Then let them sow their crop of cares, Their flowers, their weeds, their fruit, their tares, Not looking ere they leap. We, like the folks in Jamie's book{11} Will i' the dark sharp up our hook, And, my own Barnard, reap.

9 Dr. S————-e, a very singular, but a very hearty kind of Caleb Quotem. He has been soldier, and sailor, doctor, and, I believe, divine. He is as well known at the best parties as the Wells and the Market-house. He gives feasts fit for the gods at home, and invariably credits his neighbours' viands as being Jove's nectar or the fruits of Paradise, so as to him they be not forbidden. Short commons could not upset his politeness. His anecdotes have a spice of the old courtier about them; but the line old chanson a boire, from Gammar Gurton's Needle,

"Back and side go bare, go bare, Both foot and hand go cold; But belly, God send good ale enough, Whether it be new or old;"

he really gives beautifully, and with a spice of the olden time quite delightful.

10 Mr. Naylor, of the Plough hotel; an excellent Boniface, a good friend, and a merry companion. As a boy, I recollect him keeping the Castle at Marlborough; at "frisky eighteen," I have contributed to his success at the Crown at Portsmouth; and I now, older, and it may be, a little wiser grown, patronize him occasionally at Cheltenham.

11 Vide Hogg's Brownie of Bodsbeck.



A TRIP TO THE SPAS.

~243~~

CHAPTER II.

The Spas—Medicinal Properties—Interesting specimens of the Picturesque—"Spasmodic Affections from Spa Waters"— Grotesque Scripture—The Goddess Hygeia—Humorous Epitaph— Characters in the High Street—Traveller's Hall, or Sketches in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn, Cheltenham.

"For walks and for waters, for beaux and for belles, There's nothing in nature to rival their wells."

Inquisitive traveller, if you would see the Well-walks in perfection, you must rise early, and take a sip of the saline aperients before you taste of the more substantial meal which the Plough-man. Naylor, or the Cheltenham Bell-man, or the Shep-herd of the Fleece, will be sure to prepare for your morning mastication. Fashion always requires some talismanic power to draw her votaries together, beyond the mere healthful attractions of salubrious air, pleasant rides, romantic scenery, and cheerful society; and this magnet the Chelts possess in the acknowledged medicinal properties of their numerous spas, the superior qualities of which have been thus pleasantly poetized:—

"They're a healthful, and harmless, and purgative potion, And as purely saline as the wave of the ocean, Whilst their rapid effects like a—— ——Hush! never mind; We'll leave their effects altogether behind."

In short, if you wish to obtain benefit by the drinking of the waters, you must do it dulcius ex ipso fonte, as my Lord Bottle-it-out's system, the nobleman who originally planned the Well-walks, of sending it home ~244~~to the drinkers in bed, has long since been completely exploded; while, on the other hand, its rapid effects have been very faithfully delineated by my friend Transit's view of the Royal Wells, as they appeared on the morning of our visitation, presenting some very interesting specimens of the picturesque in the Cruikshank style, actually drawn upon the spot, and affording to the eye of a common observer the most indubitable proofs of the active properties of the

Sulphate of soda, and oxide of iron, And gases, that none but the muse of a Byron Would attempt to describe in the magic of sound, Lest it made a report ere he'd quitted the ground; And poets are costive, as all the world knows, And value no fame that smells under their nose.

"Would you like to take off a glass of the waters, sir?" said a very respectable-looking old lady to my friend Transit, who was at that moment too busily engaged in taking off the water-drinkers to pay attention to her request. "There's a beautiful contortion!" exclaimed Bob; sketching a beau who exhibited in his countenance all the horrors of cholera, and was running away as fast as his legs could carry him. "See, with what alacrity the old gentleman is moving off yonder, making as many wry faces as if he had swallowed an ounce of corrosive sublimate—and the ladies too, bless me, how their angelic smiles evaporate, and the roseate bloom of their cheeks is changed to the delicate tint of the lily, as they partake of these waters. What an admirable school for study is this! here we can observe every transition the human countenance is capable of expressing, from a ruddy state of health and happiness, to one of extreme torture, without charging our feelings with violence, and knowing that the pains are those of the patient's own seeking, and the penalties not of any long duration." In short, my friend Bob furnished, instanter, the subject of "Spasmodic Affections from, ~245~~Spa Waters," (see plate); certainly one of his most spirited efforts.



But we must not pass by the elegant structure of Montpelier Spa, the property of Pearson Thompson, esquire, whose gentlemanly manners, superior talents, and kind conduct, have much endeared him to all who know him as an acquaintance, and more to those who call him their friend. Passing on the left-hand side of the upper well-walk, we found ourselves before this tasteful structure, and were much delighted with the arrangement of the extensive walks and grounds by which it is surrounded:—a health-inspiring spot, and as we are told,

"Where Thompson's supreme and immaculate taste Has a paradise form'd from a wilderness waste; With his walks rectilineous, all shelter'd with trees, That shut out the sunshine and baffle the breeze, And a field, where the daughters of Erin{12}may roam In a fence of sweet-brier, and think they're at home."

The Sherborne Spa, but recently erected, is indeed a very splendid building, and forms a very beautiful object from the High-street, from which it is plainly seen through a grove of trees, forming a vista of nearly half a mile in length, standing on a gentle eminence, presenting on both sides gravelled walks, with gardens and elegant buildings, that display great taste in architecture. The Pump-room is a good specimen of the Grecian Ionic, said to be correctly modelled from the temple on the river Ilissus at Athens, and certainly is altogether a work worthy of admiration. The grotesque colossal piece of sculpture which crowns the central dome, as well as the building, has been wittily described by the author of the "Cheltenham Mail."

12 The great number of Irish families who reside and congregate at Cheltenham fully justifies the poet's particular allusion to the fair daughters of Erin.

~246~~

"And then lower down, in fine Leckampton stone, We've the fane of Ilissus in miniature shown; And crown'd with Hygeia—a bouncer, my lud! And as plump, ay, as any princess of the blood, Carved in stone, but a good imitation of wood: With her vest all in plaits, like some ancient costume, But or Roman or Grecian, I'm loth to presume, So I cannot be poz yet I blush to confess, That her limbs are shown off in a little undress; Whilst the goddess herself, en bon point as she is, With her curls a la Grecque, and but little chemise, Is so plump and so round, my dear sir, it is plain, She must bring the robust into fashion again."

Coming back through the churchyard from Alstone Spa, we discovered the following humorous epitaph.

"Here lies John Ball; An unfortunate fall, By crossing a wall, Brought him to his end."

Peace to his manes! But, with such a notice above him to excite attention, it is well he hears not, or ten times a clay his sleep might be sadly disturbed. Once more we are in the High Street, where I shall just sketch two or three singularities, without which my notice of the eccentrics of Cheltenham might be deemed imperfect.

The dashing knight coming this way on horseback, with his double-pommelled saddle, is a well-known Cheltenham resident, whose love of the good things of this world induced him to look into the kitchen for a helpmate, and he found one, who not only supplies his table with excellent dishes, but also furnishes the banquet with a liberal quantity of sauce. The group of roues to the right, standing under the portico (I suppose I must call it) to the rooms, is composed of that good-humoured fellow Ormsby, who sometimes figures here as an amateur actor, and, whether on or off the stage, is generally respected for the amiable qualities of his heart. The 247~gentleman with the blue bauble round his neck is, or was, a lieutenant-colonel, and still loves to fire a great gun now and then, when he gets into the trenches before Seringapatam; but I must leave others to unriddle the character, while I pay my respects to another military hero, who is no less famous among the Chelts for his attachment to the stage—Lieutenant-colonel B*****ll, of whom it would be difficult for any one who knew him to speak disrespectfully. Sir John N****tt and his son, who are here called the inseparables, finish the picture upon this spot, with the exception of my old friend the jack of trumps, R*l*y, whose arch-looking visage I perceive peeping out like the first glance of a court card in the rear of a bad hand; but let him pass: the mirror of the English Spy reflects good qualities as well as bad ones, and I should not do him justice if I denied him a fair proportion of both. Descending to observe the eccentrics in a more humble sphere, who can pass by the dandy candy man with his box of sweetmeats, clean in person as a new penny, and his sturdy figure most religiously decorated with lawn sleeves, and a churchman's tablier in front; while his ruddy weather-beaten countenance, and hairy foraging cap, give him the appearance of a Scotch presbyterian militant in the days of the covenanters. Then, too, his wares cure all diseases, from a ravaging consumption to a frame-shaking hooping cough; and not unlikely are as efficacious as the nostrums of the less Mundivagant professors of patent empiricism. Of all men in the world your coach cad has the quickest eye for detecting a stranger; and who but Sam Spring, the box-book keeper of Drury Lane, whose eternal bow has grown proverbial, could ask an impudent question with more politeness than Mr. Court, the charge de affaires in the High Street, for the conflicting interests of half a hundred coach proprietors 1 "Do you travel to-day, sir?—Very happy to send for your luggage—Go by the early coach, sir?—Our porter ~248~~shall call you up, only let me put you down at our office." Thus actually bowing you into his book a week before you had any serious intention of travelling, by the very circumstance of reminding you of the mode by which you intend to reach home. I could add to these sketches a few singularities among the trading brotherhood of the Chelts; but we may meet again: and after all it would, perhaps, be considered invidious to point out the honest tradesman to public notice, merely because he has caught something of the eccentricities of his betters, or, like them, is led away by the force of example.

