From our London And the chrysolite, glancing yellow and green. Correspondent." These have been forwarded to And the emerald, arrowy, quick, and keen, the nearest Dust-Contractor, but dealers in And the ruby's throbbing heart of splendour. smaU talk are cautioned against unwary ac­ Where the prison'd light beats soft and tender. ceptance of any more of this base coin that may And trembles, 'twixt love and sorrow and bliss, stiU be current. It is chiefiy to the effect that For the outer light which it can but kiss, the eminent John Jones's private income is nine, But never shall join through the endless ages: four, two, six and twopence-hali^enny. Also And let the lords and the greybeard sages that Snuth has asked Thompson to teU Watson Search out, with diligent toil and pain, that Johnson thinks Wilkinson has promised to A spot on some delightful plain. Where rivers four from a mountain single give Wilson a thousand pounds a minute for Their waves with a murmuring measure mingle ; five years. And there, to a sound of choral song. MISSING. Build the bases steady and strong, N ALL OCCASIONS, the man who is re­ And lift the terraces light and long, O sponsible for anything done ill in the In the City of Earthly Eden." pubUc service. He will particularly obUge by The vassals heard, and bow'd, and went coming forward. Their several ways, and the wonderment Was blown abroad to the uttermost bound A DECENT PRETEXT for plunging the Of the great earth's all-containing round; •*^%<^ nations of Europe into the losses, crimes, And the tribes and nations hurried forth miseries, and horrors of war. Apply at the chief From beyond the mountains of the North,

:;&-jjn£2rsasex^.-^ ^^Condncted liy 12 [April 30, 18M.1 ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

And from out of the windy Scythian waste, Feeding with freshness, up from their roots And the Indian jungles interlaced, (Till the sap laugh'd out into flowers and fruits), And the valleys cradled in the stone The trees that were planted reposingly Of Kaf, the world's gigantic zone,* Wherever the water glimmer'd by: And wide Armenia's pastoral lands, And high in tho heavens, like ice and fire And awful Egypt, and the sands Commingled, one central diamond spire At the solemn heart of Africa. Froze in its burning across the domes, Obedient to their mighty Shah, And the towers and temples and Sybarite homes, They swarm'd like flies; and, after these, And the columns and ramparts and pyramids,— From the distant islands of the seas Alluring and distant, like something that bids Came more and more; and all address'd All men turn aside from the deserts, and rest Their minds towards that strange behest, From the fever and fume and the wearisome quest That they might see, with living eyes, Of life, and repose, as a bird in its nest. Like a slowly-kindling dawn, uprise In the City of Earthly Eden. The glow of this new Paradise, The City of Earthly Eden. Proud and exulting, the Ruler of men Saw his vision of glory completed; and then For twenty years, with labour stark. He marshall'd his warriors, host on host. They mined and dug by light and dark, Many and bright as the waves on the coast. And the naked divers dived for pearls And trooping like waves in a measured accord, In the Indian ocean's perilous swirls. And the women who own'd him as husband and lord, And the slaves collected, piece by piece, And the dancing maidenS, dancing in time Safiron and myrrh and ambergris. To the rhythm of their anklets' chime. Then they search'd the deserts far away, And the slaves and the courtiers, and all who lay And the grassy steppes; till, on a day. In the light of his presence, like stars in the ray They found a plain of vast extent. Of the moon, when the moon is fUll-orb'd in the sky: Through which four flashing rivers bent And he in the midst, with his sovereign eye, Their interwoven course from where, That kindled superbly whenever the blast In the hot horizon's quivering air. Of the trumpets came whirling and eddying past, The soft blue mountains lay like smoke, Proclaim'd the new Paradise made by his will. Or mists of morning; and they broke As he spoke, the air, hearkening, dropp'd awfully The soil, and, under the hollow sphere still; Of the heavens, eternal and austere, And when he had finish'd, that princely rout, They mark'd the circuit of the walls. In the freshness of early dawn, set out— And the flanking towers at intervals, With much of hope, and something of doubt. And cried, with a roaring, Bacchanal sound, And a flutter, of fear, that crept about— " Behold, behold, the chosen ground For the City of Earthly Eden, That shall, in the lapse of time, be crown'd By the City of Earthly Eden I" Into the deserts they rode. Each night They dreamt some dream of the coming delight. Then day by day, and year by year, And all day long through the trampling throng The severing deserts, sandy and sere, Flow'd the wave of a heart-uplifting song. Were cross'd by the long processional lines At length, o'er the solitude, lucid and vast, Of the camels moving from the mines,— And dilating and sun-like, the city grew fast; Moving slowly under the sun, When suddenly, out of the distance, came Endlessly moving, one by one. A cry of such might that it burnt like flame Each over his gliding shadow steering Through the hosts of the monarch, and parch'd into His ship-like way, as the shadow, veering. sand And dwindling now, and now dilating. Every creature that heard it. But still in that land On the sun's great course kept humbly waiting. The city remains, and for aye shall remain. From the tracts and countries across the sea Shut round by the hush of the desert plain, Came the winged vessels boundingly, Inaccessible, lonely, unpeopled, remote.* With jasper, of many a freakish stain. But out of the noon of its splendours float And the spiky coral with blushing grain. Strange beams, which are seen in the dark far All -virgin-fresh from the cloister'd caves away; And the lonely dimness under the waves, And the people, beholding that effluence, say : And agate, and red cornelian. " Shedd^d the Mighty, thy doom was just! And perfumed woods from which there ran— Dust thou liest within the dust; With a motion that linger'd reluctantly there— Gums worthy to weep in the glamour and glare. And to breathe their odours into the air. * The story here related is an Arabian legend, Of the City of Earthly Eden. which Mr. Lane has eloquently rendered in the Notes to his translation of The Thousand and One Up in its loveliness rose the gleam Nights. The site of the marvellous city is supposed Of the palaces wrought in that city of dream, to be in the deserts^ of Aden, at the extreme south of Up rose each lofty pavilion. the Arabian peninsula. Occasionally, as tradition Tier by tier, till it lighten'd and shone affirms, a wanderer in the desert comes accidentally Far over the plain with a restless rain upon the gorgeous mass of palaces and pavilions, and Of splendour, dazzling eye and brain. finds them vacant; but this is very seldom. The In channels of gold, through the streets below, reader will observe that the story has a similarity to The wandering rivers were made to flow, that of Zobeide in The Arabian Nights. The exist­ ence of the deserted, but magnificent, city of Petra, * The Orientals regarded Kaf (Caucasus) as in the midst of a rocky wilderness, may have led to f tony girdle round the earth. the invention of this fable.

