THE

ENGLISH SPY

[Volume II., Part 2.]

BY BERNARD BLACKMANTLE.

ROBERT CRUIKSHANK.

Contents

List of Illustrations

[Color Plates are Listed in Bold Print]

EVENING, AND IN HIGH SPIRITS.

     Sketches of Character—Fashionable Notorieties—Modern
     Philosophy—The Man of Genius and the Buck—"A short Life
     and a merry one "—A Short Essay on—John Longs—Long Corks
     —Long Bills—Long Credits—Long-winded Customers—The
     Ancients and the Moderns, a Contrast by Old Crony.

          Ye bucks who in manners, dress, fashion, and shiny,
          So often have hail'd me as lord of your gang—
          "O lend me your ears!" whilst I deign to relate
          The cause of my splendour, the way to be great;
          My own chequered life condescend to unfold,
          And give a receipt of more value than gold;
          Reveal t' ye the spot where the graces all dwell,
          And point out the path like myself to excel.
          —Pursuits of Fashion.

Only contrive to obtain the character of an eccentric, and you may ride the free horse round the circle of your acquaintance for the remainder of your life. If my readers are not by this time fully satisfied of my peculiar claims to the appellation of an oddity, I have no hopes of obtaining pardon for the past whims and fancies of a volatile muse, or anticipating patronage for the future wanderings of a restless and inquisitive humorist. But my bookseller, a steady, persevering, inflexible sort of personage, whose habits of business are as rigid as a citizen of the last century, or a puritan of the Cromwell commonwealth, has lately suffered the marble muscles of his frigid countenance to unbend with a sort of mechanical [193]inclination to an expression of—what shall I say—lib—lib—liberality; no, no, that will never do for a bookseller—graciousness—ay, that's a better phrase for the purpose; more characteristic of his manner, and more congenial to my own feelings. Well, to be plain then, whenever a young author can pass through an interview with the headman of the firm without hearing any thing in the shape of melancholy musings, serious disappointments, large numbers on hand, doubtful speculation, and such like pleasant innuendoes, he may rest satisfied that his book is selling well, and his publisher realizing a fair proportion of profit for his adventurous spirit. I am just now enjoying that pleasant gratification, the reflection of having added to my own comforts without having detracted from the happiness of others. In short, my scheme improves with every fresh essay, and my friend Bob Transit, who has just joined me in a bottle of iced claret at Long's, has been for some minutes busily engaged in booking mine host and his exhibits; while I, under pretence of writing a letter, have been penning this introduction to a chapter on fashion and its follies, annexing thereunto a few notes of characters, that may serve to illustrate that resort of all that is exquisite and superlative in the annals of high ton. "Evening, and in High Spirits," —a scene worthy of the acknowledged talent of the artist, and full of fearful and instructive narrative for the pen of the English Spy. Seated snugly in one corner of Long's new and splendid coffee-room, we had resolved on our entering to depart early; but the society we had the good fortune to be afterwards associated with might have tempted stronger heads than those of either Bob Transit the artist, or Bernard Blackmantle the moralist.

"Waiter, bring another bottle of iced claret, and tell Long to book it to the king's lieutenant." "By the honour of my ancestry," said the Honourable Lillyman Lionise, "but I am devilishly cut already."

[194]"You do well, mighty well, sir, to swear by the honour of your ancestors; for very few of your modern stars have a ray of that same meteoric light to illumine their own milky way."

"That flash of your wit, lieutenant, comes upon one like the electric shock of an intended insult, and I must expect you will apologize."

"Then I fear, young valiant, you will die of the disease that has killed more brave men than the last twenty years' war."

"And what is that, sir, may I ask?"

"Expectation, my jewel! I've breakfasted, dined, supped, and slept upon it for the last half century, and am not one step higher in the army list yet."

"But, lieutenant, let me observe that—that—"

"That we are both pretty nigh bosky, and should not therefore be too fastidious in our jokes over the bottle."

Enter Waiter. "The claret, gentlemen. Mr. Long's compliments, and he requests permission to assure you that it is some of the late Duke of Queensberry's choice stock, marked A one."

"Which signifies, according to Long's edition of Cocker, that we must pay double for the liqueur. Come, Lionise, fill a bumper; and let us tails of the lion toast our caput, the sovereign, the first corinthian of his day, and the most polished prince in the world."

"Tiger, Tiger,"{1} ejaculated a soft voice in the adjoining box; "ask Tom who the trumps are in the next stall, and if they are known here, tell them the Honourable Thomas Optimus fills a bumper to their last toast."

     1 Since the death of the Earl of Barrymore, Tom has
     succeeded to the "vacant chair" at Long's; nor is the Tiger
     Mercury the only point in which he closely resembles his
     great prototype.

[195]A smart, clever-looking boy of about fifteen years of age darted forward to execute the honourable's commands; when having received the requisite information from the waiter, he approached the lieutenant and his friend, and with great politeness, but no lack of confidence, made the wishes of his master known to the bon vivants; the consequence was, an immediate interchange of civilities, which brought the honourable into close contact with his merry neighbours; and the result, a unanimous resolution to make a night of it.

At this moment our tête-à-tête was interrupted by the appearance of old Crony, who, stanch as a well-trained pointer to the scent of game, had tracked me hither from my lodgings; from him I learned the lieutenant was a fellow of infinite jest and sterling worth; a descendant of the O'Farellans of Tipperary, whose ancestry claimed precedence of King Bryan Baroch; a specimen of the antique in his composition, robust, gigantic, and courageous; time and intestine troubles had impaired the fortunes of his house, but the family character remained untainted amid the conflicting revolutions that had convulsed the emerald isle. Enough, however, was left to render the lieutenant independent of his military expectations: he had joined the army when young; seen service and the world in many climates; but the natural uncompromising spirit which distinguished him, partaking perhaps something too much of the pride of ancestry, had hitherto prevented his soliciting the promotion he was fairly entitled to. Like a majority of his countrymen, he was cold and sententious as a Laplander when sober, and warm and volatile as a Frenchman when in his cups; half a dozen duels had been the natural consequence of an equal number of intrigues; but although the scars of honour had seared his manly countenance, his heart and person were yet devoted to the service of the ladies. Fame had trumpeted forth his prowess in the wars of [196]Venus, until notoriety had marked him out an object of general remark, and the king's lieutenant was as proud of the myrtle-wreath as the hero of Waterloo might be of the laurel crown.

But see, the door opens; how perfumed, what style! Long bows to the earth. What an exquisite smile! Such a coffee-house visitor banishes pain: While Optimus rising, cries "Welcome, Joe Hayne! May you never want cash, boy—here, waiter, a glass; Lieutenant, you'll join us in toasting a lass. I'll give you an actress—Maria the fair." "I'll drink her; but, Tom, you have ruined me there. By my hopes! I am blown, cut, floor'd, and rejected, At the critical moment, sirs, when I expected To revel in bliss. But, here's white-headed Bob, My prime minister; he shall unravel the job. And if Jackson determines you've not acted well, I'll mill you, Tom Optimus, though you're a swell." "Sit down, Joe; be jolly—'twas Carter alone That has every obstacle in your way thrown. Nay, never despair, man—you'll yet be her liege; But rally again, boy, you'll carry the siege." Thus quieted, Joe sat him down to get mellow; For Joe at the bottom's a hearty good fellow.

"Have you heard the report," said Optimus, "that Harborough is actually about to follow your example, and marry an actress? ay, and his old flame, Mrs. Stonyhewer, is ready to die of love and a broken heart in consequence."

"Just as true, my jewel, as that I shall be gazetted field-marshal; or that you, Mr. Optimus, will be accused of faithfulness to Lady Emily. Our young friend here, the rich commoner, has given currency to such a variety of common reports, that the false jade grows bold enough to beard us in our very teeth."

"Why, zounds! lieutenant," said Lionise, "how very sentimental you are becoming."

"It's a way of mine, jewel, to appear singular in some sort of society."

[197]"And satirical in all, I'll vouch for you, lieutenant;" said Optimus.

"By Jasus, you've hit it! if truth be satire, it's a language I love, although it's not very savoury to some palates."

"Will the duke marry the banker's widow, Joel that's the grand question at Tattersall's, now your match with Maria's off, and Earl Rivers's greyhounds are disposed of. Only give me the office, boy, in that particular, and I'll give you a company to-morrow, if money will purchase one; and realize a handsome fortune by betting on the event."

"Then I'll bet Cox and Greenwood's cash account against the commander-in-chief's, that the widow marries a Beau-clerc, becomes in due time Duchess of St. Alban's, and dies without issue, leaving her immense property as a charitable bequest to enrich a poor dukedom; and thus, having in earlier life degraded one part of the peerage, make amends to the Butes, the Guildfords, and the Burdetts, by a last redeeming act to another branch of the aristocracy."

"At it again, lieutenant; firing ricochet shot, and knocking down duck and drake at the same time."

"Sure, that has been the great amusement of my life; in battle and abroad I have contrived to knock down my share of the male enemies of my country; in peace and at home I've a mighty pleasant knack of winging a few female bush fighters."

"But the widow, my dear fellow, is now a woman of high {2} character; has not the moral Marquis of Hertford undertaken to remove all ———and disabilities? and did he not introduce the lady to the fashionable world at his own hotel, the Piccadilly (peccadillo) Guildhall? Was not the fête at Holly Grove attended by H.R.H. the Duke of York, and Mrs. C—y, and all the virtuous portion of our nobility? and has she not since been admitted to the parties at the Duke of "Query—did Mr. Optimus mean high as game is high?

[198]Devonshire's, and what is still more wonderful, been permitted to appear at court, and since, in the royal presence, piously introduced to the whole bench of Bishops?"

"By Jasus, that's true; and I beg belle Harriette's pardon. But, I well remember, I commanded the cityguard in the old corn-market, Dublin, on the very night her reputed father, jolly Jack Kinnear, as the rebels called him, contrived to wish us good morning very suddenly, and took himself off to the sate of government."