ERRATA.

In Chapter I, page 223, Contents, dele hi, and for Penn, read pun. The Man in the Cloak, noble Anecdote of, instead of the Fox* hunting Parson,—Printer.



TRAVELLER'S HALL.

~249~~

Sketches in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn, Cheltenltam—The Traveller's Ordinary—Trade Puns—Bolton Trotters and Trottees—Song, All the Booksellers—Curious Sporting Anecdote of a Commercial Man—Song, The Knight of the Saddle Bags—Private Theatricals in Public—Visit to the Oakland Cottages, a Night Scene.

An invitation to dine with the traveller to a London house in the paper and print line, yclept booksellers, introduced the English Spy and his friend, the artist, to the scene here presented (see plate).



Reader, if you wish to make a figure among the Chelts and be thought any thing of, you will, of course, domicile at the Plough; but if your object is a knowledge of life, social conversation, a great variety of character, and a never-failing fund of mirth and anecdote, join the gentleman travellers who congregate at the Bell or the Fleece, where you will meet with merry fellows, choice viands, good wine, excellent beds, and a pretty chambermaid into the bargain. Your commercial man is often a fellow of infinite jest, a travelling vocabulary of provincial knowledge, and a faithful narrator of the passing events of the time. Who can speak of the increasing prosperity, or calculate upon the falling interests of a town, so well as your flying man of business 1 The moment he enters a new place he expects the landlord to be ready, cap in hand, to welcome him; he first sees his horse into a stall, and lectures the ostler upon the art of rubbing him down—orders boots to 250~bring in his travelling bags or his driving box, and bids the waiter send the chambermaid to show him his bed-room—grumbles that it is too high up, has no chimney in the apartment, or is situate over the kitchen or the tap-room—swears a tremendous oath that he will order his baggage to be taken to the next house, and frightens the poor girl into the giving him one of the best bed-apartments, usually reserved for the coffee-room company. Returning below, he abuses the waiter for not giving him his letters, that have been waiting his arrival a week, before he went up stairs—directs boots to be ready to make the circuit of the town with him after dinner, carrying his pattern-books, perhaps half a hundred-weight of Birmingham wares, brass articles, or patterns of coffin furniture; and having thus succeeded in putting the whole house into confusion, only to let them know that the Brummagem gentleman has arrived on his annual visit to the Chelts, with a new stock of every thing astonishing in the brass line, he places himself down at a side table, to answer to his principals for being some days later on his march than they had concluded—remits a good sum in bills and acceptances, and adds thereunto a sheet of orders, that will suffice to keep the firm in good temper for a week to come: sometimes, indeed, the postscript contains a hint of an expected "whereas," or strong suspicions of an act of insolvency, but always couched in the most consolatory terms, hoping the dividend will turn out to be better than present circumstances might lead them to expect. In his visits to his customers he is the most courteous, obliging fellow imaginable; there is no trouble he thinks too much if he is likely to obtain his last account and a fresh order; then, too, his generosity is unbounded: he invites the tradesman to take wine with him at his inn, inquires kindly after all the family, hopes business is thriving, makes an offer of ~251~~doing any thing for him along the road, and bows himself and his pattern-cards out of the shop, with as much humility and apparent sense of obligation as the most expert courtier could put on when his sovereign deigns to confer upon him some special mark of his royal favour. It is at his inn alone that his independence breaks forth, and here he often assumes as much consequence as if he was the head of the firm he represents, and always carried about him a plum at least in his breeches pocket. This is a general character, and one, too, formed upon no slight knowledge of commercial men; but with all this, the man of the world will admire them and seek their company; first, that his accommodations are generally better, and the charges not subject to the caprice of the landlord; and, secondly, for the sake of society; for what on earth can be more horrible than to be shut up in a lone room, a stranger in a provincial town, to eat, drink, and pass the cheerless hour, a prey to solitude and ennui?

But there is sometimes a little fastidiousness about these knights of the saddle-bag, in admitting a stranger to hob and nob with them; to prevent a knowledge, therefore, of our pursuits, my friend Bob was instructed, before entering the room, to sink the arts, and if any inquisitive fellow should inquire what line he travelled in, to reply, in the print line; while your humble servant, it was agreed, should represent some firm in the spring trade; and thus armed against suspicion, we boldly marched into the commercial-room just as the assembled group of men of business were sitting down to dinner, hung our hats upon a peg, drew our chairs, uninvited, to the table, fully prepared to feel ourselves at home, and do ample justice to the "bagmen's banquet."

The important preliminary point settled, of whom the duty of chairman devolved on, a situation, as I understood, always filled in a commercial room by ~252~~the last gentleman traveller who makes it his residence, we proceeded to business. The privilege of finding fault with the dinner, which, by the by, was excellent, is always conceded to the ancients of the fraternity of traders; these gentlemen who, having been half a century upon the road, remember all the previous proprietors of the hotel to the fifteenth or twentieth generation removed, make a point of enumerating their gracious qualities upon such occasions, to keep the living host and representative up to the mark, as they phrase it. For instance—the old buck in the chair, who was a city tea broker, found fault with the fish: "There vas nothing of that ere sort to be had good but at Billingsgate, where all the best fish from all the vorld vas, as he contended, to be bought cheaper as butcher's meat." The result of which remark induced the young wags at the table to finish a very fine brill, without leaving him a taste, while he was abusing it. "This soup is not like friend Birch's," said Mr. Obadiah Pure, a gentleman in the drug line; "it hath a watery and unchristianlike taste with it." "Ay," replied a youngster at the bottom of the table, with whom it appeared to be in request, "I quake for fear while I am eating it, only I know there can be no drugs in it, or you would not find fault with a customer." "Thou art one of the newly imported, friend," replied Mr. Pure, "and art yet like a young bear, with all thy troubles to come." "True," said the wag, "thou may be right, friend; but I shall not be found a bruin with thy materials for all that." This sally put down the drug merchant for the rest of the dinner-time. "You had better take a little fish or soup before they are cold," said the chairman, to a bluff-looking beef-eater at his back, who was arranging his papers and samples. "Sir, I never eat warm wittals, drink hot liquors, wear a great coat, or have my bed warmed." "The natural heat of your ~253~~constitution, I suppose, excuses you," said I, venturing upon a joke. "Sir, you had better heat your natural meal, while it is hot, without attempting to heat other people's tempers," was the reply; to which Bob retorted, by saying, "It was quite clear the gentleman was not mealy-mouthed." "This beef smells a little of Hounslow Heath," said a jeweller's gentleman, on my right. "Why so, sir?" was inquired by one who knew him. "Because it has hung rather too long to be sightly." "You should not have left out the chains in that joke, Sam," said his friend; "they would have linked it well together, and sealed the subject." "Who takes port?" inquired the chairman. "I must sherry directly after dinner, gentlemen," said one. "What," retorted the company, "boxing the wine bin! committing treason, by making a sovereign go farther than he is required by law. Fine him, Mr. Chairman." "Gentlemen, it is not in my power; he is a bottle conjuror, I assure you, 'a good man and true;' he only retires to bleed a patient, and will return instanter." "Happy to take a glass of wine with you, sir." "What do you think of that port, sir?" "Excellent." "Ay, I knew you would say so; the house of Barnaby Blackstrap, Brothers, and Company, of Upper Thames Street, have always been famous for selling wines of the choicest vintage. Do me the honour, sir, of putting a card of ours in your pocket: I sent this wine into this house in Jennings's time, for the grand dinner, when the first stone of the new rooms over the way was laid, and John Kelly, the proprietor, took the chair. You are lucky, sir, in meeting me here; they always pull out an odd bottle from the family bin, marked A—1, when I visit them." "Yes, and some odd sort of wine at any other time," grumbled out a queer-looking character at a side table opposite. "That's nothing but spleen, Mr. Sable," said the knight of the ruby countenance: "you and I have met occasionally at this house together now for three and twenty years; and although I never ~254~~come a journey without taking an order from them, I thank heaven, I never knew you to receive one yet: many a dead man have we seen in this room, but none of them requiring a coffin plate to tell their age, and very few of them that were like to receive the benefit of resurrection." "I shall book you inside, Mr. Blackstrap,'' replied Sable, "for joking on my articles of trade, which is contrary to the established usage of a commercial room." "Do any thing you like but bury me," said the bon vivant." Gentlemen, as chairman, it is my duty to put an end to all grave subjects. Will you be kind enough to dissect that turkey?" "I don't see the bee's wing in this port, Mr. Blackstrap, that you are bouncing about," said a London traveller to a timber-merchant. "No, sir," said the humorist, "it is not to be seen until you are a deal higher in spirits; the film of the wing is seldom discernible in such mahogany-coloured wine as this." "Sir, I blush like rose wood at your impertinence." "Ay, sir, and you'll soon be as red as logwood, or as black as ebony, if you will but do justice to the bottle," was the reply. "There is no being cross-grained with you," said the timber-merchant. "Not unless you cut me," retorted Blackstrap, "and you are not sap enough for that." "Gentlemen," continued the facetious wine-merchant, "if we do not get a little fruit, I shall think we have not met with our dessert; and although there may be some among us whose principals are worth a plum, there are very few of their representatives, I suspect, who will offer any objections to my reasons." Thus pleasantly apostrophised, the fruit made its appearance, and with it a fresh supply of the genuine Oporto, which our merry companion, Blackstrap, called "his old particular." One of his stories, relative to a joke played off upon the Bolton trotters, by his friend Sable, the travelling undertaker, is too good to be lost. In Lancashire the custom of hoaxing is called ~255~~trotting, and in many instances, particularly at Bolton, is still continued, and has frequently been played off upon strangers with a ruinous success. Sable had, it would appear, taken up his quarters at a commercial inn, and, as is usual with travellers, joined the tradesmen in the smoking room at night to enjoy his pipe, and profit, perhaps, by introduction in the way of business. The pursuit of the undertaker and dealer in coffin furniture was no sooner made generally known, than it was unanimously agreed to trot him, by giving him various orders for articles in his line, which none of the parties had any serious intention of paying for or receiving. With this view, one ordered a splendid coffin for himself, and another one for his wife; a third gave instructions for an engraved plate and gilt ornaments; and a fourth chose to order an elegant suite of silver ornaments to decorate the last abode of frail mortality: in this way the company were much amused with the apparent unsuspecting manner of Sable, who carefully noted down all their orders, and pledged himself to execute them faithfully. The Bolton people did not fail to circulate this good joke, as they then thought it, among their neighbours, and having given fictitious names, expected to have had additional cause for exultation when the articles arrived; but how great was their surprise and dismay, when in a short time every order came, directed properly to the person who had given it! Coffins and coffin-plates, silk shrouds and velvet palls, and all the expensive paraphernalia of the charnel-house were to be seen carried about from the waggon-office in Bolton, to be delivered at the residences of the principal inhabitants. Many refused to receive these mementoes of their terrestrial life, and others denied having ever ordered the same. Sable, however, proved himself too fast a trotter for the Bolton people; for having, by the assistance of the waiter, obtained the true description of his ~256~~customers on the night of the joke, and finding they were most of them wealthy tradesmen, he very wisely determined to humour the whim, and execute the orders given, and in due course of time insisted upon payment for the same. Thus ended the story of the Bolton trotters, which our merry companion concluded, by observing, that it put an end to sporting, in that way, for some time; and by the chagrin it caused to many of the trottees, distanced them in this life, and sent them off the course in a galloping consumption.{1} "There's honour for you," said Sable, "civilized a