^ Cbnrlct Didcens.] THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER, Apriiao, US9J 13 And all around thee thy myriads sleep, then flashed out some briUiant piece of colour Heavily, darkly, dead, and deep, from bright hangings within, or upon the old And nothing beside the wind dare creep oak panelling; similarly. Friar Bacon, as we Through the City of Earthly Eden." paced to and fro, revealed Uttle glimpses of his good work. " It is not much," said he. " It is no won­ THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER. derful thing. There used to be a great deal of drunkenness here, and I wanted to make it better Mx friend PhUosewers and I, contemplating if I could. The people are very ignorant, and a farm-labourer the other day, who was drinking have been much neglected, and I wanted to make his mug of beer on a settle at a road-side ale­ that better, if I could. My utmost object was, house door, we feU to humming the fag-end of to help them to a Uttle seu-govemment and a an old ditty, of which the poor man and his beer, little homely pleasure. I only show the way to and the sin of parting them, form the doleful better things, and advise them. I never act for burden. PhUosewers then mentioned to me them; I never interfere; above aU, I never that a friend of his in an agricultural county— patronise." say a Hertfordshire friend—had, for two years I had said to PhUosewers as we came along last past, endeavoured to reconcile the poor man Nor'-West that patronage was one of the curses and nis beer to pubUc moraUty, by making it a of England. I appeared to rise in the estimation point of honour Dctween himself and the poor of PhUosewers wnen thus confirmed. man that the latter should use his beer and not " And so," said Friar Bacon, " I estabUshed abuse it. Interested in an effort of so unob­ my Allotment-club, and my pig-clubs, and those trusive and unspeechifying a nature, " 0 PhUo­ Uttle Concerts by the ladies of my own family, sewers," said I, after the manner of the dreary of which we have the last of the season this sages in Eastern apologues, " Show me, I pray, evening. They are a great success, for the ihe man who deems that temperance can be people here are amazingfy fond of music. But attained without a medal, an oration, a ban­ there is the early dinner-beU, and I have no need ner, and a denunciation of half the world, and to talk of my endeavours when you wUl soon see who has at once the head and heart to set about them in their working dress." it!" Dinner done, behold the Friar, PhUosewers, PhUosewers expressing, in reply, his willing­ and myself the Dreary one, walking, at six ness to gratify the dreary sage, an appointment o'clock, across the fields, to the " Club-house." was made for the purpose. And on the day As we swung open the last field-gate and fixed, I, the Dreary one, accompanied by PhUo­ entered the AUotment-groimds, many members sewers, went down Nor'-West per railway, in were already on their way to the Club, which search of temperate temperance. It was a stands in the midst of the aUotments. Who could thunderous day; and the clouds were so im­ help thinking of the wonderful contrast between moderately watery, and so veiy much disposed these club-men and the club-men of St. to sour all the beer in Hertfordshire, that they James's-street, or PaU-maU, in London! Look seemed to have taken the pledge. at yonder prematurely old man, doubled up But, the sun burst forth gaUy in the afternoon, with work, and leaning on a rude stick more and gUded the old gables, and old muUioned win­ crooked than himself, slowly trudging to the dows, and old weathercock and old clock-face, club-house, in a shapeless hat Uke an ItaUan of the quaint old house which is the dwelling of harlequin's, or an old brown-paper bag, leathern the man we sought. How shaU I describe hSn ? leggings, and duU green smock-frock, looking as As one of the most famous practical chemists of though duck-weed had accumulated on it—the the age ? That designation wUl do as weU as result of its stagnant Ufe—or as if it were a another—better, perhaps, than most others. vegetable production, originaUy meant to blow And his name ? Friar Bacon. into something better, but stopped somehow. " Though, take notice, PhUosewers," said I, be­ Compare him with Old Cousin Feemx, ambUng hind my hand, " that the first Friar Bacon had not along St. James's-street, got up in the style of that handsome lady-wife beside him. Wherein, O a couple of generations ago, and -with a head of PhUosewers, he was a chemist, wretched and hair, a complexion, and a set of teeth, pro­ forlorn, compared with his successor. Young foundly impossible to be beUeved in by the Romeo bade the holy father Lawrence hang up widest stretch of human creduUty. Can they phUosophy, unless phUosophy could make a both be men and brothers? VerUy they are. JuUet. Chemistry would mfaUibly be hanged And although Cousin Feenix has Uved so fast if its life were staked on making anything half that he wUl die at Baden-Baden, and although so pleasant as this JuUet." The gentle this club-man in the frock has Uved, ever since PhUosewers smUed assent. he came to man's estate, on nine shUUngs a week, and is sure to die in the Union if he die The foregoing whisper from myself, the Dreary in bed, yet he brought as much into the world one, tickled the ear of PhUosewers, as we walked as Cousm Feenix, and wUl take as much out— on the trim garden terrace before dinner, among more, for more of him is real. the early leaves and blossoms; two peacocks, apparently in very tight new boots, occasionaUy A pretty, simple buUding, the club-house, crossing the gravel at a distance. The sun, with a rustic colonnade outside, under which shining through the old house-windows, now and the members can sit on wet evenings, looking at

^ liU*" [Conducted bf 14 [April 20^ ISIiO.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 1. the patches of ground they ciUtivate for them­ cording to the number of his allotment; on foiling, selves; within, a weU-ventilated room, large a forfeit of twopence to be paid to the club. and lofty, cheerful pavement of coloured tUes, 2.—The member that draws the beer to pay for a bar for serving out the beer, good supply of the same, and bring his ticket up receipted when forms and chairs, and a brave big chimney- the subscriptions are paid; on failing to do so, a comer, where the fire bums cheerfuUy. Ad­ penalty of sixpence to be forfeited and paid to the joining this room, another: club. " BuUt for a reading-room," said Friar Bacon; 3.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be paid at " but not much used—yet." the club-room on the last Saturday night of each The dreary sage, looking in through the win­ month. dow, perceiving a fixed reading-desk within, and inquiring its use: 4.—The subscriptions and forfeits to be cleared "I have Service there," said Friar Bacon. up every quarter; if not, a penalty of sixpence to "They never went anywhere to hear prayers, be paid to the club. and of course it would be hopeless to help them 5.—The member that draws the beer to be at the to be happier and better, if they had no reU- club-room by six o'clock every evening, and stay gious feeling at aU." till ten ; but in the event of no member being there, " The whole place is very pretty." Thus the he may leave at nine; on failing so to attend, a sage. penalty of sixpence to be paid to the club. " I am glad you thmk so. I buUt it for the 6.—Any member giving beer to a stranger in this holders ot the AUotment-grounds, and gave it club-room, excepting to his wife or family, shall them: only requiring them to manage it by a be liable to the penalty of one shilling. committee of their own appointing, and never 7.—Any member lifting his hand to strike an­ to get drunk there. They never have got drunk other in this club-room shall be liable to the penalty there." of sixpence. " Yet they have their beer freely." " 0 yes. As much as they choose to buy. 8.—Any member swearing in this club-room i^all The club gets its beer direct from the brewer, be liable to a penalty of twopence each time. by the barrel. So they get it good; at once 9.—Any member selling beer shall be expelled much cheaper, and much better, than at the from the club. pubUc-house. Tlie members take it in turns to be steward, and serve out the beer: if a man 10.—Any member wishing to give up his allot­ should decline to serve when his turn came, he ment, may apply to the committee, and they shall value the crop and the condition of the ground. The would pay a fine of twopence. The steward amount of the valuation shall be paid by the succeed­ lasts, as long as the barrel lasts. When there is ing tenant, who shall be allowed to enter on any a new barrel, there is a new stewai-d." part of the allotment which is uncropped at the time " What a noble fire is roaring up that of notice of the leaving tenant. chimneyJ" 11.—Any member not keeping his allotment- " Yes, a capital fire. Every member pays a garden clear from seed-weeds, or otherwise injuring halfpenny a week." his neighbours, may be turned out of his garden by " Every member must be the holder of an the votes of two-thirds of the committee, one month's Allotment-garden ?" notice being given to him, " Yes; for which he pays five shUUngs a year. 12.—Any member carelessly breaking a mug, is to The AUotments you see about us, occupy some pay the cost of replacing the same. sbtteen or eighteen acres, and each garden is as large as experience shows one man to be I was soUciting the attention of PliUosewers able to manage. You see how admirably they to some old old bonnets hanging in the Allot­ are tiUed, and how much they get off them. ment-gardens to frighten the birds, and the They are always working in them m their spare fashion of wliich I should think would terrify a hours; and when a man wants a mug of beer, French bird to death at any distance, when instead of going off to the vUlage and the PhUosewers soUcited my attention to the pubUc-house, he puts down Ms spade or his hoe, scrapers at the club-house door. The amount comes to the club-house and gets it, and goes of the soU of England which every member back to his work. When he has done work, he brought there on his feet, was indeed surprising; likes to have his beer at the club, stUl, and to sit and even I, who am professedly a -salad-eater, and look at his Httle crops as they thrive." could have gro\fn a salad for my dinner, in the " They seem to manage the club very weU." earth on any member's frock or hat. " Perfectly welL Here are their own rules. They made them. I never interfere with them, "Now," said Friar Bacon, looking at his except to advise them when they ask me." watoh, " for the Pig-clubs!" The dreary Sage entreated explanation. RULES AND REGULATIONS " Why, a pig is so very valuable to a poor labouring man, and it is so very difficult for him HADE BT THB COM3IITTEE, at this time of the vear to get money enough to From the 2lBt September, 1857. buy one, that I lend him a pound for the purpose. One half-penny per week to be paid to the club by each But, I do it in this way. I leave such of the member. club members as choose it and desii-e it, to form 1.—Each member to draw the beer in order, ac­ themselves into parties of five. To every man