I shall be obliged to entertain the world with a few of her eccentricities some day or other; the ghost of poor Ralph Wewitzer cries loudly for revenge. The sapient police knight, when he secured the box of letters for his patroness, little suspected that they had all been previously copied by lieutenant Terence O'Farellan of the king's own. A mighty inquisitive sort of a personage, who will try his art to do her justice, spite of "leather or prunella."

The party was at this moment increased by the arrival of Lord William, on whose friendly arm reposed the Berkley Adonis—"par nobile fratrum."

"Give me leave, lieutenant," said his lordship, "to introduce my friend the colonel." "And give me leave," whispered Optimus, "to withdraw my friend Hayne, for 'two suns shine not in the same hemisphere.'"

"The man that makes a move in the direction of the door makes me his enemy," said the lieutenant, loudly. And the whole party were immediately seated.

Hitherto, my friend Crony and myself had been too pleasantly occupied with the whim, wit, and anecdote of the lieutenant, to pay much attention to the individuality of character that surrounded the festive board; but, having now entered upon our second bottle, the humorist commenced his satirical sketches.—

"Holding forth to the gaze of this fortunate time The extremes of the beautiful and the sublime."

[199]"Suppose I commence with the pea-green count," said Crony. "I know the boy's ambition is notoriety; and an artist who means to rise in his profession should always aim at painting first-rate portraits, well-known characters; because they are sure to excite public inquiry, thus extending the artist's fame, and securing the good opinion of his patrons by the gratification of their unlimited vanity. The sketch too may be otherwise serviceable to the rising generation; the Mr. Greens and Newcomes of the world of fashion, if they would avoid the sharks who infest the waters of pleasure, and are always on the anxious look-up for a nibble at a new 'come out.'

"The young exquisite's connexion with the fancy, or rather with the lowest branch of that illustrious body, the bruising fraternity and their boon companions, had been, though not an avowed, a real source of jealousy to many of his dear bosom friends at Long's hotel, from the moment of the count's making his début,

     'Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remote,'

into the fashionable world. That he would be ultimately floored by his milling protégés it did not require the sagacity of a conjurer to foresee; nor was it likely that the term of such a catastrophe would be so tediously delayed, as to subject any one who might be eager to witness its arrival to that sickness of the heart which arises from hope deferred. But this process for scooping out the Silver (or Foote) Ball, as he has since been designated, by no means suited the ideas of the worthies before alluded to. The learned Scriblerus makes mention of certain doctors,{3} frequently seen at White's in his day, of a modest and upright appearance, with no air of overbearing, and habited like true masters of arts in black and white only. They were justly styled, says the above high authority,

     3 A cant phrase for dice,

[200]subtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, being sometimes examined and, by a nice distinction, divided and laid open. The descendants of these doctors still exist, and have not degenerated, either in their numbers or their merits, from their predecessors. They take up their principal residence in some well-known mansions about the neighbourhood of the court, and many of the gentlemen who honoured the count with their especial notice on his entrée into public life are understood to be familiarly acquainted with them. Now could they have only instilled into the young gentleman a wish to be introduced to these doctors, or once prevailed upon him to take them in hand for the purpose of deciding what might be depending upon the result of the investigation; nay, could they even have spurred him on to an exhibition of his tactics, in manoeuvring

          'Those party-colour'd troops, a shining train,
          Drawn forth to combat on the velvet plain;'

they could have so delightfully abridged the task which to their impatient eyes appeared to be much too slow in executing, could have spared their dear friend so much unnecessary time and labour in disencumbering himself of the superfluity of worldly dross which had fallen to his share. A little cogging, sleeving, and palming; nay, a mere spindle judiciously planted, or a few long ones introduced on the weaving system, could have effected in one evening what fifty milling matches, considering the 'glorious uncertainty' attaching to pugilistic as well as legal contests, might fail to accomplish. By this method, too, the person in whom they kindly took so strong an interest would, even when he had lost every thing, have escaped the imputation of having dissipated his property. It would have been comfortably distributed in respectable dividends among a few gentlemen of acknowledged talent, instead of floating in air like the leaves of the

[201]Sibyl, and alighting in various parts of the inner and outer ring; now depositing a few cool hundreds in the pockets of a sporting Priestley bookseller, or the brother of a Westminster Abbott; now contributing a small modicum to brighten the humbler speculations of the Dean-street casemen, or the Battersea gardener.

"But to this conclusion Horatio would not come. He was good for backing and betting on pugilists, but on the turf he would do little, and at the tables nothing. His zealous friends had therefore no chance in the way they would have liked best; but being men of the world, and knowing, like Gay's bear, that

          'There might be picking
          Ev'n in the carving of a chicken,'

they did not disdain to make the most in their power by watching the motions of his hobby, and if this was not a sufficient prize to furnish much cause for exultation, it was at least one that it would have been unwise to reject.

"A contemporary writer has exerted to the utmost the very little talent he possesses to represent the peagreen's uniform resistance to all the temptations of cards and dice, as a proof of his possessing a strength of mind and decision of character rarely found in young men of his fortune and time of life. In the elegant language of this apologist, the count, by this prudent abstinence, 'has shown himself not half so green as some supposed, and the sharps, and those who have tried on the grand mace with him, have discovered that he was no flat.' How far this negative eulogium may be gratifying to the feelings of the individual on whom it is bestowed, I will not say; in my character of English Spy I have been under the necessity of carefully observing this fortunate youth, depuis que la rose venait d'eclore, in other words, from the time that he became, or rather might [202]have become, his own master; and I should certainly not attribute his refraining from the tables to any superior strength of mind: indeed, it would be singular if such a characteristic belonged to a man whose own hired advocate could only vindicate his client's heart at the expense of his head. Pope tells us, that to form a just estimate of any one's character, we must study his ruling passion; and by adopting this rule, we shall soon obtain a satisfactory clew both to the exquisite count's penchant for the prize-ring, and his aversion to the hells. Some persons exhibit an inexplicable union of avarice and extravagance, of parsimony and prodigality—something of this kind is observable in the gentleman in question. But self predominates with him in all; and being joined to rather alow species of vanity, and a strong inclination to be what is vulgarly called cock of the walk, it has uniformly displayed itself in an insatiate thirst for notoriety. Now pugilists, from the very nature of their profession, must be public characters; while the gamester, to the utmost of his power, does what he does 'by stealth, and blushes to find it fame.' To be the patron of some noted bruiser, to bear him to the field of action in your travelling barouche, accompanied by Tom Crib the XX champion, Tom Spring the X champion, Jack Langan and Tom Cannon the would-be champions, and Lily White Richmond, is sure to make your name as notorious, though perhaps not much more reputable, than those of your associates; but the man who, like 'the youth that fired the Ephesian dome,' aims at celebrity alone, in frequenting the purlieus of the gaming-house only 'wastes his sweetness on the desert air.' Moreover, the members of the Ebony Clubs being compelled to assume the appearance, and adopt the manners, insensibly imbibe too much of the feelings of gentlemen, to be likely to pay, to the most passive pigeon that ever submitted to rooking, the cap in hand homage rendered by a [203]practitioner within the pins and binders of the prize-ring to the swell who takes five pounds worth of benefit tickets, or stands a fifty in the stakes for a milling match.

"These motives seem to me sufficient to have prompted the count's predominating attachment to the prize-ring and its heroes, which, however, having as I have before remarked, been viewed with no favourable eye by some of his comrades, his recent ill-luck at Warwick could hardly be expected to escape the jests and sarcasms of his bottle companions."

"'Fore God," said Optimus, "this backing of your man against the black diamond has been but a bad spec. Out heavyish I suppose, ay, Joe?"

Count. Why, a stiffish bout, I must confess; and what's more, I'm not by any means without my suspicions about the correctness of the thing.

Optimus. What, cross and jostle work again? a second edition of Virginia Water? But I thought you felt assured that Cannon would not do wrong for the wealth of Windsor Castle?

Count. True, I did feel so, and others confirmed me in my assurance, but I believe I was wofully mistaken; and curse me if I don't think they were all in the concern of doing me.

Optimus. Was not there a floating report about the bargeman receiving a thousand to throw it over?

Count. Something of the sort; but I don't believe it. Two bills for five hundred, but so drawn that they could not be negotiated. I shall certainly, said the count, give notice to the stake-holders not to give up the battle-money for the present.

Optimus. Pshaw! that will never do. A thing of that nature must be done at the time. Besides, Cannon stood two hundred in his own money, and says he will freely pay his losses.

Count. A pretty do that, when he had a cheque [204]of mine for the sum he put down. But I've stopped payment of that at my banker's.

Optimus. And will as surely be obliged to revoke that order, as well as to give up disputing the stakes. No, no, Joe; get out of the business now as you can, and cut it. I always thought and told you, that I thought your man had no chance. But his going to fight so out of condition, in a contest where all his physical powers were necessary, does look as if you had been put in for a piece of ready made luck. But what could you expect? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? That a gentleman can patronize such fellows!

Count. I am still of opinion that the spirit of national courage is much promoted————

Optimus. Spirit of a fiddle-stick! Nonsense, man; that card will win no trick now. You, like others might have thought so once; but you have seen enough by this time to know that the system is on altogether a different tack; that its stanchest upholders and admirers are bullies, sharpers, pickpockets, pothouse keepers, coachmen, fradulent bankrupts, the Jon Bee's and big B's, and all the lowest B's of society in station and character, whose only merit, if such it can be called, is the open disclaiming of any thing like honour or principle. And after having been a patron of such a set of wretches, you will end by becoming, according to circumstances, the object of their vulgar abuse, or the butt of their coarse ridicule.

"The latter, I understand,"said Lord William, "is pretty much the case already. A friend of mine was telling me, that one of the precious brotherhood, on hearing that Joe meant to dispute his bets, asked what better could be expected from a Foote-mam out of place?"

"No more of that, Hal, if thou lovest him," exclaimed Optimus, who immediately perceived, by his [205]countenance, that the last hit had been too hard. Much more has been said upon this affair than it is worth. Let us change the subject.