1 A Bolton definition.—When the Bolton Canal was first pro-posed, the Athenians (for that Bolton is the Athens of Lancashire no one can doubt) could not well understand how boats were to be raised above the level of the sea. A lock to them was as incom-prehensible as Locke on the Human Understanding. A celebrated member of a celebrated trotting club was amongst the number of those who could not comprehend the mystery. Unwilling to appear ignorant upon a question which formed the common topic of conversation, he applied to a scientific gentleman in the neighbourhood for an accurate description of a lock. It happened that the man of science had on one occasion been a trottee, and was glad to have an opportunity of retaliation. "A lock," said he, "is a quantity of sawdust congealed into boards, which, being let down into the water in a perpendicular slope- level, raises it to the declivity of the sea above!"—" Eh?" said the Athenian, "what dun yo' say?" The gentleman repeated his description, and the worthy Boltonian recorded every word in the tablet of his memory. Sometime afterwards he had the honour of dining with some worshipful brothers of the quorum, men as profoundly ignorant of the law as any of the unpaid magistracy need to be, but who, having seen canals, knew well enough what locks were. Our Athenian took an early opportunity of adverting to the proposed "cut," and introduced his newly-acquired learning in the following terms: "Ah! Measter Fletcher, it's a foine thing a lock; yo' know'n I loike to look into them theere things; a lock is a perpendicular slop level, which, being let into the sea, is revealed into boards, that raises it to the declivity of the sea above!"—As it is the province and privilege of the ignorant to laugh at a greater degree of ignorance than their own, it may be supposed that their worships enjoyed a hearty laugh at the expense of their Attic brother.

~257~~whole district of English barbarians by one action, and, what is more, they have never ventured to trot with any one of our fraternity since."

The conversation now took a turn relative to the affairs of trade; and if any one had been desirous of knowing the exact degree of solvency in which the whole population of the county of Gloucester was held by these flying merchants and factors, they might easily have summed up the estimate from the remarks of the company. They were, however, a jovial party; and my friend Bob and myself had rarely found ourselves more pleasantly circumstanced, either as regarded our social comforts, or the continued variety of new character with which the successive speakers presented us. As the evening approached our numbers gradually diminished, some to pursue their journeys, and others to facilitate the purposes of trade. The representative of the house of Blackstrap and Co., his friend Sable, the timber merchant, our inviter the bookseller, and the two interlopers, remained fixed as fate to the festive board, until the chairman, and scarce any one of the company, could clearly define, divide, and arrange the exact arithmetical proportions of the dinner bill. After a short cessation of hostilities, during which our commercial friends despatched their London letters, and Bob and the English Spy, to escape the suspicion of not having any definable pursuit, emigrated to the High Street; we returned to our quarters, and found the whole party debating upon a proposition of the bon vivants, to have another bottle, and make a night of it by going to the theatre at half price; a question that was immediately carried, nemine contradicente. Mr. Margin, our esteemed companion, who represented the old established house of Sherwood and Co., was known to sing a good stave, and what was still more attractive, was himself a child of song—one of the inspired of the nine, who, at the Anacreontic Club, held in Ivy Lane, would often amuse ~258~~the society with an original chant; "whose fame," as Blackstrap expressed it, "had extended itself to the four corners of the island, wherever the sporting works of Sherwood and Co., or the travelled histories of the Messrs. Longmans, have found readers and admirers." "Gentlemen," said Mr. Margin, "my songs are all of a local nature; whims written to amuse a meeting of the trade for a dinner at the Albion or the London, when the booksellers congregate together to buy copyrights, or sell at a reduced price the refuse of their stock. But, such as it is, you shall have it instanter."

ALL THE BOOKSELLERS;

A NEW SONG, BY A LONDON TRAVELLER.

Tune—Family Pride—Irish air.

First, Longmans are famous for travels, Will Sherwood for sporting and fun, Old Ridgway the science unravels How politic matters are done.

The ponderous tomes of deep learning, The heavy, profound, and the flat, By Baldwin and Cradock's discerning, Are cheaper by half to come at.

Baines deals out to methodist readers Cant, piously strung into rhyme; While Rivingtons, 'gainst the seceders, With church and king Hatchard will chime.

John Murray's the lords' own anointed, I mean not indeed to blaspheme, But the peers have him solely appointed To sell what their highnesses scheme.

~259~~

Colburn defies Day and Martin To beat him with " Real Japan;" If puffing will sell books, 'tis certain, He'll rival the bookselling clan.

Catechisms for miss and for master, For ladies who're fond oft, romance, Sheriff Whittaker publishes faster Than booksellers' porters can dance.

Operatives, mechanics, combiners, Knight and Lacey will publish for you; They'll tickle ye out of your shiners, By teaching the power o' the screw.

An Architect looks out for Taylor, A General Egerton seeks; Tommy Tegg at the trade is a railer, But yet for a slice of it sneaks.

Richardson furnishes India With all books from Europe she buys; Near St. Paul's, in Old Harris's window, The juveniles look for a prize.

Cadell is Scotch Ebony's factor, Collecting the news for Blackwood; John Miller 's the man for an actor, America 's done him some good.

The Newmans of fam'd Leadenhall In very old novels abound; While Kelly, respected by all, As Sheriff of London is found.