^ Cbarla* Diokeni.] THE POOR MAN AND HIS BEER. [April 30,18S9.] 15 in each company of five, I lend a pound, to buy with a hand at the comer of his mouth, and his a pig. But, eacn, man of the fivebecome s bound head on one side, as to those drawings reaUy for every other man, as to the repayment of meaning him. Doubtful was Nightin^e whe­ his money. Consequently, they lo^ after ther any virtue had gone out of him in that one another, and pick out their partners with committal to paper. Meditative was Nightingale care; selecting men in whom they have confi­ as to what would come of young NightingSe's dence." growing up to the acquisition of that art. Sus­ " They repay the money, I suppose, when the pended was the interest of Nightingale, when pig is fattened, kiUed, and sold r* his name was done—as if he thought the letters " Yes. Then they repay the money. And were only sown, to come up presently in some they do repay it. I had one man, last year, other form. Prodigious, and wrong-handed was who was a uttle tardy (he was in the habit the cross made by Nightingale on much en­ of going to the pubUc-house) ; but even he did couragement— the strokes directed from him pay. It is an immense advantage to one of instead of towards him ; and most patient and these poor feUows to have a pig. The pig con­ sweet-humoured was the smUe of Nightingale sumes the refuse from the man's cottage and as he stepped back into a general laugh. Allotment-garden, and the pig's refuse enriches "OB.—der!" cried the Uttle man. Imme­ the man's garden besides. The pig is the poor diately disappearing into his mug. man's friend. Come into the cluh-house again." "Ralph Mangel, Roger Wurzel, Edward The poor man's friend. Yes. I have often Vetches, Matthew Clarrot, and Charles Taters!" wondered who reaUy was the poor man's friend said Friar Bacon. among a great number of competitors, and I now "AU here, sir." clearly perceive him to be the pig. He never " You understand it. Mangel ?" makes any flourishes about the poor man. He " Iss, sir, I unnerstaans it." never gammons the poor man—except to his " Can you write your name. Mangel ?" manifest advantage in the article of bacon. He " Iss, sir." _ never comes down to this house, or goes down to Breathless interest. A dense background of his constituents. He openly declares to the smock-frocks accumulated behind Mangel, and oor man, " I want my sty because I am a Pig; many eyes in it looked doubtfuUy at Friar Bacon, f desire to have as much to eat as you can by as who should say, " Can he reaUy though ?" any means stuff me with, because I am a Pig." Mangel put down his hat, retired a little to get He never gives the poor man a sovereign for a good look at the paper, wetted his right hand bringing up a family. He never grunts the poor thoroughly by drawing it slowly across his mouth, man's name in vain. And when he dies in the approached the paper with great determination, odour of Porkity, he cuts up, a highly useful fiattened it, sat down at it, and got weU to creature and a olessing to the poor 'man, from his work. Circuitous and sea-serpent-like, were the ring in his snout to the curl in his taU. the movements of the tongue of Mangel whUe Which of the poor man's other friends can say he formed the letters; elevated were the eye­ as much ? Where is the M.P. who means Mere brows of Mangel and sidelong the eyes, as, vsnth Pork? his left whisker reposing on his left arm, they The dreary Sage had gUded into these reflec­ foUowed his performance; many were the mis­ tions, when he found himself sitting by the club­ givings of Mangel, and slow was his retrospective house fire, surrounded by green smock-frocks and meditation touching the junction of the letter shapeless hats : with Fnar Bacon Uvely, busy, p with h; somethmg too active was the big and expert, at a Uttle table near him. forefinger of Mangel in its propensity to rub " Now, then, come. The first five!" aaid Friar out without proved cause. At last, long and Bacon. " Where are you ?" deep was the breath drawn by Mangel when " Order 1" cried a merry-faced Uttle man, who he laid down the pen; long and deep the had brought his young daughter with him to see wondering breath drawn by the back ground— life, and who always modestly hid his face in his as if they had watched his walking across the beer-mug after he had thus assisted the business. rapids of Niagara, on stilts, and now cried, " He "John Nightingale, WUliam Thrush, Joseph has done it 1" Blackbird, CecU Robin, and Thomas Linnet!" But, M^igel was an honest man, if ever honest cried Friar Bacon. man Uved. " T'owt to be a heU, sir," said he, " Here, sir 1" and "Here, sir!" And Linnet, contemplating his work, "and I ha' made a Robin, Blackbird, Thrush, and Nightingale, t on't." stood confessed. The over-fraught bosoms of the background We, the undersigned, declare, in effect, by found reUef in a roar of laughter. this written paper, that each of us is responsible " Or—DEB,!" cried the Uttle man. " CHEEB !" for the repayment of this pig-money by each of And after that second word, came forth from his the other. " Sure you understand. Nightingale ?" mug no more. "Ees, sur." Several other clubs signed, and received their " Can you write your name. Nightingale ?" money. Very few could write their names; aU «Na,sur." who could not, pleaded that they could not, more Niglitingale's eye upon his name, as Friar or less sorrowfuUy, and always with a shake of Bacon wrote it, was a sight to consider in after the head, and in a lower voice than their natural years. Rather incredulous was Nightingale, specJdng voice. Crosses could be made standing; fCoiiduc'ed by 16 [April 30, ISM.: AT J. THE YEAR ROUND.

signatures must be sat ,down to. There was no nour due to men in this world of ours who try exception to this rule. Meantime, the various to prepare it for a higher course, and to leave dub-members smoked, drank their beer, and the race who live ana die upon it better than talked together quite unrestrained. They aU they found them. wore their hats, except when they went up to Friar Bacon's table. The merry-faced Uttle man A PIECE OF CHINA. offered his beer, with a natural good-feUowship, both to the Dreary one and PhUosewers. Both IT is a glowing, glaring morning at Hong partook of it with thanks. Kong. I awake inside my net-mushn safe, "Seven o'clock!" said Friar Bacon. "And wherein my boy, A-Pow—an urchin in baggy now we had better get across to the concert, blue breeches and soft thick shoes, which aUow men, for the music wSl be beginning." him to gUde about lUce a ghost—has consigned The concert was in Friar Bacon's laboratory; me for security from the flies, Uke a jam tart a large building near at hand, in an open field. under gauze in a pastrycook's window, during The bettermost people of the village and neigh­ the dog-days. bourhood were in a gallery on one side, and, in A-Pow IS about nine, of grave demeanour, a gaUery opposite the orchestra. The whole and wearing a Uttle pigtaU. The rest of his space below was fiUed with the labouring people head is shaven down to a leaden blue tint, with and their famiUes, to the number of five or six the exception of a "cheveux de frise" foUow­ hundred. We had been obUged to turn away ing the course of the coronal suture, over the two hundred to-night. Friar Bacon said, for head from ear to ear, in the dotted Une on the want of room—and that, not counting the boys, profile of the popiUar advocate for self-measure­ of whom we had taken in only a few picked ment as regards wigs. This fringe, about an ones, by reason of the boys, as a class, being inch long, sticks bolt upright, looking rather given to too fervent a custom of applauding like a glory : more Uke, perhaps, one section of with their boot-heels. a bottle-brush. I had seen him so often on fans, The performers were the ladies of Friar with a veneered ivory face, that when I first en­ Bacon's famUy, and two gentlemen; one of gaged him, I felt we were old friends. them, who presided, a Doctor of Music. A " Gud momg," he says. piano was tlie only instrument. Among the " Chin-chin, A-Pow," I reply. vocal pieces, we had a negro melody (rapturously He thinks he is speaking EngUsh, and I ima­ encored), the Indian Drum, and the VUlage gine I am talking Chinese. We are both equally Blacksmith; neither did we want for fashion­ •wrong. able ItaUan, having Ah ! nan giunge, and Mi "Ey Yaw!" he cries, with an expression of de- matica la voce. Our success was splendid; Ught, as he sees the inevitable mosquito that our good-humoured, unaffected, and modest has annoyed me aU night, in a state of bloated bearing, a pattern. As to the audience, they gluttony in a fold of the