"By my conscience," exclaimed the lieutenant, "and here's an excellent episode to wind up the drama with, headed, 'The Foote Ball's farewell to the Ring:' I'll read it you, with permission, and afterwards, colonel, you shall have a copy of it for next Sunday's 'Age;' it will save the magnanimous little B., your accommodating editor, or his locum tenens, the fat Gent, the trouble of straining their own weak noddles to produce any more soft attempts at the scandalous and the sarcastic.

"By the honour of my ancestry," rejoined the Gloucestershire colonel, "do you take me for a reporter to the paper in question?"

"Why not?" said the lieutenant, coolly: "if you are not a reporter and a supporter too, my gallant friend, by the powers of Poll Kelly but you are the most ill-used man in his majesty's dominions!"

"Sir, I stand upon my honour," said the colonel, petulantly.

"By the powers, you may, and very easily too," whispered O'Farellan, in a side speech to his left hand companion; "for it has been trodden under Foote by others these many months. To be plain with you, colonel, there are certain big whispers abroad, that you and your noble associate, the amiable yonder, with that beautiful obliquity of vision, which is said to have pierced the heart of a northern syren, are the joint Telegraphs of the Age. Sure no man in his senses can suspect Messieurs the Conducteurs of knowing any thing of what passes in polished life, or think—

"Ah, my dear Wewitzer," said Belle Harriet, now Mrs. Goutts, speaking to the late comedian, of some female friend, "she has an eye! an eye, that would pierce through a deal board." "By heavens," said Wewitzer, "that must be then a gimhlet eye." [206]of charging them with any personal knowledge of the amusing incidents they pretend to relate, beyond a certain little wanton's green room on dits, or the chaste conversations of the blushless naiads who sport and frolic in the Cytherian mysteries which are nightly performed in the dark groves of Vauxhall. Take a word of advice from an old soldier, colonel: It is worse than leading a forlorn hope to attempt to storm a garrison single handed; club secrets must be protected by club laws, for 'tis an old Eton maxim, that tales told out of school generally bring the relater to the block. But my friend Stanhope will no doubt explain this matter with a much better grace when he comes in contact with the tale-bearer."

"Hem," instinctively ejaculated Horace C——-t, the once elegant Apollo of Hyde Park, "thereby hangs a tale; 'tis a vile Age, and the sooner we forget it, the better—I am for love and peace." "i.e. a piece" responded the lieutenant. Horace smiled, and continued, "Come, Tom Duncombe, I'll give our mutual favourite, the female Giovanni. Lads, fill your glasses; we toast a deity, and one, too, who has equal claims upon most of us for the everlasting favours she has conferred."

"'Fore Gad, lieutenant," simpered out Lord William, squaring himself round to resume the conversation with the veteran, "if you do not mind your hits, we must positively cut. My friend, the colonel, will certainly set his blacks{5} upon you, and I shall be obliged to speak to little magnanimous, the ex-Brummagem director, to strike off a counterfeit impression of you in his scandalous Sunday chronicle, 'pon honour, I must."

     5 A very curious tradition is connected with a certain
     castle near Gloucester, which foretells, that the family
     name shall be extinct when the race of the blacks* cease to
     be peculiar to the family; a prophecy that I think not very
     likely to be fulfilled, judging by the conduct of the
     present race of representatives.

     * A species of Danish blood-hound, whose portraits and names
     are carved in the oaken cornice of one of the castle
     chambers.

[207]"The divil a care," said the lieutenant, laughingly; "to arms with you, my lord William; my fire engine will soon damp the ardour of little magnanimous, and an extra dose of Tom Bish's compounds put his friend, the fat Gent, where his readers have long been, in sweet somniferous repose. But zounds, gentlemen, I am forgetting the count, whose pardon I crave, for bestowing my attention on minor constellations while indulged with the overpowering brilliancy of his meteoric presence."

"The 'Farewell to the Ring,'" vociferated the count. "Come, lieutenant, give us the episode: I long to hear all my misfortunes strung together in rhyme."

"By the powers, you shall have it, then; and a true history it is, as ever was said or sung in church, chapel, or conventicle, with only one little exception—by the free use of poetic license, the satirist has fixed his hero in a very embarrassing situation—just locked him up at Radford's steel Hotel in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, coning over a long bill of John Long's, and a still longer one of the lawyers, with a sort of codicil, by way of refresher, of the house charges, and a smoking detainer tacked on to its tail, by Hookah Hudson, long enough to put any gentleman's pipe out.

There's the argument, programme, or fable. Now for the characters; they are all drawn from the life by the English Spy (see plate), under the amusing title of 'Morning, and in Low Spirits, a scene in a Lock-up House;' a very appropriate spot for a lament to the past, and

          "'Tis past, and the sun of my glory is set.
          How changed in my case is the fortune of war!
          With no money to back, and no credit to bet,
          No more in the Fancy I shine forth a star.

          "Accursed be the day when my bargeman I brought
          To fight with Jos. Hudson!—the thought is a sting.
          I sighing exclaim, by experience taught,
          Farewell to Tom Cannon, farewell to the ring!

          "By the Blackwater vict'ry made drunk with success,
          Endless visions of milling enchanted my nob;
          I thought my luck in: so I could do no less
          Than match 'gainst the Streatham my White-headed Bob.

          "I've some reason to think that there, too, I was done;
          For it oft has been hinted that battle was cross'd:
          But I well know that all which at Yately I won,
          With a thousand en outre at Bagshot I lost.

          "At Warwick a turn in my favour again
          Appear'd, and my crest I anew rear'd with pride;
          Hudson's efforts to conquer my bargeman were vain,
          I took the long odds, and I floor'd the flash side.

          "But with training, and treating, and sparring, and paying
          For all through the nose, as most do in beginning
          Their fancy career, I am borne out in saying,
          I was quite out of pocket in spite of my winning.

          "So when Bob fought old George, being shortish of money,
          And bearing in mem'ry the Bagshot affair,
          In my former pal's stakes I stood only a  pony,
          (Which was never return'd, so I'm done again there).

          "To be perfectly safe, on the old one I betted;
          For the knowing ones told  me the thing was made right:
          If it had been, a good bit of blunt I'd have netted;
          But a double X spoilt it, and Bob won the fight.

          "But the famed stage of Warwick, and Ward, were before me—
          I look'd at Tom Cannon, and thought of the past;
          I was sure he must win, and that wealth would show'r o'er me,
          So, like Richard, I set all my hopes on a cast;

          "And the die was soon thrown, and my luck did not alter—
          I was floor'd at all points, and my hopes were a hum;
          I'm at Tattersall's all but believed a defaulter,
          And here, in a spunging house, shut by a bum.

          "'Mid the lads of the fancy I needs must aspire
          To be quite au fait; and I have scarcely seen
          Of mills half a score, ere I'm fore'd to retire—
          O thou greenest among all the green ones, Pea Green!

          "And what have I gain'd, but the queer reputation
          Of a whimsical dandy, half foolish, half flash?
          To bruisers and sharpers, in high and low station,
          A poor easy dupe, till deprived of my cash.

          "All you who would enter the circle I've quitted,
          Reflect on my fate, and think what you're about:
          By brib'ry betray'd, or by cunning outwitted,
          In the Fancy each novice is quickly clean'd out.

          "For me it has lost its attractions and lustre;
          The thing's done with me, and I've done with the thing:
          The blunt for my bets I must manage to muster,
          Then farewell to Tom Cannon, farewell to the ring!"

The reading of this morceau produced, as might have been expected, considerable merriment on the [210]one hand, and some little discussion upon the other; the angry feelings of the commander in chief and his pals overbalancing the mirthful by their solemnly protesting against the exposure of the secrets of the prison house, which, in this instance, they contended, were violently distorted by some enemy to the modern accomplishment of pugilism. In a few moments all was chaos, and the stormy confusion of tongues, prophetk: of the affair ending in a grand display and milling catastrophe; the apprehensions of which induced John Long, and John Long's man, to be on the alert in removing the service, en suite, of superb cut glass, which had given an additional lustre to the splendour of the dessert. The arrival of other characters, and the good humour of the count, joined to a plentiful supply of soda water and iced punch, had, however, the effect of cooling the malcontents, who had no sooner recovered their wonted hilarity, than old Crony proceeded to particularize, by a comparison of the past with the present, interspersing his remarks with anecdotes of the surrounding group. "These are your modern men of fashion," said Crony; "and the specimen you have this day had of their conduct and pursuits an authority you may safely quote as one generally characteristic.

'To support this new fashion in circles of ton. New habits, new thoughts, must of course be put on; Taste, feeling, and friendship, laid by on the shelf, And nothing or worshipp'd, or thought of, but—self.'

"It was not thus in the days of our ancestors: the farther we look back, the purer honour was. In the days of chivalry, a love promise was a law; the braver the knight, the truer in love: then, too, religion, delicacy, sentiment, romantic passion, disinterested friendship, loyalty to king, love of country, a thirst for fame, bravery, nay, heroism, characterized [211]the age, the nation, the noble, the knight, and esquire. Mercy! what 'squires we have now-a-days! At a more recent date, all was courtliness, feeling, high sentiment, proud and lofty bearing, principle, the word inviolable, politeness at its highest pitch of refinement: lovers perished to defend their ladies' honour; now they live to sully it: the nobility and the people were distinct in dress and address; but, above all, amenity and good-breeding marked the distinction, and the line was unbroken. Now, dress is all confusion, address far below par, amenity is a dead letter, and as to breeding, it is confined to the breeding of horses and dogs, except when law steps in to encourage the breeding of disputes; not to mention the evils arising from crossing the old breed; nor can we much wonder at it, when we reflect on the altered way of life, the change of habits, and the declension of virtue, arising from these very causes.

          'Each hopeful hero now essays to start
          To spoil the intellect, destroy the heart,
          To render useless all kind Nature gave,
          And live the dupe of ev'ry well dress'd knave;
          To herd with gamblers, be a blackleg king,
          And shine the monarch of the betting ring.'

