gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said “those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she-and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars, that had been emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out-sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me—and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then great-uncle or grand-dame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene-so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country-of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimneypiece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts! till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was; how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion-and because I had more pleasure in strolling which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house, in a sort, while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grand-great-grandmother Field loved all her grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth children, yet in an especial manner she might be she was esteemed the best dancer-here Alice's said to love their uncle, John L, because he little right foot played an involuntary move- was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a ment, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted-king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight about among the old melancholy-looking yewtrees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at-or in lying about upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells around me --or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth-or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings; I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than. themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out-and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how their uncle grew up to man's means attractive-but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek-such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aërial ascents not sel dom anticipating the sun-rise ? I have a kindly yearning towards these din specks, poor blots, innocent blacknesses. I reverence these young Africans of our own growth-these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys,) in the nip. ping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind. When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to witness their operation! to see a chit no bigger than one's self, enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed the fauces Averni -to pursue him in imagination, as he went sounding on through so many dark stifling cav. erns, horrid shades !-to shudder with the idea that "now, surely he must be lost for ever!"— to revive at hearing his feeble shout of discovered day-light-and then (O fulness of delight!) running out of doors, to come just in time to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the brandished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved over a conquered citadel! I seem to remember having been told that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an awful spectacle certainly; not much unlike the old stage direction in Macbeth where the "Apparition of a child crowned, with a tree in his hand rises." estate, as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lamefooted boy-for he was a good bit older than me —many a mile, when I could not walk for pain; and how in after-life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him, when he was impatient, and in pain; nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me, when I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago-such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W- -n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial, meant in maidens-when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of representment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name' and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side-but John L. (or James-the only Salopian house-I have never yet venElia) was gone for ever. THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. I like to meet a sweep-understand me, not a grown sweeper-old chimney-sweepers are by no Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to give him twopence. If it be starving weather, and to the proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels (no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester. There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have understood to be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may relish it; for myself with every deference to the judicious Mr Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop (the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this "wholesome and pleasant beverage," on the south side of Fleet Street-as thou approachest Bridge Street tured to dip my own particular lip in a basin of his commended ingredients-a cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whispering to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates. U otherwise not uninstructed in dietetical elegan- parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation cies, sup it up with avidity. thy peace and pocket. I know not by what particular conformation of the organ it happens, but I have always found that this composition is surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-sweeper-whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners; or whether nature, sensible that she had mingled too much of bitter wood in the lot of these raw victims, caused to grow out of the earth her sassafras for a sweet lenitive-but so it is, that no possible taste or odour to the senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals-cats-when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy can inculcate. Now albeit Mr Read boasteth, not without reason, that his is the only Salopian house; yet be it known to thee, reader-if thou art one who keepest what are called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky dispense the same savoury mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest disconcerting of the former, for the honours of the pavement. It is the time when, in summer, between the expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'ernight vapours in more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he passeth; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast. I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts; the jeers and taunts of the populace; the low-bred triumph they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young sweep with something more than forgiveness. In the last winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up with pain and shame enough-yet outwardly trying to face it down, as if nothing had happened—when the roguish grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob, and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular, till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red eyes, red from many a previons weeping, and soot - enflamed, yet twinkling through all with such a joy, snatched out of desolation, that Hogarth but Hogarth has got him already (how could he miss him?) in the March to Finchley, grinning at the pie man-there he stood, as he stands in the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for everwith such a maximum of glee, and minimum of mischief, in his mirth—for the grin of a genuine sweep hath absolutely no malice in it-that I could have been content, if the honour of a gen tleman might endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till midnight. I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the ladies must pardon me) is a casket presumably holding such jewels; but, methinks, they should take leave to "air" them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentleman, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display (even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifications, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when A sable cloud Turns forth her silver lining on the night. It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct; a badge of better days; a hint of nobil This is saloop-the precocious herb-woman's darling the delight of the early gardener, who transports his smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to Covent Garden's famed piazzas-the delight, and oh! I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him shouldst thou haply encounter, with his dim visage pen-ity: and, doubtless, under the obscuring dark. dent over the grateful steam, regale him with a ness and double night of their forlorn disguisesumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three- ment, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and gentle halfpennies) and a slice of delicate bread and conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a butter (an added halfpenny)-so may thy cul- lapsed pedigree. The premature apprenticeinary fires, eased of the o'er-charged secretions ments of these tender victims give but too much from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a encouragement, I fear, to clandestine and almost lighter volume to the welkin-so may the des- infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and cending soot never taint thy costly well-in- true courtesy, so often discernible in these young gredienced soups-nor the odious cry, quick-grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly reaching from street to street, of the fired chimney, invite the rattling engines from ten adjacent hint at some forced adoptions; many noble Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of good fortune out of many irreparable and hopeless defiliations. In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since-under a ducal canopy-(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially a connoisseur)-encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry coronets inwoven - folded between a pair of sheets whiter and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius-was discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noonday, fast asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber; and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young Howard. Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle. But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such a penalty as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets of a duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an obvious couch, still far above his pretensions-is this probable, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapped by his mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found, into which he was now but creeping back as into his proper incunabula, and resting-place. By no other theory than by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it), can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any other system so indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable, sleeper. My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with a belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place, that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney-sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield, upon the yearly return of the fair of St Bartholomew. Cards' were | issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and about the metropolis, confirming the invitation to their younger fry. Now and then an elderly stripling would get in among us, and be good. naturedly winked at; but our main body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, indeed, who, relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our party, but by tokens was providen tially discovered in time to be no chimneysweeper (all is not soot which looks so), was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation, as not having on the wedding garment; but in general the greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of the fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable hubbub of that vanity; but remote enough not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. James White, as head waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion Bigod, ordinarily ministered to the other two. There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who should get at the first tablefor Rochester in his maddest days could not have done the humours of the scene with more spirit than my friend. After some general expression of thanks for the honour the company had done him, his inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and fretting, halfblessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the universal host would set up a shout that tore the concave, while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with their brightness. Oh, it was a pleasure to see the sable younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous sayings-how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths, reserving the length. ier links for the seniors-how he would intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado, declaring it "must to the pan again to be browned, for it was not fit for a gentleman's eating"-how he could recommend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissingcrust, to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony, how genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good, he should lose their custom; with a special recommendation to wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts-"The King," "the Cloth," which, whether they understood or not, was equally diverting and flattering; and for a crowning sentiment, which Lever failed, "May the Brush supersede the Laurel!" All these, and fifty other fancies, which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests, would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young orphans; every now and then staffing into his mouth (for it did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscriminate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the entertainment. "Golden lads and lasses must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust-" James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died-of my world at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him, reproach the altered feast of St Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield departed for ever. begging for an obolum? Would the moral have been more graceful, more pathetic? The blind beggar in the legend--the father of pretty Bessy-whose story doggrel rhymes and alehouse signs cannot so degrade or attenuate, but that some sparks of a lustrous spirit will shine through the disguisements-this noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he was) and memor. able sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence of his liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green of Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his side, illumining his rags and his beggary-would the child and parent have cut a better figure, doing the honours of a counter, or expiating their fallen condition upon the three-foot eminence of some sempstering shop-board? In tale or history your beggar is ever the just antipode to your king. The poets and romanci. cal writers (as dear Margaret Newcastle would call them), when they would most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never stop till they have brought down their hero in good earnest to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates the height he falls from. There is no medium which can be presented to the imagination without offence. There is no breaking the fall. Lear, thrown from his palace, must divest him of his garments, till he answer "mere nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation-your only modern Alcides' club to rid the time of its abuses-is uplift with manyhanded sway to extirpate the last fluttering tat-prince's love, must extend her pale arms, pale ters of the bugbear MENDICITY from the metropolis. Scrips, wallets, bags-staves, dogs, and crutches-the whole mendicant fraternity with all their baggage, are fast posting out of the purlieus of this eleventh persecution. From the crowded crossing, from the corners of streets and turnings of alleys, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing sent." with other whiteness than of beauty, supplicating lazar alms with bell and clap-dish. The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a converse policy, when they would express scorn of greatness without the pity, they show us an Alexander in the shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis getting up foul linen. How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker! yet do we feel the imagination at all violated when we read the "true ballad," where King Cophetua woos the beggar maid? I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this impertinent crusado, or bellum ad exterminationem, proclaimed against a species. Much good might be sucked from these beggars. They were the oldest and the honourablest form of pauperism. Their appeals were to our com- Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions mon nature; less revolting to an ingenious mind of pity, but pity alloyed with contempt. No than to be a suppliant to the particular humours one properly contemns a beggar. Poverty is a or caprice of any fellow-creature, or set of fellow-comparative thing, and each degree of it is creatures, parochial or societarian. Theirs were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in the assessment. There was a dignity springing from the very depth of their desolation; as to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man, than to go in livery. The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; amd when Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel anything towards him but contempt? Could Vandyke have made a picture of him swaying a ferula for a sceptre which would have affected our minds with the same heroic pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we regard his Belisarius | mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his triflebigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the meas. ure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostentation above his means, No one |