curtains. " No hab were far more polite and far more pleased than catchee he." at the Opera; they were faultless. Thus for And with beaming triumph he squeezes him barely an hour the concert lasted, with thou­ between his fingers and thumb, leaving a red sands of great bottles looking on from the walls, splash, about the size of a fiorin, on the muslin. containing the results of Fnar Bacon's MUUon "Maskee (never mind)," I say. "WUow and one experiments in agricultural chemistry; down sye talkee that comprador catchee my one and containing too, no doubt, a variety of ma­ piecey glass beer aU a proper cold. (5hop! terials with which the Friar could have blown chop!" us aU through the roof at five minutes' notice. Which interpreted means, "There — never God save the Queen being done, the good mind that: cut away down stairs and teU the Friar stepped forward and said a few words, steward to let me have a glass of cold beer. more particularly concerning two points; Quick!" firstly, that Saturday half-hoUday, which it It is a dreadful thing I know to confess to would be kind in farmers to grant; secondly, drinking beer in bed before breakfast, but there the additional AUotment-grounds we were going is no help for it here. I am perfectly assured I to establish, in consequence of the happy success shall not have strength enough to dress, unless of the system, but which we could not gua­ I get it. rantee should entitle the holders to be mem­ For I feel completely washed out, and not bers of the club, because the present members dried. My thermometer, which I have plunged must consider and settle that question for them­ into my cold bath, stands at 88°—only four de­ selves : a bargain- between man and man being grees lower than the average heat of a warm bath always a bargain, and we having made over the m England! The air is blowing through the open club to them as the original AUotment-men. blinds as if it came from a hot blast furnace. This was loudly applauded, and so, with con­ There has also been a heavy rain at daybreak, tented and affectionate cheering, it was aU and a hot mist is rising from the steaming rank over. vegetation of Hong Kong, wrapping eve^hing As PhUosewers, and I the Dreary, posted back in its muggy embraces. The gum-water I made to London, looking up at the moon and discuss­ last night m a Uttle saucer is aU dried up ; my ing it as a world preparing for the habitation of bottle of hair-grease seems fiUed with thick responsible creatures, we expatiated on the ho­ yeUow oU; and a colony of very smaU red ants

^ ChariM DiokensJ A PIECE OF CHINA. [April 30, 1S39.] 17

SO love the orange-scented traces of it on my Sometimes the travelling cook-shop keeper pauses hair-brush, that I Icnock out myriads as I rap the here for a minute. His entire estabUshment is brush in horror on the table. The shock stMi;s a slung over his shoulder, and it consists of two cockroach from under the looking-glass; and bamboo frames, about three feet high by two causes him rashly to commit suicide in the basin. square. When he stops, he connects them by a My bath and my beer are disposed of; and board forming a sort of counter, or table. (Jne now, in a few minutes, I pay for tne indulgence. frame holds his kitchen, which is chiefly a A copper-coloured rash begins to cover my neck, copper heated by charcoal, and containing chest, and arms. I next see it about my ankles, "stock." The other has his materials in and I know it is on my back. Urns is the drawers and on shelves; and, on the top, his terrible 'prickly heat' of the tropics—a com­ spoons and Uttle basins, with saucers fnU. of bination of pins and needles and stinging- picked shrimps, wheaten paste, smaU oysters, nettles. It is bad enough in itself; but, when towls' entraUs, pork fat, fish, and long onions. you are congratulated upon having it, it is mad­ From a string, he now and then hangs a rat or a dening. '^11 right, oldfeUow," they say; " the large fat frog: and out of these specimens of best thing that can happen to you. You're food he compounds more dishes, by artful com­ safe not to have anything else, while that's weU binations, and provides a more varied carte, than out." any two-franc restaurateur, with " quatre plats I play with my breakfast, dwelling on the au choix" in the Palais Royal. A potage he charms of a cold raw November day in our own vends at " two cash a cup" is inscrutable: but climate, and then crawl up-stairs again to pack as twenty-five cash go to a penny, it cannot be up my portmanteau. My impedimenta are very dear whatever it is. weU condensed, and the portmanteau is under Then people go by with large flat baskets overland size : but the labour is so excessive I containing what looks Uke squares of yeUow am glad, once or twice, to sit down on my soap, marked with a red Chinese character. bamboo chair, panting with exertion. A-Pow This is their substitute for cheese. Nothing cannot help me. I point to my things and the wUl induce them to touch milk in any shape; compartmented trunk;; but he says, "No can and this article, caUed "taou," is made from beans savey that pigeon so fashion," with a hopeless ex­ —a species of curd precipitated by an acid. I do pression of obtuseness. not care much about the fruits which they wish A Uttle steamer, built at Whampoa, by Mr. me to buy. The Chinese gooseberry is over Cooper, and caUed the Fei-maa, or Flying Horse, three inches long, and, when cut through, its runs between Hong Kong and Canton about section forms a perfect star. The persiman is twice a week, stopping for the night at Macao. like a large egg-plum, but containing half a It is to start at twelve this day, according to an- dozen stones; the pear is as hard as a potato, nouncement-bUls in English and Chinese, on the quite round, and tastes of nothing; bananas I walls: and it is for Canton I am bound. abominate, reminding me of cotton wool and Leaving the club, I find the heat of my room bear's grease mixed together; and I cannot is nothing to that of Queen's-road—^the main agree with Mr. Wingrove Cooke, that the Amoy artery of Hong Kong circulation. The Eu­ pomelo is the finest fruit in the world. Be ropeans, in their white jackets and trousers and assured, aU over the globe, there is no garden round pith hats, are driven under the shade of the Uke the centre avenue of Covent-garden; no shop colonnades and thick-leaved trees, to talk. fruit so fine as our strawberry, peach, and hot­ The Sou'-west monsoon is blowing freely out at house grape. People say to me, " Ah! but you sea; but, as Hong Kong-—or rather Victoria— should be here in (some other month) and taste was buUt, with a noble disregard of position, on our (some other fruit)." I always want to hit the north-eastern side of Victoria Peak (which these folks. They are of those who, when you is not a peak at aU, but a rounded hUl), not one say you have been to Chamounix, always reply, breath ol summer or autumnal air ever reaches " Ah! but you should have gone to Zermatt." it, except that which " cannons" off the hUls, at Amidst the restless, hurrying crowd of the an angle against you. But this moist, stifling Hong Kong main street—cooUes, naked to the heat, so terrible to us, is evidently healthy and waist, carrying enormous weights; merchants, bracing to the Chinese. They revel in it, and in bamboo chairs, braving coup de soleU, fever, stretch themselves out to enjoy its fiercest rays and dysentery, everything, for the almighty like cats in a window; or toU with heavy stones dollar; clerks and tea-tasters, busying, like slung on a bamboo, or chairs containing fourteen- ants, in and out of their "go-downs," or ware­ stone Britons, up the steep paths to the bunga­ houses ; sleek, sly-eyed Parsees, able to cope lows, with their closely shaven heads unsheltered even with the Yankees; oUy compradors bear­ by anything except their pigtaUs twisted round ing bags of Mexican dollars to the banks; boat- them, untU their brains must dry up and rattle in girls in their coquettish handkerchief head­ their skulls, Uke a preserved lychee. dresses ; toddling women with Uttle feet; babies Queen's-road is aU aUve, and the natives are in pigtails gravely basking in sunny gutters— running up and down Uke ants. Nobody remains through aU this mingled action and still Ufe, we where he is but the barbers, who place their Uttle come down to Pedder's Wharf, and embark in a stools imder the shade of a clump of trees near Uttle boat, covered with arched matting, and the club, and keep up a noise aU day long, which puU off to the Fei-maa. almost out-clamours the crickets above them. There were seventy or eighty Chinese already

^ 18 [April ao^uuii ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductci: by