"Men of family and fashion, in those golden days, passed their time in courts, in dancing-rooms, and at clubs composed of the very cream of birth and elegance. You heard occasionally of Lord Such-a-one being killed in a duel, or of the baronet or esquire dying from cold caught at a splendid fête, or by going lightly clad to his magnificent vis-à-vis, after a select masquerade; but you never read his death in a newspaper from a catarrh caught in the watch-house, from & fistic fight, or in a row at a hell—things now not astonishing, since even men with a title and a name of rank pass their time in the stable, at common hells, at the Fives-court—the hall of infamy; in the watch-house, the justice-room, and make the finish in [212]the Fleet, King's Bench, or die in misery and debt abroad. In the olden times, a star of fashion was quoted for dancing at court, for the splendour of his equipages, his running footmen and black servants, his expensive dress, his accomplishments, his celebrity at foreign courts, his fine form, delicate hand, jewels, library, &c. &c. Now fame (for notoriety is so called) may be obtained by being a Greek, or Pigeon, by being mistaken for John the coachman, when on the box behind four tits; by being a good gentleman miller, by feeding the fancy, standing in print for crim. con., breaking a promise of marriage once or twice, and breaking as many tradesmen as possible afterwards; breaking the watchman's head on the top of the morn; and lastly, breaking away (in the skirmish through life) for Calais, or the Low Countries. There is as much difference between the old English gentleman and him who ought to be the modern representative of that name, as there is between a racer and a hack, a fine spaniel and a cross of the terrier and bull dog. In our days of polish and refinement, we had a Lord Stair, a Sedley, a Sir John Stepney, a Sir William Hamilton, and many others, as our ambassadors, representing our nation as the best bred in the world; and by their grace and amiability, gaining the admiration of the whole continent. We had, in remoter times, our Lords Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Lyttleton, our Steele, &c, the celebrated poets, authors, and patterns of fashion and elegance of the age. We had our Argyle,

          'The state's whole thunder form'd to wield,
          And shake at once the senate and the field.'

We had our virtuosi of the highest rank, our rich and noble authors in abundance. The departed Byron stood alone to fill their place. The classics were cultivated, not by the learned profession only, but by the votaries of fashion. Now, our Greek scholars are of [213]another cast.{6} In earlier days the chivalrous foe met his opponent in open combat, and broke a lance for the amusement of the spectators, while he revenged his injuries in public. Now, the practice of duelling{7} has become almost a profession, and the privacy with which it is of necessity conducted renders it always subject to suspicion (see plate); independent of which, the source of quarrel is too often beneath the dignity of gentlemen, and the wanton sacrifice of life rather an act of bravado than of true courage.{7}

     6 "Adeipe nunc Danaûm insidiai, et——ab uno, Disce
     omnes!"

     The Greek population of the fashionable world comprises a
     very large portion of society, including among its members
     names and persons of illustrious and noble title, whose
     whole life and pleasure in life appears to "rest upon the
     hazard of a die." The modern Greek, though he cannot boast
     much resemblance to Achilles, Ajax, Patroclus, or Nestor,
     is, nevertheless, a close imitator of the equally renowned
     chief of Ithaca. To describe his person, habits, pursuits,
     and manners, would be to sketch the portrait of one or more
     finished roués, who are to be found in most genteel
     societies. The mysteries of his art are manifold, and
     principally consist in the following rules and regulations,
     put forth by an old member of the corps, whose conscience
     returned to torture him when his reign of earthly vice was
     near its close.

     ELEMENTS OF GREEKING. 1. A Greek should be like a mole,
     visible only at night. 2. He should be a niggard of his
     speech, and a profligate with his liquor, giving freely, but
     taking cautiously. 3. He must always deprecate play in
     public, and pretend an entire ignorance of his game. 4. He
     must be subtle as the fox, and vary as the well-trained
     hawk; never showing chase too soon, or losing his pigeon by
     an over eager desire to pluck him. 5. He must be content to
     lose a little at first, that he may thereby make a final hit
     decisive. 6. He must practise like a conjuror in private,
     that his slippery tricks in public may escape observation.
     Palming the digits requires no ordinary degree of agility.
     7. He must secure a confederate, who having been pigeoned,
     has since been enlightened, and will consent to decoy others
     to the net. 8. He should have once held the rank of captain,
     as an introduction to good society, and a privilege to bully
     any one who may question his conduct. 9. He must always put
     on the show of generosity with those he has plucked—that
     is, while their bill, bond, post obit,  or other legal
     security is worth having.

     10. He should be a prince of good fellows at his own table,
     have the choicest wines for particular companies, and when a
     grand hit cannot be made, refuse to permit play in his own
     house; or on a decisive occasion, let his decoy or partner
     pluck the pigeon, while he appears to lose to some
     confederate a much larger sum.

     11. He must not be afraid to fight a duel, mill & rumbustical
     green one, or bully a brother sharper who attempts to poach
     upon his preserves.

     12. He must concert certain signals with confederates for
     working the broads (i.e. cards), such as fingers at whist:
     toe to toe for an ace, or the left hand to the eye for a
     king, and so on, until he can make the fate of a rubber
     certain. On this point he must be well instructed in the
     arts of marked cards, briefs, broads, corner bends, middle
     ditto, curves, or Kingston Bridge, and other arch tricks of
     slipping, palming, forcing, or even substituting,
     whatever card may be necessary to win the game. Such are a
     few of the elements of modern Greeking, contained in the
     twelve golden rules recorded above, early attention to which
     may save the inexperienced from ruin.

     7 ELEMENTS OF DUELLING.

     "The British Code of Duel," a little work professing to give
     the necessary instructions for man-killing according to
     honour, lays down the following rules as indispensable for
     the practice of principals and seconds in the pleasant and
     humane amusement of shooting at each other. "1. To choose
     out a snug sequestered spot, where the ground is level, and
     no natural, terrestrial, or celestial line presenting itself
     to assist either party in his views of sending his opponent
     into eternity. 2. To examine the pistols; see that they are
     alike in quality and length, and load in presence of each
     other. 3. To measure the distance; ten paces of not less
     than thirty inches being the minimum, the parties to step to
     it, not from it. 4. To fire by signal and at random; it
     being considered unfair to take aim at the man whose life
     you go out to take. 5. Not to deliver the pistols cocked,
     lest they should go off un-expectedly; and after one fire
     the second should use his endeavours to produce a
     reconciliation. 6. If your opponent fire in the air, it is
     very unusual, and must be a case of extreme anguish when you
     are obliged to insist upon another shot at him. 7. Three
     fires must be the ultimatum in any case; any more reduces
     duel to a conflict for blood," says the code writer; "if
     the parties can afford it, there should be two surgeons in
     attendance, but if economical, one mutual friend will
     suffice; the person receiving the first fire, in case of
     wound, taking the first dressing. 8. It being always
     understood that wife, children, parents, and relations are
     no impediment with men of very different relative stations
     in society to their meeting on equal terms." The consistency,
     morality, justice, and humanity of this code, I
     leave to the gratifying reflection of those who have most
     honourably killed their man.

          'For, as duelling now is completely a science,
          And sets, the Old Bailey itself at defiance;
          Now Hibernians are met with in every street,
          'Tis as needful to know how to shoot as to eat.'

     The following singular challenge is contained in a letter
     from Sir William Herbert, of St. Julian's, in Monmouthshire,
     father-in-law to the famous Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, to a
     gentleman of the name of Morgan.    The original is in the
     British Museum.

     "Sir—Peruse this letter, in God's name. Be not disquieted.
     I reverence your hoary hair. Although in your son I find too
     much folly and lewdness, yet in you I expect gravity and
     wisdom.

     "It hath pleased your son, late at Bristol, to deliver a
     challenge to a man of mine, on the behalf of a gentleman (as
     he said) as good as myself; who he was, he named not,
     neither do I know; but if he be as good as myself, it must
     either be for virtue, for birth, for ability, or for calling
     and dignity. For virtue I think he meant not, for it is a
     thing which exceeds his judgment: if for birth, he must be
     the heir male of an earl, the heir in blood of ten earls;
     for, in testimony thereof, I bear their several coats.
     Besides, he must be of the blood royal, for by my
     grandmother Devereux I am lineally and legitimately
     descended out of the body of Edward IV. If for ability he
     must have a thousand pounds a year in possession, a thousand
     pounds more in expectation, and must have some thousands in
     substance besides. If for calling and dignity, he must be
     knight or lord of several seignories in several kingdoms, a
     lieutenant of his county, and a counsellor of a province.

     "Now to lay all circumstances aside, be it known to your
     son, or to any man else, that if there be any one who
     beareth the name of gentleman, and whose words are of
     reputation in his county, that doth say, or dare say, that I
     have done unjustly, spoken an untruth, stained my credit and
     reputation in this matter, or in any matter else, wherein
     your son is exasperated, I say he lieth in his throat, and
     my sword shall maintain my word upon him, in any place or
     province, wheresoever he dare, and where I stand not sworn
     to observe the peace. But if they be such as are within my
     governance, and over whom I have authority, I will for their
     re-formation chastise them with justice, and for their
     malaport misdemeanour bind them to their good behaviour. Of
     this sort, I account your son, and his like; against whom I
     will shortly issue my warrant, if this my warning doth not
     reform them. And so I thought fit to advertise you hereof,
     and leave you to God.

     "I am, &c.

     "WM. HERBERT."