Will Simpkin supplieth the trade From his office in Stationers' Court; And Stockdale too much cash has made By publishing Harriette 's report.

~260~~THE ENGLISH SPY

Antiquarians seek Arch of Cornhill; Joe Butterworth furnishes law; And Major his pockets will fill By giving to Walton eclat.

Where, with old Parson Ambrose, the legs Once in Gothic Hall pigeons could fleece, There, Hurst and Co. now hang on pegs The fine arts of Rome and of Greece.

John Ebers with Opera dancers Is too much engaged for to look How the bookselling business answers, And publishes only "Ude's Cook."

Hookham and Carpenter both are As cautious as caution can be; While Andrews, nor Chapple, a sloth are In trade, both as lib'ral as free.

Billy Sams is a loyal believer, And publishes prints by the score; But his likeness, I will not deceive her, Of Chester is not con amore.

If the world you are ganging to see, Its manners and customs to note, In the Strand, you must call upon Leigh, Where you'll find a directory wrote.

Cincinnatus like, guiding the plough, On Harding each farmer still looks; Clerc Smith is the man for a bow, And his shop is as famous for books.

Facetiae collectors, give ear, Who with Mack letter spirits would deal; If rich in old lore you'd appear, Pay a visit to Priestley and Weale.

~261~~

There's Ogle, and Westley, and Black, With Mawman, and Kirby, and Cole, And Souter, and Wilson—alack! I cannot distinguish the whole.

For Robins, and Hunter, and Poole, And Evans, and Scholey, and Co. Would fill out my verse beyond rule, And my Pegasus halts in the Bow.

The radicals all are done up; Sedition is gone to the dogs; And Benbow and Cobbett may sup With their worthy relations the Hogs.

So here I will wind up my list With Underwood, Callow, and Highley; Who bring to the medicals grist, By books on diseases wrote dryly.

Just one word at parting I crave— If Italian, French, German, or Dutch, To bother your noddle you'd have, Send to Berthoud, or Treuttel and Wurtz,

Or Zotti, or Dulau, or Bohn, But they're all very good in their way; Bossange, Bothe, Boosey and Son, All expect Monsieur Jean Bull to pay.

"A right merrie conceit it is," said Blackstrap, "and an excellent memoranda of the eminent book-sellers of the present time." "Ay, sir," continued the veteran; "all our old ballads had the merit of being useful, as well as amusing. There was 'Chevy Chase, and 'King John and his Barons,' and 'Merry Sherwood,' all of them exquisite chants; conveying information to the mind, and relating some grand historical fact, while they charmed the ear. But ~262~~your modern kickshaws are all about 'No, my love, no,' or 'Sigh no more, lady,' or some such silly stuff that nobody cares to learn the words of, or can understand if they did. I remember composing a ballad in this town myself, some few years since, on a very strange adventure that happened to one of our commercial brethren. He had bought an old hunter at Bristol to finish his journey homeward with, on account of his former horse proving lame, and just as he was entering Cheltenham by the turnpike-gate at the end of the town, the whole of the Berkeley Hunt were turning out for a day's run, and having found, shot across the road in full cry. Away went the dogs, and away went the huntsmen, and plague of any other way would the old hunter go: so, despite of the two hundred weight of perfumery samples contained in his saddle-bags, away went Delcroix's deputy over hedge and ditch, and straight forward for a steeple chase up the Cleigh Hills; but in coming down rather briskly, the courage of the old horse gave way, and down he came as groggy before as a Chelsea pensioner, smashing all the appendages of trade, and spilling their contents upon the ground, besides raising such an odoriferous effluvia on the field, that every one present smelt the joke.—But you shall have the song."

THE KNIGHT OF THE SADDLE-BAGS;

A TRUE RELATION OF A TRAVELLER'S ADVENTURE AT CHELTENHAM.

Tune—The Priest of Kajaga.

A knight of the saddle-bags, jolly and gay, Rode near to blithe Cheltenham's town; His coat was a drab, and his wig iron-gray, And the hue of his nag was a brown.

~263~~

From Bristol, through Glo'ster, the merry man came; And jogging along in a trot, On the road happ'd to pass him, in pursuit of game, Of Berkeley's huntsmen a lot.

Tally-ho! tally-ho! from each voice did resound; Hark forward! now cheer'd the loud pack; Sir knight found his horse spring along like a hound,' For the devil could not hold him back.

Away went sly Reynard, away went sir knight, With the saddle-bags beating the side Of his horse, as he gallop'd among them in fright; 'Twas in vain that the hunt did deride.

Now up the Cleigh Hills, and adown the steep vale, Crack, crack, went the girths of his saddle; Sir knight was dismounted, O piteous tale! In wasjies the fishes might paddle.

As prostrate he lay, an old hound that way bent Gave tongue as he pass'd him along; Which attracted the pack, who thus drawn by the scent, Would have very soon ended his song.

For O! it was strange, but, though strange, it was true! With perfumery samples, his bags With essences, musks, and rich odours a few, He had joined peradventure the nag's.

The field took the joke in good-humour and jest; Sir knight was invited to dine At the Plough the same day, where a fine haunch was dress'd, And Naylor gave excellent wine.

From that time, 'raong the Chelts, has a knight of the bag Been look'd on as a man of spirit; For who but a knight could have hunted a nag So laden, and come off with merit?

~264~~A visit from two of the commercial gentlemen of the Fleece gave Blackstrap another opportunity of showing off, which he did not fail to avail himself of in no very measured paces, by ridiculing the rival house, and extending his remarks to the taste of the frequenters. To which one of them replied, "Mine host of the fleece is no 'wolf in sheep's clothing,' but a right careful good shepherd, who provides well for his flock; and although the fleece hangs over his door, it is not symbolical of any fleecing practices within." "Ay," said the other, defending his hotel; "then, sir, we live like farmers at a harvest-home, and sleep on beds of down beneath coverings of lamb's wool; and our attendant nymphs of the chamber are as beautiful and lively as Arcadian shepherdesses, and chaste as the goddess Diana." "Very good," retorted Blackstrap; "but you know, gentlemen, that the beaux of this house must be better off for the belle. We will allow you of the Fleece your rustic enjoyments, seeing that you are country gentlemen, for your hotel is certainly out of the town." A good-natured sally that quickly restored harmony, and called forth another song from the muse of Blackstrap.

HEALTH, COMPETENCE, AND GOOD-HUMOUR.

Let titles and fame on ambition be shed, Or history's page of great heroes relate; The motto I'd choose to encircle my head Is competence, health, and good-humour elate.

~265~~

The chaplet of virtue, by friendship entwined, Sheds a lustre that rarely encircles the great; While health and good-humour eternally find A competence smiling on every state.

No luxuries seeking my board to encumber, Contented receiving what Providence sends; Age brightens with pleasure, while virtue may number Competence, health, and good-humour as friends.

Then, neighbours, let's smile at old Chronos and care; Still shielded with honour, we're fearless of fate: With the sports of the field and the joys of the fair, We've competence, health, and good-humour elate.

At the conclusion of this fresh specimen of our chairman's original talent, it was proposed we should adjourn to the theatre, where certain fashionable amateurs were amusing themselves at the expense of the public. "Sir, I dislike these half and half vagabonds," said Blackstrap, with one of his original gestures, "who play with an author before the public, that they may the more easily play with an actress in private. Yon coxcomb, for instance, who buffoons Brutus, with his brothers, are indeed capital brutes by nature, but as deficient of the art histrionic as any biped animals well can be. I remember a very clever artist exhibiting a picture of the colonel and his mother's son, Augustus, with a Captain Austin, in the exhibition of the Royal Academy for the year 1823, in the characters of Brutus, Marc Antony, and Julius Caesar, which caused more fun than anything else in the collection, and produced more puns among the cognoscenti than any previous work of art ever gave rise to. The Romans were such rum ones—Brutus was a black down-looking biped, with gray whiskers, and a growl upon his lip; Marc Antony, without the remotest mark of the ancient hero about him; and ~266~~Cassius looked as if he had been cashiered by the commander of some strolling company of itinerants for one, whose placid face could neither move to woe, nor yield grimace; and yet they were all accounted excellent likenesses, perfect originals, like Wombwell's bonassus, only not quite so natural."

During this rhapsody of Blackstrap's, Transit on the one side, and the English Spy on the other, endeavoured to restrain the torrent of his satire by assuring him that the very persons he was alluding to were the amateurs on the stage before him; and that certain critical faces behind him were paid like the painter, of whom he had previously spoken, to produce flattering portraits in print, and might possibly make a satirical sketch of the bon vivant at the same time; an admonition that had not the slightest effect in abridging his strictures upon amateur actors. But as the English Spy intends to finish his sketches on this subject, in a visit to the national theatres, he has until then treasured up in his mind's stores the excellent and apposite, though somewhat racy anecdotes, with which the comical commercial critic illustrated his discourse.