on board, partitioned off, on the main deck, by Boanerges Gong meets Reverend S. Bookay on themselves, with aU sorts of dirty packages the platform; domestic, as in a strictly family Wondrous to behold: piUows made of oamboo, party after the readiujg of a wUl; general, as at matting, raw pork, seedy clothes, pine-apples, old the annual meeting of any company you please, shoes and dried fish packed inside lanterns, um- started by an inventive genius to make himself breUas, giblets carried by a string, and coUec- secretary thereof; Irish, as when Paddy O'Rag- tions of such misceUaneous household things gene­ gedy—that broth of a boy—cries " HuiToo !" rally, as you see in the last lots of a sale catalogue. and aUows his native ready humour to run to The English passengers occupied the deck fracturing his friend's skull, or biting his nose under the awning, and the saloon. We started off; and patriotic, as w^en a lot of nature's punctuaUy, and gUded out of the harbour be­ nobiUty, possessing notliing in 1;he world, go in tween many green islands, with smaU villages for a division of property and universal suffrage. in their nooks and bays, wherein very suspicioiis But we have never Imd a clear notion of a down­ pirate craft were lying ready to dart out of their right row, untU we have dropped anchor off holes, Uke spiders, upon any hapless Uttle junk Macao amongst the tanka girls. that got caught in the meshes of the shaUows. The tanka is, as its name implies in Chinese, We went pleasantly on, for two hours or so, an egg-shaped boat, Uttle at the prow end, big without the scenery clianging, until we emerged, at the stem, and hooped over with arches of by the Lantao passage, as it is caUed, into open bamboo and matting. It forms the home of water, and then we prepai-ed for "tiffin." I more than one hundred thousand of the amphi­ say " prepai-ed," for the passengers aU looked to bious Cantonese; and these residences of the their revolvers, and placed them within reach on wind stretch out on the Pearl River to Wliampoa the table; wliUst the EngUsh and Portuguese and Macao, as our rows of clerks' houselets do crew stood at the different entrances on the maUi to Woolwich and Gravesend on the Uving stream deck with loaded muskets and drawn swords. of the raUway. This, however, is scarcely a " What does aU this mean P" I asked. comparison. The tanka population is considered " We have too many Chinese on board," re- so low as to be almost unworthy of a place in the pUed Captain CasteUa. They are nearly six to census. They live and marry amongst them­ every one of us; so we do not wish to be served selves ; and are as distinct from the Cantonese as the Queen was served a year and a half ago." proper, as the fishing inhabitants of Portel are " And how was that ?" from the people of Boulogne. *' The steamer was captured, and the crew and As soon as the steamer nears Macao, the passengers murdered. Mr. Osmond Cleverley tankas shoot out from the shore towards the was the only one who escaped, and you will spot where they know she wUl anchor; and meet him at Macao to-night. He wiU teU you their oarS' are plied so weU, that their approach his own story much better than I can." assumes the air of a cutting-out expedition. The excitement gave us aU an appetite, and Throw a bun into the water of St. James's Park, the pale ale (I suspect) gave us valour. The and the ducks wUl give you the best notion of eatables were good and weU cooked, and the the manner of attack. One woman skuUs be­ tiffin was a success, and passed off in safety. hind, and the other takes her place on the fore­ When it was over we aU went upon deck. The castle, with a rope and a boat-hook, prepared for crew and passengers discharged their fire-arms the worst; and, as the entire fleet inakes for the at birds and other objects, to show that they sponsons of the steamer, when they meet the had been reaUy loaded, and then we sat and row begins. A-moon, the beUe of the tankas, chatted in the laziness of repletion, untU we arrives first; and showing her beautiful white arrived about four in the afternoon at Macao. teeth as she "chin-chins" the captain, makes Macao looks as Weymouth woiUd do after a fast to our paddle-box, and then nods her pretty very long residence in Portugal. Its shore is head, over which she has Ughtly tied a red hand­ crescent-shaped; but edged with purely conti­ kerchief in that coquettish style which young nental buUoings and convents. There is a ladies who know they are nice-looking adopt Praja, or promenade, along its border, whereon in the haU of the Opera when waiting mv their appear Portuguese troops, and now and then a carriages to come up. But A-tye, who is a band. You hear convent bells ringing the sort of rival in good looks, skulls strenuously Angelus in the stUl eventide; priests, apparently up, and then with a good way on her boat, without insides, slink about and look at you ships her stem oar, runs forward, banging sideways ; there is a Teatro San Somebody, and between the tankas of A-moon and A-miu (who you wonder what on earth has become of China. is a terrible vixen, and, they say, can fight like a lou could not feel more bewUdered if, one day cat, whence her name, which appropriately sig­ turning out of Belgrave-square, you entered the nifies Mrs. Puss in Chinese), runs in well and Pontine Marshes; although even that might not gains her place. A-miu immediately springs be so great an antithesis. on her, aU claws set, and knocks her over into It happens to us aU to witness a great many the other boat. A-moon resents the intrusion rows in the course of our Uves, of various phases with a boat-hook, upon Avhich A-tye seizes a —^physical, as on the old Jenny Lind nights, chopper, not her own, and cuts A-miu's tanka amongst the superior classes (whose manners adnft, which is immediately shoved out to sea by and customs I am sometimes permitted the A-yung, A-chung, A-lin, A-ming, and as many delight of studying); moral, as wnen Reverend more as you please.

y^ Chutai DtdraoaO A PIECE OF CHINA. [April 30,1859.] 19

A herd of female iackos after one nut, in their feU dead into the cabin by a shot from Mr. native jungle, could not have made such a Cleverley's revolver. screeching clatter, and their Chinese swearing Thus closed in a trap, they had nothing to must have been something awful. The first bold look forward to but to be luUed Uke beasts. man who disembarked haS a terrible time of it. The captain was almost senseless from a sword- He carried letters and despatches. Now I have cut on nis skuU; the engineer was undressing always considered the conveyance of the maUs rapidly to leap overboard; and the passengers in Russia on an insecure and unsatisfactory and crew were too panic-stricken to do anythmg. footing, as Ulustrated by tho Courier of St. Pe­ Knowing that when the guns of the Chinese were tersburg on his four horses at Astley's; but I fired they had no means of loading them again, saw this man, with my own eyes, in four boats Mr. Cleverley went alone up the ladder with a at once. I never heard whetlier he reached the fresh revolver, and, forcmg the cabin-door shore, or was puUed to pieces. A-miu now re­ open, met his assailants. He was received with turned and knocked A-tye over into the water their fire, but shot three of them dead. They with her oar; but the girl swam Uke a fish, and feU back, and, emboldened by this, .he was ad­ dunbed up the boat in an instant—her clothes, vancing, when a musket-baU passed through his only a sUk blouse and trousers, soon drying in thigh, smashing the bone. He again feU down the Macao sun. And at last, amongst scream­ back into the cabin, and the captain, seeing ing, %hting, and struggling—crying, laughing, this, said, " Then aU is over, sir. Here, take and swearing—1 got to shore, but how, 1 have my revolver, and God bless you! we shaU never no more notion than how I once feU with a meet again." He then stumbled to the stem- burst baUoon, from the height of a mUe, sur­ port, and threw himself into the sea, foUowed rounded by fireworks, into a street in the Vaux- by the engineer. The C!hinese fired after them, haU-road, which, for the life of me, I never could and they were never seen again. find out afterwards. Mr. Cleverley now bound up his broken leg, A very agreeable dinner, with plenty of cool and was limping to the aft cabin, when another beer, and " cups" of various descriptions, and a voUey from deck was sent after him, foUowed ride round the city, with a visit to the Cave of by a Chinese yeU of victory, as they rushed to­ Camoens, caused tne evening to pass pleasantly wards the saloon. Certain there was no chance enough. The kindness and hospitaUty of the left, he seized one of the rattan chairs common great English houses in China is unbounded. in China, and dragging it and himself towards TraveUers bring in their luggage, and become the port sponsons, threw it into the water, and " squatters" in the establishment for as long as dropped in after it. Fortunately he was not it suits them, coming and going as they please. perceived; the steamer, with nobody at her It is no intrusion on privaCT to mention the engines, kept on her way, and he was soon names of the Dents and Jaimnes in connexion astern, floatmg, but alone m the sea ! with these real accommodations in a country In great agony, as the sweU moved his broken where hotels are not. Their courtesy to tra- bone, he floated for nearly an hour, with the veUers is world-famous. assistance of his chair. Once it escaped from It was my good fortune that evening to meet his hand, and in turning to recover it, as he rose Mr. Osmond Cleverley, as Captain CasteUa had on a wave higher than ordinary, he discovered a presaged. He alone escaped from the terrible lorcha working to windward: and, from his massacre on board the Queen, the year before nautical knowledge, he knew that, not being last; and as we sat on the balcony overlooking the weatherly, his true course would bring her bay, whilst our younger friends shot clay pellets within haU. And he was right: she came at the dogs and tanka girls along shore, he gave nearer and nearer, until she got within haU, and me the foUowing mrticulars: just within an hour from his leaving the steamer He left Hong Kong one fine morning in Fe­ he was taken on board as the hapless Queen bruary, 1857, in the Queen—as I had left in the was seen slowly standing to the northward, and Fd-maa—^with a mixed crew and passengers, was now half-funnel down. English, Portuguese, and Chinese—the latter The lorcha took him on to Macao, not, how­ predominating. ever, before the crew had asked him how much The European passengers had, as usual, sat money he would give them to do so; and even down to dinner in the saloon, off Lantao, when then they would not land him amongst the the Chinese left on deck and about the boat, by Chinese boats. But he wrote on a card in a preconcerted movement, suddenly knocked the pencil, " Mr. WilUam Dent, or any other Euro­ mate and the man at the wheel on the head, pean ;" and in half an hour Mr. Dent amved, threw them overboard, seized the arm-chest, and took him to his house, placing him on a which was on the bridge, with its cut­ bed, which he did not leave for many months. lasses