[216]"The art of fencing formerly distinguished the gentleman, who then wore a sword as a part of his dress. He is now contented with a regular stand-up fight, and exhibits a fist like a knuckle-bone of mutton—hard, coarse, and of certain magnitude. The bludgeon hammer-headed whip, or a vulgar twig, succeeds the clouded and amber-headed cane; and instead of the snuff-box being rare, and an article of parade, to exhibit a beauty's miniature bestowed in love, or that of a crowned head, given for military or diplomatic services, all ranks take snuff out of cheap and vulgar boxes, mostly of inferior French manufacture, with, not unfrequently, indecent representations on them; or you have wooden concerns with stage coaches, fighting-cocks, a pugilistic combat, or an ill-drawn neck and neck race upon them. The frill of the nobleman and gentleman's linen once bore jewels of high price, or a conceit, like a noted beauty's eye, set in brilliants less sparkling than what formed the centre. Now, a fox, a stag, or a dog, worthily occupies the place of that enchanting resemblance. In equitation, we had Sir Sydney Meadows, a pattern and a prototype for gentlemen horsemen. The Melton hunt now is more in vogue, and the sons of our nobility ride like their own grooms and postboys—ay, and dress like them too. Autrefois, a man of fashion might be perceived ere he was seen, from a reunion [217]of rich and costly perfumes. Now, snuff and tobacco, the quid, the pinch, and the cigar, announce his good taste. The cambric pocket-handkerchief was the only one known in the olden times. The belcher (what a name! ) supplies its place, together with the bird's eye, or the colours of some black or white boxer. An accomplished man was the delight of all companies in former times. An out and outer, one up to every thing, down as a nail or the knocker of Newgate, a trump, or a Trojan, now carry the mode of praise; one that can patter flash, floor a charley, mill a coal-heaver, come coachey in prime style, up to every rig and row in town, and down to every move upon the board, from a nibble at the club to a dead hit at a hell; can swear, smoke, take snuff, lush, play at all games, and throw over both sexes in different ways—he is the finished man. The attributes of a modern fine gentleman are, to have his address at his club, and his residence any where; to lounge, laugh, lisp, and loll away the time from four to eight, when having dressed, eat his olives, he goes to Almack's if he can, or struts into Fop's Alley at the Opera in boots, in defiance of decency or the remonstrance of the door-keepers; talks loud to be noticed; and having handed some woman of fashion to her carriage, gets in after her without invitation, and, as a matter of course, behaves rudely in return; makes a last call at the club in his way home to learn the issue of the debate, and try his luck at French hazard or fleecing a novice. (See Plate.)

If his fortune should be one thousand per annum, his income may be extended to five, by virtue of credit and credulity. If he comes out very early in life, say eighteen, he will scarcely expect to be visible at twenty-four; but if he does not appear until he is twenty-one, and then lives all his days, he may die fairly of old age, infirmity, and insolvency, at twenty-six. His topographical knowledge of town is bounded by the fashionable [218]directory, which limits his recognition, on the north, by Oxford-street, on the east, by Bond-street, on the south, by Pall Mall, and on the west, by Park-lane. Ask him where is Russell Square, and he stares at you for a rustic; inquire what authors he reads, and he answers Weatherbey and Rhodes; ask what are their works, and he laughs outright at your ignorance of the 'Racing Calendar,' 'Annals of Sporting,' 'Boxiana,' and 'Turf Remembrancer;' question his knowledge of science, it consists in starch à la Brummel{8}; of mathematics, in working problems on the cards; of algebra, in calculating the long odds, or squaring the chances of the dice; he tells you, his favourite book is his betting account, that John Bull is the only newspaper worth reading, and that you must never expect to be admitted into good society if the cut of your coat does not bear outward proofs of its being fabricated either in Saint James's Street or Bond Street; that the great requisites are confidence, indifference, and nonchalance; as, for instance, George Wombwell being thrown out of his tilbury on High gate Hill, when driving Captain Burdett, and both being dreadfully bruised, George is picked

     8 When Brummel fell into disgrace, he devised the starched
     neckcloth, with the design of putting the prince's neck out
     of fashion, and of bringing his Royal Highness's muslin, his
     bow, and wadding, into contempt. When he first appeared in
     this stiffened cravat, tradition says that the sensation in
     St. James's-street was prodigious; dandies were struck dumb
     with envy, and washerwomen miscarried. No one could conceive
     how the effect was produced—tin, card, a thousand
     contrivances were attempted, and innumerable men cut their
     throats in vain experiments; the secret, in fact, puzzled
     and baffled every one, and poor dandy L———d died raving
     mad of it;  his mother, sister, and all his relations waited
     on Brummel, and on their knees implored him to save their
     kinsman's life by the explanation of the mystery; but the
     beau was obdurate, and  L———d miserably perished.

     When Brummel fled from England, he left this secret a legacy
     to his country; he wrote on a sheet of paper, on his
     dressing-table, the emphatic words, "Starch is the man."

[219] up by a countryman, when he inquires, very coolly, if 't'other blackguard is not quite dead:' his amours are more distinguished by their number than attractions, and the first point is, not attachment, but notoriety; the lady always being the more desirable, in proportion to the known variety of her gallants; that of all the pleasures of this life, there is nothing like a squeeze at court (see plate), or being wedged into a close room at a crowded rout.

A ruffian was never thought of by our forefathers; the exquisite was; but he was more sublimated than the exquisite of the nineteenth century. The dandy is of modern date; but there is some polish on him—suppose it be on his boots alone. Shape and make are attended to by him; witness the Cumberland corset, and his making what he can of every body. Then, again, he must have a smattering of French, and affect to be above old England. When he smokes, he does it from vanity, to show his écume de mer pipe. He may have a gold snuff-box and a little diamond pin; and when he swears, he lisps it out like a baby's lesson. Sometimes (not often) he plays upon the guitar; and the peninsular war may have made a man of him, and a linguist too; but he is far below the ancient exquisites (who touched the lute, the lyre, and violoncello). And he is an egotist in every thing—in gallantry, in conversation, in principle, and in heart. Nor has the deterioration of the gentleman been confined to England only—polite and ceremonious France has felt her change. The Revolution brought in coarse and uncivilised manners. The awkward and unsuccessful attempt at Spartan and Roman republican manners; the citizen succeeding to Monsieur; the blasphemous, incredulous, atheistical principles instilled into the then growing generation of all classes; the system of equality, subversive of courtliness, and the obliging attentions and suavities of society, poisoned at once the source [220]of morals and of manners; for there can be nothing gentlemanlike in atheism, radicalism, and the level, ling system. To this state of things succeeded a reign of terror, assassination, and debauchery; and lastly, a military despotism, in which the private soldier rose to the marshals baton; a groom in the stables of the Prince of Condé saw himself ennobled; peers and generals had brothers still keeping little retail shops; and a drum-boy lived to see his wife—a washerwoman, or fish vender—a duchess (Madame Lefevre). How can we expect breeding from such materials? Bayonets gave brilliancy to the imperial court; and the youth of the country were all soldiers, without dreaming of the gentleman, except in a low bow and flourish of the hat; a greater flourish of self-praise, and a few warm, loose, and dangerous compliments to the fairer sex, became more than even the objects of their passion, but less so of their attentions and prepossessing assiduities. This military race taught us to smoke, to snuff, to drink brandy, and to swear; for although John Bull never was backward in that point, yet St. Giles's and not St. James's, was the rendezvous for those who possessed that brutal and invincible habit. These were not amongst the least miseries and curses which the war produced; and they have left such mischievous traces behind them, that the mature race in France laugh at the old court, and at all old civil and religious principles, whilst our demoralized youth play the same game at home. And if a Bolingbroke or a Chesterfield was now to appear, he would be quizzed by all the smokers, jokers, hoaxers, glass-cockers, blacklegs, and fancy-fellows of the town, amongst whom all ranks are perfectly lost, and morality is an absolute term. O tempora! O Moses! (as the would-be Lady Sckolard said.) Nor does Moses play second best in these characters of the day. Moses has crept into all circles; from the ring to the peerage and baronetage, the stage, the [221]race-course; and our clubs are tinged with the Israelitish: they may lend money, but they cannot lend a lustre to the court, or to the gilded and painted saloons of the beau monde. The style of things is altered; we mean not the old style and new in point of date, but in point of brilliancy in the higher circles. Our ancestors never bumped along the streets, with a stable-boy by their side, in a one-horse machine, which is now the bon ton in imitation of our Gallic neighbours, whose equipage is measured by their purse. Where do you now see a carriage with six horses, and three outriders, and an avant courier, except on Lord Mayor's day? Yet how common this was with the nobility d'autrefois. Two grooms are no longer his Grace's and my Lord's attendants, but each is followed by one groom in plain clothes, not very dissimilar from the man he serves. Do we ever see the star of nobility in the morning, to guard him who has a right to it from popular rudeness and a confusion of rank? All is now privacy, concealment, equality in exterior, musty and meanness: not that the plain style of dress would be exceptionable, if we could say in verity—

          'We have within what far surpasseth show.'

But the lining is now no better (oftentimes worse) than the coat. Our principles and our politeness are on a par—at low-water mark. The tradesman lives like the gentleman, and the nobleman steps down a degree to be, like other people, up to all fashionable habits and modern customs; whilst the love for gain, at the clubs, on the turf, in the ring, and in private life, debases one part of society, and puts down the other, which becomes the pigeon to the rook. Whilst all this goes on, the press chronicles and invents follies for us; and there are men stupid enough to glory in their depravity, to be pleased with their own deformity of mind, body, or dress, of their affectations, [222]and their leading of a party. There is something manly in the Yacht Club, in a dexterously driving four fleet horses in hand, in reining in the proud barb, and in gymnastic exercises: but the whole merit of these ceases, when my Lord (like him of carroty beard) becomes the tar without his glory, and wears the check shirt without the heart of oak—when the driver becomes the imitator of the stage and hackney box—when the rider is the unsuccessful rival of the jockey; and the frequenter of the gymnastic arena becomes a bruiser, or one turning strength into money, be the bet or the race what it may.

          'Shades of our ancestors! whose fame of old
          In ev'ry time the echoing world has told!
          Whose dauntless valour and heroic deeds,
          Each British bosom yet enraptur'd reads!
          Deeds, which in ev'ry country, clime, and age,
          Have fill'd the poet's and historian's page;
          Of ev'ry muse the theme, and ev'ry pen:
          Ye I invoke! and ye, my countrymen,
          If British blood yet flows within your veins,
          If for your country aught of love remains,
          O make your first, your chief, your only care,
          That which first rais'd and made you what you were.'"

CHELTONIAN CHARACTERS.

A TRIP TO THE SPAS.

CHAPTER I.