The "liquor in, the wit's out," saith the ancient proverb; and, although my "Spirit in the Clouds" had already hinted at the dangerous consequences likely to result from a visit to the "Oakland Cottages," yet such was the flexibility of my friend Transit's ethics, his penchant for a spree, and the volatile nature of his disposition, when the ripe Falerian set the red current mantling in his veins, that not all my philosophy, nor the sage monitions of Blackstrap, nor thought, nor care, nor friendly intercession could withhold the artist from making a pilgrimage to the altar of love. For be it known to the amorous beau, these things are not permitted to pollute the sanctity of the sainted Chelts; but in a snug convent, situate a full mile and a half from Cheltenham, at the extremity ~267~~of a lane where four roads meet, and under the Cleigh Hills, the lady abbess and the fair sisters of Cytherea perform their midnight mysteries, secure from magisterial interference, or the rude hand of any pious parochial poacher. Start not, gentle reader; I shall not draw aside the curtain of delicacy, or expose "the secrets of the prison-house:" it is enough for me to note these scenes in half tints, and leave the broad effects of light and shadow to the pencils of those who are amorously inclined and well-practised in giving the finishing———touch.

But to return to my friend Transit. Bright Luna tipt with silvery hue the surrounding clouds, and o'er the face of nature spread her mystic light; the blue concave of high heaven was illumined by a countless host of starry meteors, and the soft note of Philomel from the grove came upon the soul-delighted ear like the sweet breathings of the Eolian harp, or the celestial cadences of that heart-subduing cherub, Stephens; when we set out on our romantic excursion. Reader, you may well start at the introduction of the plural number; but say, what man could abandon his friend to such a dangerous enterprise? or what moralists refuse his services where there was such a probability of there being so much need for them? But we are poor frail mortals; so a truce with apology, or prithee accept one in the language of Moore:

"Dear creatures! we can't live without them, They're all that is sweet and seducing to man; Looking, sighing, about and about them, We dote on them, die for them, do all we can."

To be brief: we found excellent accommodation, and spent the night pleasantly, free from the sin of single blessedness. Many a choice anecdote did the Paphian divinities furnish us with of the gay well-known among the Chelts; stories that will be told again and again over the friendly bottle, but must not be recorded ~268~~here. Whether Transit, waking early from his slumbers, was paying his devotions to Venus or the water-bottle, I know not; but I was awoke by him about eight in the morning, and heard the loud echo of the huntsman's hallo in my ear, summoning me to rise and away, for the sons of Nimrod had beset the house; information which I found, upon looking through the window, was alarmingly true, but which did not appear either to surprise or affright the fair occupants of the cottages, who observed, it was only some of the "Berkeley Hunt going out," (See Plate), who, if they did not find any where else, generally came looking after a brush in that neighbourhood.



"Then the best thing we can do," said Transit, "is to brush off, before they brush up stairs and discover a couple of poachers among their game." This, however, the ladies would by no means admit, and the huntsmen quickly riding away, we took our chocolate with the lady abbess and her nuns, made all matters perfectly pleasant, saluted the fair at parting, and bade adieu to the Oakland Cottages.

Upon our return to our inn, we received a good-humoured lecture from Blackstrap, who was just, as he phrased it, on the wing for Bristol and Bath, "where" said he, "if you will meet me at old Matthew Temple's, the Castle Inn, I will engage to give you a hearty welcome, and another bottle of the old particular;" a proposition that was immediately agreed to, as the route we had previously determined upon. One circumstance had, during our sojourn in the west, much annoyed my friend Transit and myself; we had intended to have been present at the Doncaster race meeting for 1825, and have booked both the betting men and their betters. Certainly a better bit of sport could never have been anticipated, but we were neither of us endowed with ubiquity, and were therefore compelled to cry content in the west when our hearts and inclinations were in the ~269~~north. "If now your 'Spirit in the Clouds,' your merry unknown, he that sometimes shoots off his witty arrows at the same target with ourselves, should archly suspect that old Tom Whipcord was not upon the turf, I would venture a cool hundred against the field, that we should have a report from him, 'ready cut and dried,' and quite as full of fun and whim as if you had been present yourself, Master Bernard, aided and assisted by our ally, Tom Whipcord of Oxford." "Heaven forgive you, Blackmantle, for the sins you have laid upon that old man's back! You are not content with working him hard in the 'Annals' every month, but you must make him mount the box of some of the short stages, and drive over the rough roads of the metropolis, where he is in danger of having his wheel locked, or meeting with a regular upset at every turn." Though Bob has given sufficient proofs of his spirit in danger, I certainly never suspected him to be possessed of the spirit of divination, and yet his prophetic address had scarcely concluded before Boots announced a parcel for Bernard Blackmantle, Esq. forwarded from London, per favour of Mr. Williams. And, Heaven preserve me from the charge of imposing upon my reader's credulity! but, as I live, it was his very hand—another sketch by my attendant sprite, "the Spirit in the Clouds," and to the very tune of Transit's anticipations, and my wishes.



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO BERNARD BLACKMANTLE, ESQ.,

HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF DONCASTER

RACES, THE GREAT ST. LEGER, HORSES,

AND CHARACTERS, IN 1825.

BY AN HONEST REVIEWER,

ALIAS "The spirit in the clouds."{1}

"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding, task Ariel, and all his quality.

Prospero. Why, that's my spirit! Shakspeare—Tempest.

"Good morrow to my worthy masters; and a merry Christmas to you all!"—The Bellman.

"Mendiei, mimi, balatrones."—Hor. "Mimics, beggars, and characters of all sorts and sizes." —Free Translation.

My Good Mr. Spy,

Will you not exclaim, Mercy upon us! here is a text and title as long and as voluminous as a modern publication, or the sermon of the fox-hunting parson, who, when compelled to

1 See last number of the Spy, Part XXI. p. 273.

~271~~preach on a saint's day, mounted the pulpit in his sporting toggery, using his gown as "a cloak of maliciousness?" But have patience, sweet Spy; be kindly-minded, dear Bernard: like John of Magna Charta memory, "I have a thing to say;" and do now be a good attentive Hubert to hear me out.

"Indeed, since you have inspirited, if not inspired me, by the 'immortal honour' of dubbing me your 'associate,' I were wanting in common gratitude not to attempt, by the return of moon, for I believe that luminary, like your numbers, comes out new every fourth week, to convey to you the swellings-over of my gratitude for the kind and fine things you have been pleased to cheer me with; although even yet, though the time will come, I can neither withdraw my vizor, nor disclose my 'family cognomen.'



It was true, and joy it was 'twas true, that we were at rowings, sailings, feastings, and dancings together, but how comes it we were not at the great racings together? that neither you, nor your ministers, they who,

"——correspondent to command, Perform thy spiriting gently——"

were at the grand muster of the North, the Doncaster meeting? Bernard, I tell thee all the world was there; from royalty and loyalty down to the dustman and democracy. Then such "sayings and doings," a million of hooks could hardly have had an eye to all. You have read of the confusion of tongues, of "Babel broke loose," of the crusaders' contributory encampment peopled by dozens of nations; you have seen the inside of a patent theatre on the first night of a Christmas pantomime, or mingled in an Opera-house masquerade; have listened to a Covent-garden squabble, a Billingsgate commotion, or a watch-house row; but in the whole course of your life, varied as ~272~~it has been, active as it has proved, you never have, never could have experienced any thing at all to eclipse or even to equal the "hey, fellow, well met" congregatory musters, and the "beautiful and elegant confusions" of Doncaster town in the race week of (September) eighteen hundred and twenty-five!

I am not, however, about to inflict upon you a "list of the horses," nor "the names, weights, and colours of the riders;" but I cannot help thinking that the English Spy will not have quite completed his admirable gallery of portraits, and his unique museum of curiosities for the benefit and delight of posterity, if he omit placing in their already splendid precincts two or three heads and sketches, which the genius of notoriety is ready to contribute as her own, and which to pass over would be as grievous to miss, as Mrs. Waylett's breeches,{2} characters at the Haymarket Theatre, or a solution of Euclid by one of Dr. Birkbeck's "operatives."

Allow me, then, who am not indeed "without vanity," once more to "stand by your side," or rather for you, and to attempt, albeit I have not your magic pencil, another taste of my quality, by dashing off con amore the lions of the North.

2 There frequently occur circumstances in a younker's life which lie never, in all his after career, forgets. I remember a very worthy and a very handsome old gentlewoman, the wife of an eminent physician, once being exceedingly wroth, it was almost the only time I ever knew her seriously angry, because a nephew of hers asserted all women were, what in the vulgate is called "knock-knee'd," and almost threatened to prove the contrary. Had she lived in our days, the truth, almost on any evening on our stage, might be ascertained, and I fear not at all to the satisfaction of the defender of her sex's shape. Nature never intended women to wear the breeches, and the invention of petticoats was the triumph of art. Why will Eve's daughters publicly convince us they are not from top to toe perfect?