and ready-loaded muskets, and began He is now a cripple, and, although formerly firing down on the passengers. The cap­ distinguished for athletic exercises, limps about tain (Wynn) and Mr. Cleverley seized their in great suffering. revolvers, and rushed up the ladder. The AU the Europeans on board the Queen were former was cut down as he reached the deck, murdered, and the ship was burnt. The whole and, faUing on the latter, they were both thrown plan was conceived and carried out by that back into the cabin, and the hatches were im­ fiendish miscreant Yeh —another link m the mediately dosed by those above, one of whom chain of his hideous craelties. Mr. Cleverley [Conduoted Uf 20 [April 30,18181- ALL THE YEAR ROUND. I declared that if a couple of men had stood by And a share (concealed) in the poor man's field, him he could have recaptured the boat. Yet it adds to the poor man's store. As this narrative was finished, the sun went Then, hurrah for the iron Blacksmith! down. A band was playing on the Praya; the in­ And hurrah for his iron crew I habitants were turning out in their best costumes And whenever we go where his forges glow, for a walk in the cool evening, that is, cool by We'll sing what A MAN can do. comparison, for the thermometer was stiU at 90°; and A-moon, A-tye, A-miu, and the tanka sis­ HAUNTED LONDON. terhood, were burning coloured paper and ST. MABTIN'S-LANE. beating gongs along the shore to propitiate Joss, THEBE is no post-office directory in which aU their quarrels ceasing untU the next steamer one can find out the addresses of London ghosts. came. This is an oversight. "You wUl go bathmg with us to-morrow, I never go out inLondon, but I meet myghosts; about five ?" asked my host. and yet, before I can lay my hand on their bony " Certainly; anything you please." shoulders, they whip into a cab, or up an aUey, " Boy!" he cried, " go catcher three piecey or round a turning, and are off before I can ask boat, washee-pigeon morrow." Then he added them for a card. Charles the First, for instance, to me : " A-tye wiU row you out, because she whom only last Tuesday I met at the door of the ean speak pigeon English !" Admiralty, carrying his head, with its peaked " What!" I exclaimed. " Nonsense ! I beard—^for coolness, I suppose—under his arm; can't go bathing with that young person." then there is old Johnson, with the scorched " It's aU right, my dear feUow; it's thought wig, I saw to-day, going to look for his old nothing of here: it's the custom. She don't comer where he planned his Hebrides expedi­ care, if you don't. You're over particular, and tion with BosweU, at the Mitre, in Fleet-stteet; should go to Japan for a Uttle whUe, or, then Izaak Walton, with his fishing-rod, in better stUl, to Ramsgate. I can assure you it's Chancery-lane ; and so on. aU proper." WeU, I am out now to take a note of the " Bless me !" I repUed, " how very odd !" whereabouts of the St. Martin's-lane ghosts, And then we aU went to bed, and I was again and shaU take the notes on my thumb-nail. sweltering inside the mosquito curtains. Thumb-naU ? Not much room even for short­ hand notes on that—not much on the duodecimo TRADE SONGS. THE WORKHOUSE NURSE. Uttle finger, and not much more on the quarto TAKE the child upon your knee! thumb. But Hogarth found it room enough. Desert infant, let it rest That Uttle sturdy observer of men, in his sky- All night upon your breast: blue coat, and his triangular cocked-hat tipped Sing a softening lullaby : up over his broad, fuU, round forehead, to show Shield it from the tempest wild : the scar he was proud of on his right temple, used Be a mother to the child. to ramble about London, sketching droU faces If is not a noble's son. on his left thumb-naU. Not a noble,—bom above I often wonder if there wiU ever be a Lon­ All the charities of love: don Claude Lorraine. If there ever be, he Out of misery was it won: wUl, for the first thing, paint London sun­ Cradled in the stony street, shine, out of whose radiance I have just come Found (a blessing) at your feet. from St. Martin's-lane into my dark chambers, Black its eyes, dark its skin; as a man comes from a morning bath in the Feeble creature,—once a pack molten gold of the sea with the sun on it, Haply at a gipsy's back; to re-dress himself before breakfast in the soft But it has a soul within: darkness of a Marine Parade room with the And sometimes (say the stories wild) bUnds down. Sunshine through spring woods You find an Angel in a child. is a deUcious thing, so is sunshine through three feet of June grass, fitfo r mowing, when the thick THE BLACKSMITH. flowers close like waves over your face as you OLD England, she has great warriors, Ue on your back and listen to the lark that the Great princes, and poets great; angels are caUing to from that hoUow snow­ But the Blacksmith is not to be quite forgot. ball of a cloud. But as we have none of these de­ In the history of the State. lights, and are aU buUt in for various terms of imprisonment in long defiles of houses, waUed all He is rich in the best of all metals. Yet silver he lacks and gold; with black and brown brick, caged under mUes And he payeth his due, and his heart is true. of red tUe roofs, in streets where the chimneys Though he bloweth both hot and cold. keep telegraphing to each other bysmoke signals, at windows where consumptive geraniums sicken The boldest is he of incendiaries for fresher air, and no thm weed dares to take That ever the wide world saw. root between the joints of the bricks, from And a forger as rank as e'er robbed the Bank, Pharaoh's hard brick-yard, where flowers are Though he never doth break the law. curiosities, and the hot dark breath of Care's He hath shoes that are worn by strangers, kilns and furnaces thickens the smUing air Yet he laugheth and maketh more; which struggles to be bright and freeTlet us Charie* Dickens.] HAUNTED LONDON. [April 30,1859.] 21 make the best of it. Talk of your mountain mouse-traps, the air-pumps for opening oysters. distance, your air perspectives! I never saw Observe the dark pool of shadow, where the anything in the blue gaps of the Apennines more lampUght does not reach the tree shadows of the fairy beautiful than the blue grey fog that turns lamp-post; the gutters, running with blood, the end of a London street as you look down in where the chemist's crimson beacon Ught sheds it into mystery and beauty, that gives the baleful influence; see aU this, and go and paint present a tmge of the uncertainty of the future what you see, wiping out aU smirking, trim and the past, and throws a halo of poetry over peasants and perennial flower-girls; eternise, Gower-street or Soho. And look now how the Macguelp, the cyclopic grandeur (however ugly London sunshine faUs in a white luminous veU, or misshaped it be) of London! such as hid the face of Moses before that vulgar I was determined to ransack and re-mmmage block of houses in Blue Ruin-street: two pawn­ the poetry and associations of that old street of the brokers, a pubUcan's, and an undertaker's. That benevolent French saint, from the great porticoed white fog of glory slants across the end of the church with the giant sooty piUars, that somebody street, where the cab No. 3174 is breaking seems to have begun painting with Indian-ink and through it, Uke a new Jacob's ladder, the cords, left unfinished; from the broad square with the golden threads of sunbeams, let down in gracious Spanishnameof glorious memory,wherethepoodle mercy once more to aUow some poor suffering Ufe- Uon stretches out hiswirytaU, guarding Northum­ burdened wretch to crawl up it to the Bright berland House ; and fromth e sUver-plumed foun­ City. Why, it is a complete angeUc exhibition, tains, waving, banner-Uke, in the wind, that seems and should be charged for. It is worth a guinea a to try contemptuously to blow them away alto­ seat, yet no one looks up; no one but that poor gether; up northwards, to Long-acre; up beyond little skeleton girl with a frozenbunc h of yester­ the turn leading to that old church in Covent- day's water-cresses in her lean hand, who huddles garden, where Charles the Second's favourite in the doorway of Lattat, the sharp attorney, author, Butler, who wrote Hudibras, sleeps, who (brute) is, actuaUy as I speak, tapping undisturbed by the jar of the early morning at the glass to bid her go away. See, carts from the market gardens. It is a Uttle too, you purblind artist with the microscope too late in the year to see the chesnuts roasting eyes, who can flnd nothing to paint in this our over the night-shade tins, pierced with fiery dear London—the darker bar that strikes like a holes, that the rushUghts of our youth used to giant's sword-blade through the great woof of bum dimly and penitentially in; but there cobweb sunshine we speak of—can't imagine is one of those Amazonian old Irishwomen, in where it comes from ? Oh, Macguelp, thou a bygone coachman's many-caped' coat, sitting mole-eyed misuser of unpaid-for pigments, dost patient and stubborn as a look-out man in the thou not see that it is the shadow of the chimney " crow's-nest" of a whaler: her red and green above us, which, standing in the way of the royal apples, greasy with rubbing, arranged in decent blessed purifying sunshine that brings hope and pyramids; the cocoa-nut weU watered; the gladness into the very eyes of the dying, oranges judiciously thrown out by a background enfeebles and dims that path of darkness. Talk of traditionary blue paper. of Samarcand and your (3hinese splendour ! Is it not gorgeous to see how the sunshine gUstens on I did not choose tlie night for my note- those great gold letters, " BARCLAY, PEKKINS, taking stroU: but I set out for St. Martin's- & Co.," that are heraldicaUy displayed on the lane—the Grub-street of our early painters—a great board above the publican's (Dragger's) pleasant April morning, in the boyhood of one garret window at "The FiveaUs," and makes of those days when we count the hours by the them