[223]

     Bernard Blackmantle and Bob Transit pay a Visit to the
     Chelts—Privileges of a Spy—Alarm at Chelten-him—The rival
     Editors—The setting of a great Son—How to sink in
     Popularity and Respect—A noble Title—An old Flame—
     Poetical jeu d'esprit, by Vinegar Penn—Muriatic Acid—An
     Attorney-General's Opinion on Family Propensities given
     without a Fee!!—The Cheltenham Dandy, or the Man in the
     Cloak, a Sketch from the Life-Noble Anecdote of the Fox-
     hunting Parson—Bury-ing alive at Berkeley—Public
     Theatricals in private—"A Michaelmas Preachment," by an
     Honest Reviewer—A few Words for Ourselves—The Grand
     Marshall—Interesting Story of a former M. C.

          "Oh, I've been to countries rare;
          Seen such sights, 'twould make you stare."

"That last chapter of yours, Blackmantle, on John Long and John Long's customers, will long remain a memorial of your scrutinizing qualifications, and, as I think, will prevent your taking your port, punch, pines, or soda-water in Bond-street for some time to come, lest 'suspicion, which ever haunts the guilty mind,' should in the course of conversation convict you; and then, my dear fellow, you would certainly go off pop like the last-mentioned article in the above reference to the luxuries of Long's hotel." [224]"Bravo, Bob Transit!" said I; "this comes mighty well from you, sir, my fidus achates.—'A bon chat bon rat'—the fidus and audax satirists of the present times. And who, sir, dares to doubt our joint authority? are we not the very spies o' the age?

          'Joint monarchs of all we survey;
          Our right there is none to dispute.'

From the throne to, the thatched cottage, wherever there is character, 'there fly we,' and, on the wings of merry humour, draw with pen and pencil a faithful portraiture of things as they are; not tearing aside the hallowed veil of private life, but seizing as of public right on public character, and with a playful vein of satire proving that we are of the poet's school;

          'Form'd to delight at once and lash the age.'

          At this season of the year fashion cries out of
          Town; so, pack up, Master Robert, and
          Let us to Chelt's retiring banks,
          Where beaux and beauties throng,
          To drink at Spas and play rum pranks,
          That here will live in song.

What Cheltenham was, is no business of ours; what it is, as regards its buildings, salubrious air, and saline springs, its walks, views, libraries, theatre, and varieties, my friend Williams, whose shop at the corner of the assembly rooms is the grand lounge of the literati, will put the visitor into possession of for the very moderate sum of five shillings. But, reader, if you would search deeper into society, and know something of the whim and character of the frequenters and residents of this fashionable place of public resort, you must consult the English Spy, and trace in his pages and the accompanying plates of his friend Bob Transit the faithful likenesses of the scenes and persons who figure in the maze of fashion, [225]or attract attention by the notoriety of their amours, the eccentricity of their manners, or the publicity of their attachments to the ball or the billiard-room, the card or the hazard-table, the turf or the chase; for in all of these does Cheltenham abound. From the cercle de la basse to the cercle de la haute, from the nadir to the zenith, 'I know ye, and have at ye all'—ye busy, buzzing, merry, amorous groups of laughter-loving, ogling, ambling, gambling Cheltenham folk.

          'A chiel's among ye taking notes,
          And faith, he'll print them.'

To spy out your characteristic follies, ye sons and daughters of pleasure, have we, Bernard Blackmantle and Robert Transit, esquires, travelled down to Cheltenham to collect materials for an odd chapter of a very odd book, but one which has already established its fame by continued success, and, as I hope owes much of its increasing prosperity to its characteristic good-humour; so, without more preface, imagine a little dapper-looking fellow of about five feet something in altitude, attended by a tall sharp-visaged gentleman in very spruce costume, parading up and down the High-street, Cheltenham—lounging for a few minutes in Williams's library—making very inquisitive remarks upon the passing singularities—and then the little man most impertinently whispering to his friend with the Quixotic visage, book him, Bob—when out comes the note book of both parties, and down goes somebody. Afterwards see them popping into this shop, and then into the other, spying and prying about—occasionally nodding perhaps to a London actor, who shines forth here a star of the first magnitude; John Liston, for instance, or Tyrone Power—then posting off to the well walks, or disturbing the peaceful dead by ambling over their graves in search of humorous epitaphs—making their way down to the Berkeley kennel in North-street (See Plate), [226]or paying a visit to the Paphian divinities at the Oakland cottages under the Cleigh Hills—trotting here and there—making notes and sketches until all Cheltenham is in a state of high excitement, and the rival editors of the Chronicle and Journal, Messrs. Halpine and Judge, are so much alarmed that they are almost prepared to become friends, and unite their forces for the time against the common enemy.

Imagine such an animated, whispering, gazing, inquiring scene, as I have here presented you with a slight sketch of, and, reader, you will be able to form some idea of the first appearance of the English Spy and his friend the artist, among the ways and walks of merry Cheltenham. Then here

          'At once, I dedicate my lay
          To the gay groups that round me swarm,
          Like May-bees round the honied hive,
          When fields are green, and skies are warm
          And all in nature seems alive.'

Time was, a certain amorous colonel carried every thing here, and bore away the belle from all competitors; the hunt, the ball, the theatre, and the card-party all owned his sovereign sway; although it must be admitted, that, in the latter amusement, he seldom or ever hazarded enough to disturb his financial recollections on the morrow. But time works wonders—notoriety is of two complexions, and what may render a man a very agreeable companion to foxhunters and frolicsome lordlings, is not always the best calculated to recommend him in the eyes of the accomplished and the rigid in matters of moral propriety. But other equally celebrated and less worthy predilections have been trumpeted forth in courts and newspapers, until the fame of the colonel has spread itself through every grade of society, and, unlike that wreath which usually decks the gallant soldier's brow, a cypress chaplet binds the early gray, and makes admonitory signal of the ill-spent past. The wrongs of an injured [227]and confiding husband, whose fortunes, wrecked by the false seducer, have left him a prey to shattered ruin, yet live in the remembrance of some honest Cheltenham hearts; and although these may feel for the now abandoned object of his illicit passion, there are but few who, while they drop a tear of pity as she passes them daily in the street, do not invoke a nobler feeling of indignation upon the ruthless head of him who forged the shafts of misery, and pierced at one fell blow the hearts of husband, wife, and children! What father that has read Maria's hapless tale of woe, and marked the progress of deceptive vice, will hereafter hazard the reputation of his daughters by suffering them to mix in Cheltenham society with the branded seducer and his profligate associates? Gallantry, an unrestricted love of the fair sex, and a predilection for variety, may all be indulged in this country to any extent, without betraying confidence on the one hand or innocence upon the other, without outraging decency, or violating the established usages of society. While the profligate confines his sensual pleasures with such objects as I allude to within the walls of his harem, the moralist has no right to trespass upon his privacy; it is only when they are blazoned forth to public view, and daringly opposed to public scorn, that the lash of the satirist is essentially useful, if not in correcting, at least in exposing the systematic seducer, and putting the inexperienced and the virtuous on their guard against the practice of profligacy. It is the frequency and notoriety of such scenes that has at last alarmed the Chelts, who, fearing more for their suffering interests than for their suffering fellow-creatures, begin to murmur rather loudly against the Berkeley Adonis, representing that the town itself suffers in respectability and increase of visitors, by its being known as the rendezvous of the bloods and blacks of Berkeley. The truth of this assertion may be gathered from the [228]following jeu d' esprit, only one among a hundred of such squibs that have been very freely circulated in Cheltenham and the neighbourhood within the last year.

          'NEWS FROM CHELTENHAM.

          'The season runs smartly in Cheltenham's town,
          The gossips are up, and the colonel is down;
          He has taken the place of the famous Old Gun {1}
          That exploded last year, and created some fun.
          Were no lives then lost? some say, Yes! and some, No!
          The report even shook the old walls of Glasgow.{2}
          And the Bushe was found out to be no safe retreat,
          For in love, as in war, you may chance to be beat;
          And a hell-shaming fellow can never be reckon'd,
          Whate'er he may publish, a capital second.'

"But now having had our fling at his vices, let us speak of him more agreeably; for the fellow hath some qualifications which, if humour suit, enables him to shine forth a star of the first magnitude among bons vivants and sporting characters, who ride, amble, and vegetate upon the banks of the Chelt. Such is his love of hunting, a pleasure in which he not only indulges himself, but enables others, his friends, to participate with him, by keeping up a numerous stud of thirty well trained horses, and a double pack of fox-hounds, that no appropriate day may be lost, nor any opportunity missed, of pursuing the sports of the chase. This is as it should be, and smacks of that glorious spirit which animated his ancestors; although the violence of his temper will sometimes break out even here, in the field, when some young and forward Nimrod, unable to restrain his fiery steed, o'er-caps the hounds, or crosses the scent. As the Chelts are, or have been, greatly benefited by the hounds being kept alternately during the hunting months between

     1  A good-morrow to you, Captain Gun.

     2  Miss Glasgow, divine perfection of antique virgin purity!
     what could the poet mean by this allusion?

[229]Cheltenham and Gloucester, they must at least feel some little gratitude to be due to the man who is the cause of such an increase of society, and consequent expenditure of cash. But, say they, we lose in a fourfold degree; for the respectable portion of the fashionable visitants have of late cut us entirely, to save their sons and daughters from pollution and ruin, by association or the force of example. 'Tis not in the nature of the English Spy rudely to draw aside the curtain, even to expose the midnight revelries and debaucheries, of which he possesses some extraordinary anecdotes; events, which, if recorded here, would, in the language of the poet,

          'Give ample room, and verge enough,
          The characters of hell to trace;
          How through each circling year, on many a night,
          Have Severn's waves re-echoed with affright
          The shrieks of (maids) through Berkeley's roofs that ring.'

"But let these tales be told hereafter, as no doubt they will be, by the creatures who now pander to vice, when the satiated and the sullen chief sinks into decay, or cuts from his emaciated trunk the filthy excrescences which, like poisonous fungus, suck the sap of honour and of life. The colonel hath had many trials in this life, and much to break down a noble and a proud spirit. In earlier days, a question of birthright, while it cut off one entail, brought on another, which entailed a name, not the ancient gift of a monarch, but one still more ancient, and, according to Dodsley's Chronology of the Kings of England, the origin of British sovereignty itself—a 'filius nullius,' a title that left it open to the wearer to have established his own fame, and to have been the architect of a nobler fortune; for

          'Who nobly acts may hold to scorn
          The man who is but nobly born.'