~273~~As, however, some that attend my sitting are quite as difficult to manage as the conspirators of Prospero's isle, it may be as well if, like Ariel, I sing to them as I lay on the colours of identification. Bear in mind still, that I am a "spirit in the clouds," and, therefore, there can be nothing of "michin malachi" in my melody.

I love a race-course, that I do; But then, good folks, it is as true, Only don't blab, I tell it you, I can't love all its people;

For though I'm somewhat down and fly, Is slang gone out, sweet Mister Spy? Of trade with them I am as shy As jumping from a steeple.

Yet what with fashion's feather'd band, And pawing steeds, and crowded stand; Its sights are really very grand, Which to deny were sin.

But then, though fast the horses run, Few gain by "clone," and "done," and "done," For what a damper to the fun! Those "only laugh who win."

Oh! what a mixture must we greet In rooms, at inns, on turf, in street; Be "hand and glove" with all we meet, Old files, and new-bronzed faces!

With marquis, lord, and duke, and squire, We now keep up the betting fire; And then the guard of the "Highflyer" We book at Northern races.{3}

3 A song would be no song at all without notes; I must there-fore try a few. I can assure you they are not mere humming ones. Allons—"all is not gold that glitters," neither is it all "prunella" that blows a horn upon the stern of a coach. The "York Highflyer" I really am not to go down gratis "next jour-ney" for puffing it is a good coach, and the guard is a good guard, and he ventured a "good bit" of money on the Leger, and was "floored," for "Cleveland" was a slow one. However, it didn't balk his three days' holiday, nor spoil his new coat, nor blight his nosegay. I saw him after his defeat, looking as rosy as Pistol, and heard him making as much noise as one; "nor malice domestic nor foreign levy" could hurt him.

~274~~

Look in that room,{4} judge for yourself; See what a struggle's made for wealth, What crushings, bawlings for the pelf, 'Twixt high heads and low legs.

That is Lord K——,{5} and that Lord D——-,{5} That's Gully{6}; yon's fishmonger C;{5} A octree-man that; that, Harry Lee,{5} Who stirr'd Mendoza's pegs.

Or walk up stairs; behold yon board, Rich with its thrown-down paper hoard, But oh! abused, beset, adored By wine-warm'd folks o' nights.

The playing cog, the paying peer, Pigeon and Greek alike are here; And some are clear'd, and others clear; Ask Bayner,{6} and such wights.

4 The new subscription room; where down stairs more than the "confusion of tongues" prevails, and above a man's character, if in-sured, would go under the column of "trebly hazardous." It is really a pity that hone-racing should appear so close a neighbour to gambling as it does at Doncastor.

5 My men of letters are not merely alphabet men, but bona fide characters of consideration upon the turf. I confess Lord Kennedy is a bit of a favourite of mine, ever since I saw him so good-natured at the pigeon-shooting matches at Battersea; and greatly rejoiced was I to find him unplucked at the more desperate wagerings of the North. He really is clever in the main, and no subject for St. Luke's, though he depends much on a bedlamite. Gulley, Crock-ford, and Bland, need no character; and every body knows Harry Lee fought a pluck battle with old Dan. But it is "box Harry" with fighters now.

6 Poor Rayner of C. G. T.—hundreds at one fell swoop! all his morning's winnings gone in one evening's misfortune. Let him think on't when next he plays "the School of Reform."

~275~~

Nay, thick as plagues of Egypt swarm These emblems of the devil's charm, When the fall'n angel works a harm To Eve's demented brood;

Worse than of famish'd shark the maw, Worse than snake's tooth, or tiger's claw, The gambler's fish{7} spits from its maw Hell's poison-filled food!

But, halt! Who're they so deep in port, Who jostle thus the dons of sport, With all th' assumed airs of court, From which indeed they are?

But not from court of Carlton, Nor James's Court, nor any one; But where "the fancy" used to run To see the creatures spar.

The one's a diamond, that you see, But yet a black one I agree, And in the way of chancery A smart Ward in his time;

The other he's from Vinsor down, And though a great gun in that town, Has lately been quite basted brown, And gone off—out of time.{8}

7 The spotted ball now, worse in its woe-causing than the apple of Ida, is disgorged from a splendidly gilded fish. What a pity it is that the eternal vociforators of "red wins, black loses," et vice versa, could not be turned into Jonahs, and their odd fish into a whale, and let all be cast into the troubled waters (without a three days' redemption) they brew for others!

8 "There never were such times." X Xs, in the ring, and failures in the Fives Court, overcome us now without our special wonder; for boxers are become betters to extents that would make the fathers of the P.R. bless themselves and bolt. Cannon and Ward were, however, both on the right side, and the nods with which they honoured their old acquaintance were certainly improvements upon the style of the academy for manners in Saint Martin's Street.

~276~~

Look, here's a bevy; who but they! Just come to make the poor Tykes pay The charge of post-horses and chay, That brought them to some tune;

Lo! Piccadilly Goodered laughs, As when some novice, reeling, quaffs His gooseberry wine in tipsy draughts, At his so pure saloon.{9}

Good gracious, too! (oh, what a trade Can oyster sales at night be made!) Here swallowing wine, like lemonade, Sits Mrs. H's man{10}!

And by the Loves and Graces all, By Vestris' trunks, Maria's shawl, There trots the nun herself, so tall, A flirting of a fan,

And blushing like the "red, red rose," With paly eyes and a princely nose, And laced in Nora Crinas clothes, (Cool, like a cucumber,)

With beaver black, with veil so green, And huntress boots 'neath skirt quite clean, She looks Diana's self—a quean, In habit trimm'd with fur.

And Mr. Wigelsworth he flew,{11} And Miss and Mistress W. To bow and court'sy to the new Arrival at their Boy;

9 "Lightly tread, 'tis hallow'd ground." I dare not go on; you have been before me, Bernard: (vide vol. i. p. 295, of Spy). But really it will be worth while for us to look in on Goodered some fine morning, say three, a.m., when he gets his print of Memnon home, to which, at Sheardowns, he was so liberal as to subscribe. He will discourse to you of the round table!

10 "If I stand here, I saw him."—Shakespeare, Hamlet.

11 The host of the Black Boy at Doncastor, who really pro- vided race ordinaries in no ordinary way.

~277~~

Though he was Black, yet she was fair; And sure I am that nothing there With that clear nymph could aught compare,12 Or more glad eyes employ.

But where there is, after all, but little reason in many of the scenes witnessed at the period I quote, why should I continue to rhyme about them? Let it therefore suffice, that with much of spirit there was some folly, with a good deal of splendour an alloy of dross, and, with real consequence, a good deal of that which was assumed. Like a showy drama, the players (there was a goodly company in the north), dresses (they were of all colours of the rainbow), and decorations (also various and admirable), during the time of performance, were of the first order; but that over, and the green and dressing rooms displayed many a hero sunk into native insignificance, and the trappings of Tamerlane degenerated to the hungry coat of a Jeremy Diddler (and there were plenty of "Raising the Wind" professors at Doncaster), or the materiel of the king and queen of Denmark to the dilapidated wardrobe of Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester Daggerwood.

Mais apropos de le drame, Monsieur L'Espion, what is your report of our theatres? Have you seen the monkeys? Are they not, for a classic stage, grand,

——Those happiest smiles That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropt. In brief, Her room would be a rarity most beloved, If all could so become it."

Shakespeare, a little altered.

I would just say here, that if any disapprove of my picture of the lady, they may take Bernard Blackmantle's ~278~~magnifique, et admirable? Do they not awake in you visions of rapturous delight, as you contrast their antics and mimicry, their grotesque and beautiful grimaces, their cunning leers, with the eye of Garrick, the stately action of Kemble, the sarcasm of Cooke, the study of Henderson, the commanding port of Siddons, the fire of Kean, the voice of Young, the tones of O'Neill? When you see them, as the traveller Dampier has it, "dancing from tree to tree over your head," and hear them "chattering, and making a terrible noise," do you not think of Lord Chesterfield, and exclaim, "A well-governed stage is an ornament to society, an encouragement to wit and learning, and a school of virtue, modesty, and good manners?" Do you not feel, when you behold the flesh and blood punch and man-monkey of Covent Garden Theatre "twist his body into all manner of shapes," or "Monsieur Gouffe," of the Surrey, "hang himself for the benefit of Mr. Bradley," that we may pay our money, and "see, and see, and see again, and still glean something new, something to please, and something to instruct;" and, lastly, in a fit of enthusiasm, exclaim,

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius and to mend the heart, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;" For this great Jocko's self first leap'd the stage; For this was puffd in ev'ry well-bribed page, From evening "Courier" down to Sunday "Age!"{13}

13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original. That the beings who banish legitimate performers should puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!" But "the world is still deceived by ornament."