shine Uke letters hewn out of soUd buUion ? number of the rainbows. WeU, that white sunshine and that blue fog A sUght, quick, fervid shower—tears more of at the end of London streets are the firstthing s I happiness brimming over than anger breaking should paint if Providence had made me a London its bounds—had just faUen, and pricked the Claude, as Turner, the barber's son in Maiden- dry grey pavement into a dark lace pattern of lane, might have been. The next thing I shoxdd spots, out of which you could select the newest paint would be the magic and enchantment of a by their being sharper in outUne and darker liondon night, if paint there could be ground than the rest. The aristocracy of five minutes from metals or jewels to do it. WoiUd not I ago, and the parvenus of the last moment aUke,. " go in," as my old friend Macguelp calls it, for as the soft warm rain feU now quicker and more those ladders of lamps, those shot fines of stars, petulantly passionate, melting one into the those bridges of light, which turn London at night other, losing shape, plan, and purpose, as the into a perpetual Pekin at lantern carnival time ? stone washed luminous brown, and transparent What IS Rome and the " MoccoU" to it ? Go as slabs of Cairngorm agate. and walk to-night up PiccadUly, and see the I am glad it was not one of those gusty days lamps before you trying to teU your fortune by of early March, when the brown dust, diy and shaping themselves into perspective letters and pungent as pepper, runs before you in a long words, aU beginning with A. Look at them traiUng thread, as if it were leading one by a fairy across the Park, Uke so many spark-stars break:- clue to some fairy labyrinth, or blows in strange :3g out in paper just consumed. See the gUded semicircles, that try to diagram themselves tnnkets of the iUuminated jeweUers' shops, the and fomi ground plans on the dry, clean, cold colours, the rarities, the wonders, the steam pavement. There were no stray MS. bits of paper blowing about Uke sybilline leaves, or [Condnot«d by 22 CApril 30,1856] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. fragments of a stationer's shop, torn to pieces beyond aU contradiction; why it is, I know not, by a hurricane; no tormentmg wind to ruffle but I beUeve it may be traced to deep physiolo- the leaves of the cabmen's capes, to fan the ical causes, and is connected with very subtle chesnut fire to a magnificent crimson bloom, to gbws of attraction, cohesion, and sympathy. The wrench feloniously at the cold bright weather­ causes have aUiances, Dr. Regenbogen thinks, cock coronet of St. Martin's Chpch that you with electricity and magnetism, and are most pitied and shuddered to see so high up aloft in highly curious proofs of the preponderance m the its fickle, soUtary, and chiUy splendour—ad­ pilsent age of the nervous above the jmuscular, mirable type of royal happmess. No angry and aU the coarser organisations. There are wind was running about, as if to warm itself, or your north-east people, your sou'-west people, screaming round comers in a helpless, imbecUe, your nor'-west people, and your But why and menmcant way. No wind was there to sway need I box the whole compass when the fact is the golden perches, caught but never landed, that so palpable to a keen observer. It is useless to ikngle and flicker over the doors of " fishing- teU^ me that this is an imagination, and is reaUy tacSe" shops; or to blow almost off its hook caused by the moods of my own weatherbeaten the crown of black rag strips, or the suicidal mmd being influenced by the weather. This is negro baby at the marine store shop entrances. absurd; the wind being sour and north-east does No, quite the reverse. The street-sweeper's not make me north-east, nor aUthe people I meet legs are not black purple, nor is the croucliing north-east; no, the simple fact, scientifically Lascar in bed-linen at aU frozen, nor are the ob­ proved (only science is jealous and wUl not jectionable songs sold to him in the Bow as record it), is, that the north-east wind brings Christian tiacts, blown about Uke scattered out north-east people. It appears at first a wild doves. No, the day is one when the great grey assertion, but it is true that, during the sour, endless terraces ring sharp and hopefuUy under bitter, blighting, Ul-tempered prevalence of the the lounging foot, and sordid -wretches in east wind, you meet no good-looking person, no tindery rags pass with baskets fuU of fragrant virtue, no beauty, no honesty, no wortli. Every blood-Drown wallflowers on their arms, and chU­ third person is a money-lender or a fraudulent dren run after people with quiUed-up bunches bankrupt; the costermongers are pickpockets, of violets that they long to keep; and if you crack-skuUs, and cut-throats to a man. Poverty were now to wander out to the great flat nursery prevails—lean, greasy, buttoned-up poverty—;not gardens round FuUiam, you would find slow struggling and hopeful worth, but bilking, lying, melting snows of blossoms on every tree. As skulkmg, and hopeless. You meet no decent for Covent-garden now, it is a halo of deUght, comely old age crowned with the white coronet Uke a fairy tableau, and you expect to see the of time, wisdom's mark of brevet rank and coming baUet come dancing up between the banks of promotion. No, not one, but rather sour nut­ Barcelona nuts, whose shingle is oranges and cracker-men, with no kind, fuU lips Uke the rims winter apples, and whose boulders are Valencia of decanters, but screLT-snippers, Harpagons bom melons. of Sycoraxes, skinflints who have come out for a breathing after having cut off their eldest son I am out taking notes on my shining thumb- with a shiUing, turned their favourite daughter out naU, because (as I have said) it seems to me, and of doors because she burnt the breakfast muffin, has long seemed to me, that there is no Blue or written six dunning letters, and kicked their pet Red Book, noPost-office Du-ectory, where you can dog violently down stairs, AU the officers you hope to find the proper addresses and directions meet then are bulUes, aU the doctors quacks, all of the London ghosts. Though every square the lawyers rogues, all the clergymen sceptics, aU stone in the London pavement is reaUy a tomb­ the women are ngly, and aU the men cheats. stone, containing pressed down beneath it some North-east people's faces are blue and yeUow, the old association, legend, or memory, some dry nose is frosty red, and the Ups are white; they are flower of poetry long ago, trodden under foot; slovenly in dress, and insolent in maimer; they when, long smce, the fresh turf was first always drive the wrong side of the road, and turned into a continuation of the great stone tiead on your corns—in fact, they are NOBTH- case of this Babylon cemetery of ours, and its EAST people, and one cannot go further than life was swaUowed up by the spreading death that. lU-conditioned, suicidal, felonious people, that is stUl gnawing away at the suburbs, &c., they are generally middle-aged, and often fretting further and further, like a spreading old and spiteful. iron-mould, or a widening blot, London histoiy loses interest from its diffusion. Once seize It was only yesterday, however, under this strongly the real prominent associations of a very same pompous church, reared by Gibbs, of district or a street, and for ever after when you Aberdeen, that I met nothing but mUd, pleasant, pass the houses seem tapestried with names and sweet-eyed south-west people, and it put me in legends. London has always been the stage of a good mood for kindly note-taking. England, and every street of it is a volume of What dust-powdered antiquarian can teU us its Iiistory. what Norman king, in intervals of malvoisie- It is a curious fact in street science, not, I drinking and boar-hunting, gave the name of an think, before recorded, that every state of wind Hungarian saint to this parish outside the walls ? and weather drives its pecuUar flock of people What had the anchorite Bishop of Tours (only into the street, who are seen at that time, at no fancy an anchorite bishop), who with eighty monks other time, and at that time only. This is a fact beat their backs nightly to a cmel red in their mo-

^ Chariw Diokans.] HAUNTED LONDON. [April 30, 1859.] 2S nastery of Marmoutier, near the episcopal dty, do, because his comedies had disgusted the sometime early in the fouxth century — what clergy. DuU and ponderous as the eternal black- has that saint and confessor, who was the first and-white monument of that Aberdeen merchant's deified demigod of the Romish Church, to do son, whom the Earl of Mar first patronised, may with the modem haunt of tailors, jeweUers, seem to us, it is a curious record of Hogarth's biscuit-bakers, who know nothing about him, age, of its architectural reUgion, and its imita­ never think of him, and do not know even that tive sham architecture. Yet it was praised by their own schoolboy exclamation of "Betty Sir WiUiam Chambers, the friend of Goldsmitn Martin" is only a corruption of one of the old and Johnson, the Chinese decorator of Kew prayers addressed to the benevolent saint who Gardens, and the buUder of Somerset House. I divided his cloak in two with his sword and gave do not know what Chambers did not say of St, half to a beggar (a sure proof the cloak wa6 no Martin's Church; he compared its portico to mackintosh, because half of that is no use) ? It that of the Pantheon at Rome, wluch certainly must have been a rude, wild age that thought has the same number of Corinthian columns. much of the deed of the French bishop. If old Savage, in his mad poem The Wanderer, burst Johnson had Uved in those times, and been out in boisterous bathos: seen carrying the poor dying street-walker up the greasy staircase leading to his chambers, he 0 Gibbs! whose art the solemn fane can raise would have been sainted at once, and Uterary Where God delights to dwell, and man to praise— men would now have a