the grave and the gay, to alternate, and as we have not yet attained the enviable consummately cool assurance of a finished maitre de cuisine (mentale), it is with all due diffidence we serve up to your intellectual palate the first (and we are willing to believe, the worst) dish that comes to hand of the comprehensive course which we entitle

The Cockney's Story and its Sequel. By the author of "The Pirate's Doom," &c.

"I am a cockney, sir. I care not who knows it. I have lived one, and, please Heaven, will die one."

"Pithy and explicit enough."

7

"Oh, I can dilate. I was born within sound of Bow bells and of Tower guns within sight of the shipping-within the city of London. Without the first ringing, without the second firing, without the third hoisting their flags, without the fourth being at all sensible of the (to me) important event. At a proper age articled to an eminent Lombard-street house, and have ever lived like my fellow clerks-go to the theatres or opera when I can get a ticket-never miss a Lord Mayor's show-saunter in the parks on Sundays to see and be seen, and calculate the wealth of the nation by the number of carriages therein airing -and am well grounded in three opinions-that I cannot be overreached, that London contains in itself all that is worth living for, and that the height of all worldly ambition centres in the person of my Lord Mayor. On holidays I usually take a trip in a river steamer, never going higher than Richmond, or lower than Woolwich. I have repudiated Greenwich fair since I heard Alderman Ophir, the great Baltic merchant, observe in our office, that the resort had grown very low."

"You have no friends to visit in the country, I presume?" 'Oh, you mistake. I have an uncle on my mother's side, a large tenant farmer in Lincolnshire; who boasts that he has reared more pigs, children, and geese, than any other man in any of the shires. He has regularly invited me for the last ten or a dozen years to spend a week at Christmas with them, but I as regularly declined until this last season, when he was uncommonly urgent, and the letter being backed by more 'cousins' signatures than there are M. P.'s in the anti-corn-law league, strongly seconding the appeal, I was weak enough to get leave of absence, and, packing up my duds, tumbled down to the fens.

But if ever they catch me sipping the sweets of their beautiful country again, may I never be of the Livery!"

Here he paused, and I will take advantage of that pause to tell you that the colloquy was held in a London tavern, where I accidentally met and entered into conversation with the stranger, who really looked like what he so frankly announced himself to be-a genuine cockney. He uttered the last sentence with such earnest volubility, and threw such a meaning into his shrewd features, that I involuntarily begged him to favour me with a circumstantial relation of his visit.

"Willingly," said he, drawing a little nearer, "and in as condensed a form as I can. Me voici in first rate travelling trim-none of your Moses' slops-journeying by coach to Boston, jambed between two jolly old farmers fat as their own prize cattle, who were in raptures at the sight and scent of hogpens and homesteads: stoutly pronouncing the dead level monotonous country through which many miles of the road lay, as affording the finest prospects in the world.'

"And so I firmly believe they were in their eyes. They assailed me on each side during the whole journey, with sapient discourse all about the Premier and patent cyphons, state of the country and Stow-green fair, state trials and agricultural meetings, guano and anti-corn-law league; prefacing and breaking every pause by the confident remark that the oldest man living' never knew such warm weather at Christmas before.* Well may you say so! thought I, with such coatings of broadcloth and of blubber; and my constant reply was a wheeze and a cough, a shiver and a nestle as far back as the mountains of flesh permitted. But that is a dark cell indeed which does not admit one little glimpse of light, so, accordingly, I found comfort in the reflection that should the coach topple over (of which there seemed some likelihood) how nicely would my fall be broken!

"Arrived at Boston, cold and cramp had nearly done the work of a Derbyshire petrifaction, and I made more essays than George Wilson, Esq. has awarded prizes to, ere my stiffened limbs managed to stagger on to terra firma. Just as this feat was achieved, a huge, red-whiskered, round-headed, broad-brim'd, broad-backed, blue-coated, be-gatered homo, came striding up as if he was wending his way over a ploughed field. His left arm was thrust up to the elbow in the corresponding breeches pocket, and in his right

*It will be proper to state that the mild winter referred to was that of '43.

fist he grasped a crab stick-bludgeon, I mean-with a knob about the size the ball on St. Paul's appears to the eye of the spectator from below. This tried compagnon de voyage he flourished before my twinkling visual organs, as he demanded if I was not Charlie Ledger?

"Ye-s,' faltered I, half afraid of it coming in instant contact with my day book, as well as ledger. 'Yes.'-With galvanic velocity a joyful gleam sprang telegraphically from feature to feature, until the whole vast frontispiece teemed with expression, and up flew the brawny arm from its holiday retreat to an unnatural elevation, where it quivered a moment to shake the kindred fingers apart, when down came the palm on my shoulder with an horse power that would have floored Bendigo himself: while the chest bellowed forth-Welcome, Charlie! welcome, my boy! And how does thee do?'

"It was uncle William !