~279~~But Charles Kemble pays well on occasions, and gold would make "Hyperion" of a "satyr." Seriously, Mr. Blackmantle, the town is overrun with monkeys; they are as busy, and as importunate, as Lady Montague's boys on May day, or the Guy Fawkes representatives on the fifth of November. They are "here, there, and every where," and the baboon monopolists of Exeter 'Change and the Tower are ruined by the importation:—a free trade in the article with the patentees of our classic theatres, as the purchasing-merchants, has done the business for Mr. Cross and the beef-eaters. Like the Athenian audience, the "thinking people" of England are more pleased with the mimic than the real voice of nature; and the four-footed puggys of the Brazils, like the true pig of the Grecian, are cast in the shade by their reasoning imitator! In short, not to be prosy on a subject which has awakened poetry and passion in all, hear, as the grave-diggers say, "the truth on't."{13}

When winter triumph'd o'er the summer's flame, And C. G. opened, Punchinello came; Each odd grimace of monkey-art he drew, Exhausted postures and imagined new: The stage beheld him spurn its bounded reign, And frighten'd fiddlers scraped to him in vain; His seven-leagued leaps so well the fashion fit, That all adore him—boxes, gallery, pit,{14}

13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original. That the beings who banish legitimate performers should puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!" But "the world is still deceived by ornament."

14 One Dr. Samuel Johnson has something like this, but then his lines were in praise of a "poor player," of a man who wasted much paper in writing dramas now thought nothing of. This is his doggrel.

~280~~But I must have done. Christmas will soon be here, and "I have a journey, sirs, shortly to go" to be prepared for its delights, and to fit myself for its festivities; and yet I am unwilling, acute Bernard, merry Echo, cheerful Eglantine, correct Transit, to "shake hands and part," without tendering the coming season's congratulations; so if it like you, dear spies o' the time, I will, like the swan, go off singing.

Marching along with berried brow, And snow flakes on his "frosty pow," See father Christmas makes his bow, And proffers jovial cheer;

About him tripping to and fro, Picking the holly as they go, And kiss-allowing misletoe, His merry elves appear.

Then broach the barrel, fill the bowl, And let us pledge the hearty soul, Though swift the waning minutes roll, And time will stay for none;

Lads, we will have a gambo still, For though we've made the foolish feel, And shamed the sinner in his ill, Our withers are unwrung.

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First rear'd the stage, immortal Skakspeare rose; Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new;

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain: His powerful strokes presiding truth impress'd, And unresisted passion storm'd the breast."

~281~~

No poison in the cup have ye, In all your travell'd history, Pour'd for the hearty, good, and free; This will your book evince:

So "here's the King!"fill, fill for him, Then for our Country, to the brim; With it, good souls, we'll sink or swim. Huzzah! 'tis gall'd jades wince!

But now, adieu; o'er hill and plain I scud, ere we shall meet again; Meantime, all prosp'rous be your reign, And friends attend in crowds;

Before your splendid course is o'er, And Blackmantle shall please no more, You'll know, though yet I'm doom'd to soar, Your Spirit in the Clouds.{15}"

November, 1825.

Adieu, thou facetious sprite, and may the graybeard Time tread lightly on thy buoyant spirits! Meet thee or not hereafter, thou shalt live in my remembrance a cherished name, long as memory holds her influence o'er the eccentric mind of Bernard Blackmantle. Here, too, must Transit and myself take a farewell of merry Cheltenham, ever on the wing for novelty: our sketches have been brief, but full of genuine character; nor can they, as I hope, be considered in any instance as violating our established rule—of being true to nature, without offending the ear of chastity, or exciting aught but

15 "A. word to the wise," &c. Get honest "Tom Whipcord" to take you by his hand on Valentine's night to the "noctes" muster of the Sporting Annals gents. You will know me by a brace of "bleeding hearts" in my plaited neckerchief, and a blue bunch of ribbons in my sinister side, as big as the Herald newspaper, the gifts of my lady-love.

~282~~the approving smile of the lovers of mirth, and the patrons of life's merriments. We had intended to have drawn aside the curtain of the theatre and the castle, and have shown forth to the gaze of the public the unhallowed mysteries which are sometimes performed there; but reflection whispered, that morality might find more cause to blush at the recital than her attendants would benefit by the exposure; and is is lamentably true, that some persons would cheerfully forfeit all claim to respectability of character for the honour of appearing in print, depicted in their true colours, as systematic and profligate seducers. To disappoint this infamous ambition, more than from any fear of the threatened consequences, we have left the sable colonel and his dark satellites to grope on through the murky ways of waywardness and intrigue, without staining our pages with a full relation of their heartless conduct, since to have revived the now forgotten tales might have given additional pain to some beauteous victims whose fair names have dropped into Lethe's waters, like early spring flowers nipped by the lingering hand of slow-paced winter; or, in other instances, have disturbed the repose of an unsuspecting husband, or have stung the aged heart of a doting parent—evils we could not have avoided, had we determined upon rehearsing the love scenes and intrigues of certain well-known Cheltenham amateurs.

Adieu, merry Chelts! we're for quitting our quarters; Adieu to the chase, to thy walks and thy waters, To thy hunt, ball, and theatre, and card tables too, And to all thy gay fair ones, a long, long adieu!

Blackmantle and Transit, the Spy and his friend, Through Gloucester and Bristol, to Bath onward bend. To show how amused they have been in your streets, They give you, at parting, this man of sweetmeats;

A character, famous as Mackey, the dandy, The London importer of horehound and candy; The cheapest of doctors, whose nostrums dispense A cure for all ills that affect taste or sense,

I doubt not quite as good as one half your M.D.'s, Though sweet is the physic and simple the fees; This, at least, you'll admit, as we dart from your view That our vignette presents you with a sweet adieu!



A VISIT TO GLOUCESTER AND BERKELEY.

Sketches on the Mood—Singular Introduction to an old Friend—A Tithe Cause tried—A strange Assemblage of Witnesses—Traits of Character—Effects of the Farmers' Success—An odd Cavalcade—Rejoicings at Berkeley.

284~The road from Cheltenham to Gloucester affords a good view of the Cotswold and Stroudwater Hills, diversified by the vales of Evesham, Gloucester, and Berkeley, bounded on the east by the Severn, and presenting in many situations a very rich picturesque appearance. We are not of the dull race who dwell on musty records and ancient inscriptions, or travel through a county to collect the precise date when the first stone of some now moss-crowned ruin was embedded in the antique clay beneath. Let the dead sleep in peace; we are not anti-queer-ones enough to wish the mouldering reliques of our ancestors arrayed in chronological order before our eyes, nor do we mean to risk our merry lives in exploring the monastic piles and subterranean vaults and passages of other times. No; our office is with the living, with the enriched Gothic of modern courts, and the finished Corinthian capitals of society, illustrating, as we proceed, with choice specimens of the rustic and the grotesque; now laughing over our wine with the Tuscan bacchanal, or singing a soft tale of love in the ear of some chaste daughter of the composite order; ~285~~trifling perhaps a little harmless badinage with a simple Ionic, or cracking a college joke with a learned Doric; never troubling our heads, or those of our readers, about the origin or derivation of these orders, whether they came from early Greece or more accomplished Home; or be their progenitors of Saxon, Norman, Danish, or of Anglo-Saxon character, we care not; 'tis ours to depict them as they at present appear, leaving to the profound topographers and compilers of county histories all that relates to the black letter lore of long forgotten days.

Gloucester is proverbial for its dulness, and from the dirty appearance of the streets and houses, was, by my friend Transit, denominated the black city; a designation he maintained to be strictly correct, since it has a cathedral, a bishop, and a black choir of canonicals, and was from earliest times the residence of a black brotherhood of monks, whose black deeds are recorded in the black letter pages of English history; to which was added another confirmatory circumstance, that upon our entrance it happened the assizes for the county had just commenced, and the black gowns of Banco Regis, and of the law, were preparing to try the blacks of Gloucestershire, out of which arose a black joke, that will long be remembered by the inhabitants of Berkeley, and the tenantry of the sable colonel.

We had made our domicile at the Ham Inn, by the recommendation of our Cheltenham host, where we met with excellent accommodations, and what, beside, we could never have anticipated to have met with in such a place, one of the richest scenes that had yet presented itself in the course of our eccentric tour.

The unusual bustle that prevailed in every department of the inn, together with a concatenation of sounds now resembling singing and speaking, and the occasional scraping of some ill-toned violins above our heads, induced us to make a few inquisitive ~286~~remarks to mine host of the Ham, that quickly put us in possession of the following facts.