St. Johnson to pray to verses no more absurd than those of Words­ for second editions. But let us quietiy drop worth's sonnet— down the weU-shaft of a dozen centuries or Dear Jones, when you or I— so, to the quiet time when the place was but requiring some brave contempt for humorous mere extramural turf, pasturing quiet, xmam- association before they can be comfortably swal­ bitious generations of flowers, long famiUes of lowed, besides the confusion of the meaning as white-staarred daisies with the dearest possible to whether the church is where man praises, or is descent from the seeds that Adam brought a buUding that he praises, not to mention their from Paradise. Every now and then to be want of connexion with anything in the rambling spumed out, perhaps, by the broad hoofs of poem. We admit the compact beauty and unity tournament horses, or the hobnailed shoon of of the portico, as weU as the simpUcity and neat­ turbident countrymen, brought up by Cade and ness of the interior, but the steeple is a heap of other violent reformers. stone crushing in the porch, and there is no con­ What old St. Martin's church was Uke, we may trasting day and night of Ught and shade in the not know; it has passed into "air, thin air," or crudedidl buUding, with its upper and lower rather into the thick air of London, the murky, deck windows, its sham rustic work, and its rows coppery, witch smoke that wraps our Babel, Its of tea-urn ornaments. It looks dead and soul­ altars, tombs, and shrines are gone, its kaleido­ less, and with the handle of a steeple snapped scope windows, its starry chapels, the music off would be the very thing for an assembly- chamber of its beU-tower—gone, with the king room, which at present, with the staring royal who buUt it, and with his tmee great victims— arms cut in stone over the entrance, it not a Surrey the poet, Fisher the aged saint, and More Uttle resembles. phUosopher and statesman. Death is something Uke misfortune—it makes And now we have in its stead the pompous us acquainted with strange bedfeUows. There, fabric of pedant Gibbs, of Aberdeen; a man in snug vaulting, under those six ponderous learned, but without genius, who, in five years, black-and-white piUars, and that tower with and at a cost of 32,000/., buUt this lifeless church the bodkin holes through it to let out the beU with the besmoked pillars and the high steps, music, Ue as strange an assembly of incongruous grateful to beggar-boys. This is the dull, hard- people as Death ever invited to his sUent soiree. faced pedant, with the cataract of wig we know Here are met proud statesmen and,rich painters, by Hysing's portrait; Gibbs, the Uttle, pert, and play-writers and actors, the rouge all off, the squab-faced kindly man whom Hogarth drew, frown smoothed away, the sneer gone, aU and who designed the poet Prior's monument in wrapped in the grave-dress, that changes with the Abbey; Gibbs, tne hide-bound Aberdeen no fashion, that is cool enough for summer, and man, who went to Italy to learn how to copy and hot enough for winter. Here is Uvely Farquhar, to jabber about PaUacUo and Yitruvius ; Gibbs, the quondam officer; RoubiUiac, the great who buUt St. Mary's in the Strand, one of the sculptor and the friend of Garrick; John fifty new churches of his age, and who put to- Hunter (just removed); witty Bannister, the ether the RatcUffe Library and the Senate actor; the leamed Boyle, the contemporary of f[ouse, Gibbs, though a non-juror and a Scotch­ Newton; poor, kind-nearted NeU Gwynne; man—both suspicious circumstances in a rebel- Dobson, the painter, whom Vandyck dug out of Uous age, when many faces were straining their his garret; Secretary Coventry, and Mayeme, eyes over the water—was a kindly man, and was the leamed French physician of James I., who aided by Wren when that great Uttle man had was the first to write on the chemistry of colours, been disgraced at Court, and was Uving in stoic and gathered some of his receipts from the Ups ol retirement at Hampton Court ; he got churches Vandyck himself. to buUd when Vanbragh, that Swift and Pope If you wander up St. Maxtia's-lane now, not laughed at a Uttle unjustly, could not get one to altogether careful whether you waUc on the 2d [April M,18Sai ALL THE YEAR ROUND. mosaicked pavement or the striped pitchen, and drawing-school in the Strand, and did the designs careless of^the charge of those fiery Ruperts for Hanmer's smaU Shakspeare, Perhaps his and CavaUer drivers of London, the Hansom fellow-worker, Grignon, the engraver, is with cabmen, you wiU see here and there, amid lines him. Then there is Gwynn, the architect, who, of buff-coloured, mud-splashed, square-topped competed for Blackfriars-bridge, and buUt the houses, a residence that shows some signs of bridge at SaUsbury; he is a friend of old Dr. ancient grandeur—heavy brick cornices and long Johnson, who writes his prefaces for him, and fluted pilasters of a QuU red—which enables comes to see him in Leicester-fields, where you to fairly realise that in this lane, which then Hogarth Uves, with the gUt cork head over his had hedges flanking it, and a turnpike leading door. Then there is fat old Hudson, the fashion­ to Covent-garden, opposite Salisbury House, able portrait painter, who is such a poor stick that where tradition says the seven bishops lodged he has men to paint his drapery for him. He is before they went, a nosegay of martyrs, to the Hogarth's butt, the Uttle satirist caUs him "a Tower, dwelt aU sorts of plumed and starred fat-headed man," and loves to trick him with eat people of the time of Charles I., Charles sham Rembrandts, of which he has a rare coUee- S., and tiie early Georges. Raleigh's son, for tion. The "fat-head" Uves in Great Queen- instance; the poet Suckling, who sang so be- street. Next him is M'ArdeU, the engraver, witchingly of the country wedding in the Hay- who lives at the Gold BaU, in Henrietta- market ; ICenelm Digby, the eccentric chemist street; he engraves for Reynolds, who lauds and Platonist, of whose beautiful wife Ben Jon- him to the skies. He engravea for Hogarth brave son writes; the great demagogue ChanceUor, old Captain Coram, who reared the Foundling, Shaftesbury, who so nearly upset old Rowley, and died poor, but happy. Then there is that his master; Archbishop Tenison; Mayeme, mad, druiiken, clever Luke SuUivan, who etched James the First's quack physician; Ambrose the March to Finchley, who Uttle thinks now PhiUips, that Pope laughed at for his pastoral, that he wUl die in a garret half starved. But that (jray parodied; Mytens and Vandemost the why is not GardeUe, the portrait painter of Lei­ painters, and a host of others, FuseU, too, the cester-fields, here ? Because he is in the con­ wUd Swiss, who painted ghosts and monsters, demned ceU at Newgate for murdering his land­ Reynolds before he went to Great Newport- lady, and Hogarth goes to-morrow to sketch him street, and that duU Dorsetshire gentleman who in the fatal white cap. That quiet old feUow in Sainted the dome of St, Paul's, and whose the comer is old Moser, who manages the new aughter Hogarth married. Sir James ThomhUl, academy in the lane, in RoubUUac's rooms ; and Uvea here and died. those men just come in are fresh fromth e " Dons The room where a Quaker's meeting-house at the Bam" Club, opposite St. Martin's Church, now stands, is where the flighty French sculptor just by the watch-house. They are Snuth, a RoubUliac had his studio, it is in Peter's-court, pupU of RoubUUac's; blind Parry, the Welsh where, too, the first EngUsh academy had its harper, a great draughts player; Red-nosed meetings and classes, that Hogarth denounced WUson, a clever young landscape painter; and as likely to fiU the profession -with every boy Hayrnan, the painter whom Hogarth went to that could not afford to go to school. Calais with. And here especiaUy—for our room runs short Look now at the mountain heap of wicker before we have scarcely more than sketched the flasks on the floor; see the squat Schiedam present aspect of " the lane of St, Martin—" was bottles with the badges on them thrown by in a Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, the resort of aU the comer; observe the cloaks, and swords, and engravers and painters of Hogarth's cocked-hat wigs, and cocked-hats, hung on the weU-known time. Here, on his thumb-naU, he took down pegs. One feUow, though faUen on the floor, some of the humours of club life, such as he has stiU smgs "SaUy k our AUey." One is shown us in his "Midnight Conversation," asleep; another sets his ruffle on fire trying to where the two sandbank parsons are the only Ught his pipe. Two are moping back to back; persons sober at four o'clock in the morning. and yet lo f the door opens, and in comes another The chief visitors at Old Slaughter's, where, years smoking china caldron of punch. after, late, at the dusk, WUkie, pale and worn from his easel, used to steal in, are worth mentioning, On the 31st of May will be published, price as showing the society whom Hogarth loved to One Shilling, snap his sharp sayings at, and to drink and Uniform with PICKWICK, DAVID COPPEEBIELD, BLEAK laugh with. There was Isaac Ware, the old HOUSE, &c,, architect, whom, when a clumney-sweep, a gen­ The First Monthly Part of tleman had seen sketching the portico of St. Martin's Church with chalk on a waU, and upon A TALE OF TWO CITIES. that picked him up to study in Italy. There he BY CHARLES DICKENS. With Two Illustrations on Steel by HABIOT K. is with the inerasable stain of soot stiU on his BROWSE, old yeUow skin. He Uves in Bloomsbury- To be completed in Eight Monthly Parts. square, in the house where old D'IsraeU after­ CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly, W.. wards Uved, Next him is Gravelot, who keeps a ALL THE TEAK ROUND" Office, ii, -Wellington-street North, •W.C.

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FabUlhed «t the Office, No. 11, We'Jington Street North, Strand. Prini<><3 by C. Wtnmro, Beaofbrt S(nue,StraB4