"Had the colonel acted thus, there is little doubt but long ere this the kind heart of his Majesty would have [230]warmed into graciousness as he reflected upon the untoward circumstances which removed from the eldest born of an ancient house the honours of its armorial bearings; the engrailed bar might have been erased from the shield, and the coronet of nobility have graced the elder brother, without invading the legal designation or claims of the legitimate younger; but

          I sing of a day that is gone and past,
          Of a chance that is lost, and a die that's cast.

And even now, while I am sermonizing on late events but too notorious, the busy hum of many voices buzzes a tale upon the ear that sickens with its unparalleled profligacy; but the English Spy, the faithful historian of the present times, refuses to stain his pages by giving credit to, or recording, the imputed profligate connexion. Adieu, monsieur the colonel; fain would I have passed you by without this comment; but your association with the black spirits of the 'Age'{3} has placed you upon a pedestal, the proper mark for satire to shoot her barbed arrows at.

"But let us take a turn down the High Street; and as I live here comes an old flame of the colonel's, Miss R*g*rs, who is now turned into Mrs. E***n, and who, it is said, most wickedly turned her pen, and pointed the following jeu d'esprit against her late protector, when he was laid up by a serious accident, which happened to his knee after the more serious loss of a—Foote.

     3 "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind" says Pope; and
     it would appear so from the intimacy which subsists between
     the colonel and his jackall Bunn, the would-be captain, who
     it is said is the filius nullius of old Ben Bunn the
     conveyancer, not of legal title or estate by roll of
     parchment, but of the very soil itself. Lord W. Lennox, too,
     no doubt, prides himself upon the illegitimate origin of his
     ancestry; and the publisher of the infamous scandals
     manufactured in the Quadrant is also of the same kidney,
     being the reputed natural son of jolly old Bardolph Jennyns.
     What the remaining portion of the coterie spring from, the
     Gents and Bs., the sensitive nose of a sensible man will
     very easily discover.

          'To Cupid's colonel help, ye people all;
          He's missed his Footing, 'Pride has had a fall;'
          The knee's uncapp'd, the calf laid open quite,
          The Foote presents the most distressing sight;
          Its form so perfect, pity none were nigh,
          With warning voice to guard from injury.
          Waltzers! your peerless partner view,
          The gallant gay Lothario quite perdu;
          Sans Foote to rest upon, his claims deny'd
          To take a birth by English nobles' side.
          Let him to Cheltenham, 'tis not to go far;
          He's sure to find a seat—on Irish car.'

"I am told, but I cannot discover the allusion myself, that Miss B*g*rs was prompted to this effusion of the satiric muse by the green-eyed monster, Jealousy, Observe that machine yonder, rumbling up the street like an Irish jaunting-car, that contains the numerous family of M***r, the vinegar merchant, whose lady being considered by the Chelts as lineally descended from the Tartar race, they have very facetiously nicknamed muriatic acid. The mad wag with the sandy whiskers yonder, and somewhat pleasant-looking countenance, is a second-hand friend of the colonel's; mark how he is ogling the young thing in the milliner's shop through the window: his daily occupation, making assignations, and his nightly amusement, a new favourite. A story is told of his father, a highly respected legal character in the Emerald Isle, that, on being asked by a friend why his son had left the country, replied, 'By Jasus, sir, it was high time: sure I am there's enough of the family left behind. Is not his lady in a promising way, and both his female servants, and those of two or three of his friends, and are not both mine in a similar situation? Zounds, sir, if he had remained here much longer, there would not have been a single female in the whole country. However, 'Good wine, they say, needs no Bushe,' so I shall leave him unmarked by his family cognomen, lest this [232]should be taken as a puff-card of his capabilities, and thereby add to the list of his Cytherean exploits. In a late affair, when the colonel was called out (but did not come), Sir Patrick beat about the Bushe for him very judiciously, and by great skill in diplomacy enabled his friend to come off second best. But here comes one who stands at odds with description, and attracts more notice in Cheltenham than even the colonel, his companions, and all the metropolitan visitory put together. If I was to lend myself to the circulation of half the strange tales related of him by the Chelts, I could fill a small-sized volume; but brevity is the soul of wit, and the eccentric Mackey, with all his peculiarities and strange fancies for midnight mastications, has a soul superior to the common herd, and a 'heart and hand, open as day, to melting charity.' It is strange, 'passing strange,' that one so rich and fond of society, and well-descended withal, should choose thus to ape the ridiculous; a man, too, if report speaks truly, of no ordinary talents as a writer on finance, and an expounder of the solar system. Vanity! vanity! what strange fantasies and eccentric fooleries dost thou sometimes fill the brain of the biped with, confining thy freaks, however, to that strange animal—man. The countenance of our eccentric is placid and agreeable, and, provided it was cleared of a load of snuff, which weighs down the upper lip, might be said to be, although in the sear o' the leaf, highly intellectual; but the old Scotch cloak, the broad-brimmed hat of the covenanter, the loose under vest, the thread-bare coat shaking in the wind, like the unmeasured garment of the scarecrow, and the colour-driven nankeens, grown short by age and frequent hard rubbings; then, too, the flowing locks of iron gray straggling over the shoulders like the withered tendrils of a blighted vine—all conspire to arrest the attention of an inquisitive eye; yet the Chelts know but little [233]about his history, beyond his being a man of good property, the proprietor of the Vittoria boarding-house, inoffensive in manners, obliging in disposition, and intelligent in conversation. His great penchant is a midnight supper, stewed chicken and mushrooms, or any other choice and highly-seasoned dish; to enjoy which in perfection, he hath a maiden sleeping at the foot of his bed ready to attend his commands, which, it is said, are communicated to her in a very singular way; no particle of speech being used to disturb the solemn silence of the night, but a long cane reaching downwards to the slumbering maid, by certain horizontal taps against her side, propelled forward by the hand of the craving gourmand, wakes her to action, and the banquet, piping-hot from the stew-pan, smokes upon the board, unlike a vision, sending up real and enchanting odoriferous perfumes beneath his olfactory organs. Extraordinary as this account may appear, it is, I believe, strictly true, and is the great feature of the eccentric's peculiarities, all the minor whims and fancies being of a subordinate and uninteresting nature. I shall conclude my notice of him by relating an action that would do honour to a king, and will excuse the eccentric with the world, although his follies were ten times more remarkable. During the suspension of payments by one of the Cheltenham banks, and when all the poorer class of mechanics and labourers were in a most piteous situation from the unprecedented number of one pound provincial notes then in circulation, Mr. Mackey, to his eternal-honour be it related, and without the remotest interest in the bank, stepped nobly forward, unsolicited and unsupported, gave to all the poor people who held the one pound notes the full value for them, reserving to himself only the chance of the dividend. Ye Berkeleys, Ducies, Lennoxes, Cravens, Hammonds, Bushes, Molineauxes, and Coventrys, and all the long list of Cheltenham gay! [234]show me an action like this ye have done—a spirit so noble, when did you display?—Do you see that rosy-gilled fellow coming this way, with a hunting-whip in his hand? in costume, more like a country horse-dealer than a country clergyman; yet such he was, until the bishop of the diocese removed the clerical incumbrance of the cassock, to give the wearer freer license to indulge his vein for hunting, coursing, cock-fighting, and the unrestricted pleasures of the table and the bottle. A good story is told of him and his friend, the colonel, who, having invited some unsophisticated farmer to partake of the festivities of the castle, laid him low with strong potations of black strap, and in that state had him carried forth to the stable-yard, where he was immured up to his neck in warm horse-dung, the pious ex-chaplain reading the burial-service over him in presence of the surviving members of the hunt."

"Who the deuce is that pleasant-looking fellow," said Bob, "who appears to give and gain the quid pro quo from every body that passes him?" "That, my dear fellow, is the Grand Marshal of all the merry meetings here, and a very gentlemanly, jovial, and witty fellow; just such a man as should fill the office of master of the ceremonies, having both seen and experienced enough of the world to know how to estimate character almost at a first interview; he is highly and deservedly respected. There is a very affecting anecdote in circulation respecting his predecessor, the detail of which I much regret that I have lost; but the spirit of the affair was too strongly imprinted upon my memory to be easily obliterated. He had, it appears, loved a beauteous girl in early life, and met with a reciprocal return; but the stern mandate of parental authority prevented their union. The lover, almost broken-hearted, sought a distant clime, and, after years of peril, returned to England, bringing with him a wife. The match had been one [235]of interest, and they are seldom those of domestic bliss. It proved so here—he became dissipated, and squandered away the property he had possessed himself of by marriage. In this situation, he collected together the wreck of his fortunes, and retired to Cheltenham, where his amiable qualities and gentlemanly conduct endeared him to a large circle of acquaintance, and, in the end, he was induced to accept the situation of master of the ceremonies. Time rolled on, and his former partner being dead, he was, from his volatile and thoughtless disposition, again plunged in difficulties, and imprisoned for debt. The circumstance became known to her at whose shrine in early life he had vowed eternal devotion: with a still fond recollection of him, who alone had ever shared her heart, she hastened to the spot, and, being now a wealthy spinster, paid all his debts and released him from durance. Gratitude and love both pointed out the course for the obliged M. c. to pursue; but, alas! there is nothing certain in the anticipations of complete happiness in this life. The lady fell suddenly sick, and died on the very day they were to have been married, leaving him sole executor of her property. The calamitous event made such a deep impression upon a feeling mind, already shaken by trouble and disease, that finding his prospects of bliss again blighted without a chance of recovery, he fell into a state of despondency, and was, within a week, laid a corpse by the side of his first love. At the post-office,—purposely placed out of the way by the sagacious Chelts to give strangers the trouble of making inquiries,—I received the following whim from the same witty pen who wrote me, anonymously, an inauguration ode to commence my second volume with." "Who is this whimsical spirit in the clouds?" said Bob. "Ay, lad," I retorted, "that's just the inquiry I have been making for the last eight months: [236]although it would appear we have—ad interim—been running, riding, racing, rowing, and sailing together in various parts of the kingdom, you perceive, Bob, there are more Spies than ourselves at work. However, this must be some protecting geni who hovers over our heads and fans the air on silken wing, wafting zephyr-like the ambrosial breeze, where'er our merry fancies stray. Anon, 'we'll drink a measure the table round;' and if we forget the 'Honest Reviewer,' may we lose all relish for a racy joke, and be forgotten ourselves by the lovers of good fellowship and good things." "Which we never shall be," said Bob; "for those eccentric tomes of ours must and will continue to amuse a laughter-loving age, when we are booked inside and bound for t'other world." There was not a little egotism, methought, about friend Transit's eulogy; but as every parent has a sort of poetical licence allowed him in praising his own bantlings, perhaps the patronage bestowed by the public upon the English Spy may excuse a little vanity in either the author or the artist. "But you are the great magician o' the south yourself, Bernard," continued Transit, "and will you not use your power, you who can 'call spirits from the vasty deep'" "True, Bob; I can call, but will they come when I shall command? However, let us retire to our inn, and after dinner we'll chant his lay; and if he dances not to the music of his own metre, then hath he no true inspiration in him, and is a poet without vanity, a vara avis who delighteth not in receiving the reward of merit; so on, old fellow, to our quarters, where we will

          'Carve the goose, and quaff the wine,'
          And wish our sprite were here to dine—
          We'd give him hearty cheer;
          A welcome such as hand and heart
          To kindred spirits should impart,
          Where friendship reigns sincere.'