It appeared, that a suit respecting the right of the vicar of Berkeley to the great tithes of that town had been long pending in the court of Chancery, in which the reverend was opposed to his former friend, the colonel, the churchwardens of Berkeley, and the whole of the surrounding tenantry. Now this cause was, by direction of the Lord Chancellor, to be tried at these assizes, and, in consequence, the law agents had been most industrious in bringing together, by subpoena, all the ancient authorities of the county, the aged, the blind, and the halt, to give evidence against their worthy pastor; and as it is most conducive to success in law, the keeping witnesses secure from tampering, and in good-humour with the cause, the legal advisers had prepared such festive cheer at the Bam, for those of the popular interest, as would have done honour to the colonel's banquet at the castle. Such was the information we obtained from our host, to whose kind introduction of us to the lawyers we were afterwards indebted for a very pleasant evening's amusement.

We were ushered into the room by one of the legal agents as two gentlemen from London, who, being strangers in the place, were desirous of being permitted to spend their evening among such a jovial society. The uproarious mirth, and rude welcome, with which this communication was received by the company, added to the clouds of smoke which enveloped their chairman, prevented our immediate recognition of him; but great and pleasant indeed was our surprise to find the most noble, the very learned head of the table, to be no other than our old Eton con. little Dick Gradus, to whose lot it had fallen to conduct this action, and defend the interests of the agriculturalists against the mercenary encroachments of the church militant. This was indeed no common cause; and the greatest difficulty 287~our friend Gradus had to encounter was the restricting within due bounds of moderation the over-zealous feelings of his witnesses. It was quite clear a parson's tithes, if left to the generosity of his parishioners, would produce but a small modicum of his reverence's income. The jovial farmer chuckled with delight at the prospect of being able to curtail the demands of his canonical adversary. "Measter Carrington," said he, "may be a very good zort of a preacher, but I knows he has no zort of business with tithing my property; and if zo be as the gentleman judge will let me, gad zooks! but I will prove my words, better than he did the old earl's marriage, when he made such a fool of himsel' before the peers in parliament." "That's your zort, measter Tiller," resounded from all the voices round the table. "Let the clergy zow for themselves, and grow for themselves, as the varmers do; what a dickens should we work all the week for the good of their bodies, when they only devote one hour in the whole seven days for the benefit of our zouls?" "That's right, Measter Coppinger," said some one next to the speaker; "you are one hundred years of age, and pray how many times have you heard the parson preach?" "I never zeed him in his pulpit in the whole courze of my life; but then you know that were my fault, I might if I would; but I'ze been a main close attendant upon the church for all that: during the old earl's lifetime, I was a sort of deputy huntsman, and then the parson often followed me; and when I got too old to ride, I was made assistant gamekeeper, and then I very often followed the parson; so you zee I'ze a true churchman, every inch of me; only I don't like poaching, and when his reverence wants me to help him sack his tithes, old Jack Coppinger will tell him to his head, he may e'en carry the bag himself." "A toast from the chair! Let's hear the lawyer' zentiments on this zubject," said another; with which request Gradus complied, by giving, "May he who ~288~~ploughs and plants the soil reap all its fruits!" "Ay, Measter Gradus, that is as it should be," reiterated a farmer on his right, "zo I'll give you, 'The varmers against the parsons,' and there's old Tom Sykes yonder, the thatcher, he will give you a zong about the 'tithe pig and the tenth child,' a main good stave, I do azzure you." A request which the old thatcher most readily complied with, to the great delight of all present; for independent of his dialect, which was of the true rich west-country character, there was considerable wit and humour in the song, and an archness of manner in the performer, that greatly increased the good-humour of the society. In this way the evening was spent very pleasantly; and as the cause was to come on the first thing on the ensuing morning, Transit and myself determined to await the issue, anticipating that, if our merry-hearted companions, the rustics, should be successful, there would be no lack of merriment, and some exhibition of good sport both for the pen and pencil.

We had strayed after breakfast to view the cathedral, which is very well worthy the attention of the curious, and certainly contains some very ancient relics of the great and the good of earliest times. On our return, the deafening shouts of the multitude, who were congregated outside the Sessions House, proclaimed a favourable verdict for the farmers, who, in the excess of their joy at having beaten their reverend adversary, gave loose to the most unrestrained expressions of exultation: a messenger was immediately despatched to Berkeley to convey, express, the glad tidings; and the head farmers of the parish, with whom were the church-wardens, determined to commemorate their victory by roasting a bullock whole on the brow of the hill which overlooked their vicar's residence, and for the preparation of which festivity they also sent their instructions. The next grand point was, how to ~289~~convey the witnesses, who were very numerous, to the scene of action, a distance of eighteen miles. To have despatched them in post-chaises, could they have found a sufficient number in Gloucester, was neither in accordance with economy, nor with the wishes of the parties themselves, who were very anxious to have a grand procession, and enjoy themselves as they went along in smoking, singing, drinking, and proclaiming their triumph to their neighbours and friends. Mine hostess of the Ram, with every female in her establishment, had been, from the moment the verdict was given to the departure of the group, busily engaged in making large blue favours, of the colonel's colour, to decorate the hats of the visitors, until Mr. Boots arrived with the dismaying intelligence, that not another yard of riband, of the colour required, could be obtained in all the city of Gloucester. With equal industry and perseverance the host himself had put in requisition every species of conveyance that he could muster, which was calculated to suit the views of the parties, and form a grand cavalcade; without much attention to the peculiar elegance of the vehicles, to be sure, but with every arrangement for social comfort. It had been decided that my friend Transit and myself should accompany Richard Gradus, Esq. the solicitor to the fortunate defendants, in a post coach in front, preceded by four of mine host's best horses, with postillions decorated with blue favours, and streamers flying from the four corners of the carriage; and now came the marshalling of the procession to follow.



One of the colonel's hay vans had been supplied with seats, lengthwise, in which the first division of farmers placed themselves, not, however, forgetting to take in a good supply of ale and pipes with them; next in order was one of the old-fashioned double-bodied stages, which had not been cleaned, or out of the coach-yard, for twenty years before, and both in the 290~inside and on the roof of which the more humble rustics and farmers' labourers were accommodated: this vehicle was drawn by four cart horses, of the roughest description; the rear of the whole being brought up by a long black funeral hearse, with three horses, unicorn fashion, on the roof of which the men sate sidewise, while the interior was, by Gradus's orders, well filled with casks of the best Gloucester ale. About a dozen of the farmers, on horseback, rode by the side of the vehicles; and in this order, with the accompaniment of a bugle in the hay van, and a couple of blind fiddlers scraping on the centre of the roof of the hearse, did we sally forth in most grotesque order, amid the joyous acclamations of the multitude, on our way to Berkeley, every countenance portraying exultation and good-humour, and every where upon the road meeting with a corresponding welcome. A more humorous or whimsical procession cannot well be imagined, men, animals, and vehicles being perfectly unique. By the time we had reached our destination, the potent effects of the Gloucester ale, added to the smoking and vociferous expressions of joy that attended us throughout, had left very few of our rustic friends without the visible and outward signs of their inward devotions to the jolly god. On our arrival near to Berkeley, we were met by crowds of the joyous inhabitants, and proceeded onward to the spot selected for the festive scene, where we found the bullock already roasting on the top of the hill, and where also they had pitched a tent, and brought some small cannon, with which they fired a feu de joie on our arrival, taking special care to point their artillery in the direction of the vicar's residence. On the opposite side of the road was the church; and it is not a little singular, that the steeple, belfry, and tower are completely detached from the body of the building. The vicar, dreading the riotous joy of his parishioners upon ~291~~this occasion, had locked up the church, and issued his mandate to the wardens to prevent a merry peal; but these persons insisting that as the church was detached from the belfry, the vicar had no authority over it, they directed the ringers to give them a triple bob major, which canonical music was merrily repeated at intervals, to the great dismay of the parson, who, over and above the loss he was likely to sustain in his future interests, had by this defect suffered under a legal expenditure of some thousands of pounds. The colonel did not show, perhaps from prudential motives of respect to his old friend, but his agents were well instructed in their duty, and there was no lack of a plentiful supply of provision and ale for his tenantry to make right merry with. Thus ended our trip to Berkeley, where, after taking a view of the castle on the following morning, and surveying the delightful scenery with which that most ancient building is surrounded, we bade adieu to our friend Gradus, and mounted the Cheltenham coach, as it passed through, on our way to Bristol.



A DAY IN BRISTOL.

A Glance at the Bristolians—Their Pursuits and Characteristics—The London Mail—A Walk to the Hot Wells and Clifton—Blackmantle and Transit start for the Territories of King Bladud.