"How did I do! Why, stunned-frozen-sprawling in the court-yard to the great amusement of the bystanders, and labouring under the present, but happily unfounded, conviction that either my shoulder blade was dislocated or collar bone broken, We had not seen each other for years, and he had come from M- Fen, as per appointment, with a horse and cart to convey me straight to my destination. The distance was some eight or ten miles, and after a brief stay (not half long enough to thaw me) off we started. He was in high glee-in a rattling good humour with the whole world; and praised the weather for being so propitious to my visit-praised the road-praised the horse-praised the cart-praised everything. Our last three miles lay along a narrow lane, which having been very miry and much cut up previous to the frost, was rutted deep as the axletree in such novel geometrical lines and curves, that old Euclid's heart would have leapt at the sight; and frozen clods, as hard and almost as large as nether millstones were quite plenty as blackberries.' With an heavy foreboding I found myself entering this defile, more terrific to me, I dare say, than Khoord-Cabul would be to the Staffordshire Queen's Own. Nor was my estimate of its horrors 'one infant shade erroneous,' (to use the correct language of an accomplished Aldermanic official accountant) nor had I braced one nerve too many to meet them with proportionate firmness. Hardly had we advanced a stone's cast, when one wheel rose perpendicularly two feet above the level (if there was any!) and the other sank two feet below it, instantly laying our vehicle on the beam ends, as Napier would

say, and unceremoniously pitching my uncle William into the off-side ditch and I upon him. He bore the mortifying fall with a Fenman's philosophy. A rough tumble's good for the blood -keeps it from stagnating!' said he then raising his voiceWhoy! Beauty, whoy! Beauty my darling, I say, who-oy!' But Beauty, like many bipeds, as well as quadrupeds, felt marvellously inclined to jog on in single blessedness; and, knowing she was homeward-bound, heeded not the voice of the charmer, but shogged on despite his lavish use of the most endearing epithets, until the wheels jambed in two narrowing ruts which brought all up jumping!' Off we again went, shig-shog! bumpity bump! now pitched forward on my nose, then (before I had time to rub it) let down backwards into the body of the cart, and when you consider that my features made an original contortion at every fresh shock, you won't think me boastful in asserting that in one class of expressions I infinitely out-grimaced the Grimacier.' Uncle seemed to experience little inconvenience, and episodically kept exclaiming- There's many ups and downs in the world, but a light heart and a thin pair of breeches, as the old song says, makes all smooth as sand paper" but I-ah! didn't I suffer a genuine martyrdom? What would I not have given for a lift by Henson's Ariel! For the last quarter of an hour numbness nearly closed the lips of pain with chaste arctic kisses, and, bruised to the consistency of freshmade jelly, I was fast becoming insensible even of locomotion (the reverse of the mania of the day) when suddenly turning a bend in the lane he drew sharp up with a jerk (that unseated me for the last time) plump before his farm house, a long, low, scrambling pile of white-washed buildings, which looked as if they had originally been huge snowdrifts turned without alteration of shape into stone. Two great open-mouthed dogs came bellowing forth, like wide-awake guardian genii as they were, and (as no bipeds appeared on the instant) gentle uncle William vociferated in a key that swallowed up their howls as completely as the whale did Jonah;-Hollo Jack! Bill! Dick! Tom! and half a score more of ye, where have ye hid yourselves, unmannerly whelps as you are? Here! I've brought your cousin Charley from Lon'on. Tell the old woman.' And the whole pack, thus summoned, came yelping out, screaming their joy; and fastening on me like so many dogs on a dead sheep, squeezed what little sense of feeling remained in my hands out, tore me from the cart, and hustled me into the house.

'My good aunt soon came, and after an old-fashioned em

brace, seated me within the huge jaws of the open chimney, and heaping on as much wood as would have warmed both houses of parliament during the coldest debate, soon roasted-I mean restored me to animation; but that very warmth, alas! brought with it a sting; for as the cold had before prevented my fully appreciating the virtue of my bruises, in like manner did the heat relax every tingling muscle, and I found myself, as uncle very complacently said, 'all in a piece'-of soreness. But I was assured it would soon go off,' and therefore made no more wry faces than I could help. So far as eatables and drinkables were concerned, I was from first to last well nigh killed with kindness. First there was tea and coffee, hot cakes, and cold bread-and-butter; eggs and a rasher of home-cured bacon served up on a round of suspiciously dark looking toast; but as it had been 'done' on 'Baines' Patent Toaster,' of course I must have been in error. Before this had well settled, roast, baked, and boiled; frizzled and fried; hot and cold; water, wine, and home-brewed; were successively forced upon me, each with an especial recommendation), until my reluctant stomach contained a sample of the productions of every quarter of the globe. And when I absolutely would not (simply because I could not) swallow more, aunty observed, with a sagacious nod-' Ay, Charley my lad, like all Lon'oners, thou eats only just enough to keep body and soul together, but by thee 's been a week in the country thee 'll begin to get an appetite!' Begin! be-gin!-then though I've devoured as much condiment as Aldermen Gobble and Waddle conjointly do at a civic feast, I'm not considered to have shown even an approach to an appetite!

"In the course of the evening three antiquated maiden aunts, sisters of my mother, who lived together a mile off, dropped in, severally bestowing on me a Lincolnshire hug in the most approved style. They were as dry as Scotch snuff, and almost as high flavoured; so I disengaged myself soon as I could, which was not before the ascendant stars had vouchsafed a nearer view of the glories of strangulation than I ever hope to look upon again. They so overwhelmed me, too, with questions (the greater number of which they answered themselves in the same breath) that from my palpitator's core did I wish cousin Bill (who had run over to them with the news of my arrival), in Kentucky.

"At length the blessed hour of release arrived, and I was conducted by winding passages, creaking staircases, and devious routes, (strongly reminding me of the 'castle of the Pyrenees') to my dormitory. "Twas a very pilgrimage, considering the