[237]We would punish him for sending his odes to us without sending his family cognomen therewith. Have we not done him immortal honour—placed him in front of our second volume like a golden dedication, and what is more, selected him from many a pleasant whim, to stand by our side; the only associate who can claim one line engrafted on to the never-ending fame of the English Spy?—But to the 'Preachment;' let us have another taste of his quality."

A SECOND ODE TO BERNARD BLACKMANTLE, ESQ.

or A MICHAELMAS-DAY PREACHMENT.

          "Iterumque, iterumque vocabo."—Ancient Classics.

          "'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do goods on't."
          —Winter's Tale.

          "Ours is the skie,
          Where at what fowle we please our hawks shall flie."
          —Anon.

          Ay, here I come once more, great sir,
          Out of pure love to minister
          Some golden truths to thee;
          Faustus ye're not, nor Frankenstein,
          Yet, being up to trap, I ween
          You'll need a sprite like me.

          Eve watch'd you closely, my young squire,
          Since at vol. two I cool'd the ire
          That left a little stain;
          And therefore wonder not, sweet Spy,
          Since both of us at follies fly,
          Your "Tonson comes again."

          This is the day of Michaelmas.
          Many would say, ay, "let that pass"
          As a forgotten thing.
          Not so with us, our rent we pay,
          And do we not, on quarter-day,
          Our taxes to the king?

          Since, then, "our withers are unwrung,"
          And we need wish no blister'd tongue
          To creditors and duns,
          Let's carve the goose, and quaff the wine,
          And toast September twenty-nine,
          Nor mark how fast time runs.

          We've clone the same; that is, we've quaffd,
          And sung, and danced, and drunk, and laugh'd,
          When we were half seas over;
          I don't mean tipsy, bless you, no!
          But when we pass'd, like dart from bow,
          Cowes Roads on board the Rover.

          So pipe all hands; for though no gale
          From sea-wash'd shores distend our sail,
          We'll man a vessel here.
          This room's our ship; this wine's our tide;
          And the good friends we sit beside,
          The messmates of our cheer.

          Ay, this looks well; now till the glass
          To king, to country, and our lass,
          And all of pluck and feather;
          That done around, and nothing loth,
          Since we are "learned Thebans" both,

          We'll have some talk together.
          You've been to Cheltenham, I find,
          And, zounds! you really ride the wind,
          To Bath and Worcester too;
          To South'ton and the Isle of Wight,
          As if increase of appetite
          With every new dish grew.

          But it was really infra dig.
          Spite of your old horse and new gig,
          You did not, some fine morn,
          Drive up to Malcolm Ghur, d'ye see,{4}
          And leave two pretty cards for me
          And Sir John Barleycorn.

          We would have been your chorus, sir,
          Or, an' you pleased, your trumpeter,
          And lioned you about;
          Have shown you every pretty girl,
          And every nouvelle quadrille twirl,
          And every crowded rout.

          At eight o' morns have call'd you down,
          (What would they say of that in town?)
          To swallow pump-room water;
          At eight o' nights have call'd you up,
          (Our grandams used just then to sup),
          To 'gin the dinner slaughter.

          Have whisk'd you o'er to Colonel B's,
          Or drove you up to Captain P's,
          Dons unto Cheltenham steady.
          But I forget the world, good lack,
          Have play'd enough with such a pack
          Of great court-cards already.

     4 Malcolm Ghur, one of the very prettiest of the many pretty
     newly-erected mansions that give a character to the environs
     of Cheltenham. To its proprietor do I owe much for
     hospitality; a merrier man, withal, dwells not in my
     remembrance; he is of your first-rate whist players, though
     he rarely now joins in the game. As the chaplain of the
     county-lodge of F. M. he is much distinguished; and, at the
     dinners of the Friendly Brothers—which are luxurious
     indeed, and all for the "immortal memory" of William, king
     of that name, and whose portrait ornaments their reading-
     room—who better than he can "set the table in a roar"?

          Have set you down at ten pound whist
          With A———-y, and the au fait list,{5}
          Turning your nights to days;
          Or, somewhat wiser, bid you mix
          Where less expensive are odd tricks,
          And where friend R———-n plays.{6}

          Have made you try a double trade,
          By clapping you in masquerade,
          To jaunt at fancy-balls;
          You would have seen some merry sights
          On two or three particular nights,
          In good Miss—————-'s halls.{7}

          You could have gone as harlequin,
          Or clad yourself in Zamiel's skin,
          Your tending spirits we;
          Or "Peeping Tom" may be more apt,
          Since all are in your record clapp'd
          We send to Coventry.

     5 Colonel A———y, certainly tho first whist player of the
     rooms.

     If he ever drilled a company of raw recruits half as well as
     he manages a handful of bad cards, he must have been the
     very admirable Crichton of soldiership.

     6 Mr. R———n, a facetious and good-humoured son of Erin;
     true

     as clock-work to the board of green cloth, though he has
     been an age making a fortune from it.

     7 Among the most fashionable amusements of Cheltenham are
     the fancy-balls, given by two or three of the principal
     sojourners in that place, of card-playing, scandal,
     freemasonry, and hot water—God knows how many are in the
     latter ingredient!    The most splendid I recollect was
     given by Colonel————-, or rather Miss————-, whose
     protégé he married; touching which alliance, there is a
     story of some interest and much romance. Of that, as Pierce
     Egan says very wittily in every critique, "of that anon."
     There certainly was some fun and humour displayed by a few
     of the characters on the particular evening I mention; the
     two best performers were   a   reverend   gentleman   as
     one   of   Russell's waggoners, inimitably portrayed, and
     Captain B. A——-e, not the author of "To Day," but his
     brother, as an Indian prince. The dress, appearance, and
     language to the life.

          Yet still you've shown us, my smart beau,
          Things that we should and should not know,
          Vide the Oakland cots.
          Bernard Blackmantle, learned Spy,
          Don't you think hundreds will cry fie,
          If you expose such plots?

          You should have told them as I do,
          And yet I love your hunters too,
          That nothing is so vile
          As strutting up and down a street,8
          Dirt-spatter'd o'er from head to feet,
          In the horse-jockey style.

          Ne sutor ultra crep, should tell
          These red-coats 'tis a paltry swell,
          Such careless customs backing;
          If they must strut in spurs and boots,
          For once I'd join the chalk recruits,
          And shout, "Use Turner's Blacking."

          Howe'er, push on—there are of all,
          Good, bad, high, low, and short, and tall,
          That seek from you decrees.
          Fear not, strike strong—you must not fly—
          We will have shots enough—I'm by,
          A Mephistopheles.

     8 There surely is much and offensive vanity in the practice
     adopted by many members of the B. H. of appearing on the
     pro-menades and in the rooms of Cheltenham, bespattered o'er
     with the slush and foam of the hunting field. Every
     situation has its decent appropriations, and one would
     suppose comfort would have taught these Nimrods a better
     lesson. It is pardonable for children to wear their
     Valentines on the 14th of February, or for a young ensign to
     strut about armed cap à pie for the first week of his
     appointment; but the fashion of showing off in a red jerkin,
     soiled smalls, mudded boots, and blooded spurs, is not
     imitable: there is nothing of the old manhood of sport in
     it; foppery and fox-hunting are not synonymous. Members of
     the B. H. look to it; follow no leader in this respect. Or,
     if you must needs persevere, turn your next fox out in the
     ball-room, and let the huntsman's horn and the view halloo
     supersede the necessity of harps and fiddle-strings.

We'll learn and con them each by heart, Set them in note books by our art, Each lord, and duke, and tailor. From Dr. S———{9} to Peter K———, U———, O———, and I———, and E——-, and A———, Down to the ploughman Naylor.{10}

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 à
     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.

          "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 à 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 roués 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 chargé 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.

          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.

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

          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.

          Facetiæ 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.

          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.

          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.

          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 Cæsar, 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

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 Léger, 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.

          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."

          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.

          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.

          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."

          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.

[292]The worthy Bristolians must not feel offended if we pass them by rather briefly; had ours been a tour of business, connected with commercial pursuit instead of a search after whim and character, we should no doubt have found materials enough to have filled a dozen chapters; but such pursuits are foreign to the eccentric volumes of the English Spy, whose sole aim is humour, localized, and embracing characteristic scenes. Such is the above sketch, which struck Transit and myself, as we took a stroll down Bridge-street while our breakfast was preparing at the White Hart; it was a bit of true life, and cannot fail to please: but, after all, Bristol resembles London so closely, at least the [293]eastern part of the metropolis, that although we saw much that would have been worthy the attention of the antiquary and the curious in their several churches and museums, or might, with great advantage, have been transferred to the note book of the topographer, yet we met with none of that peculiar whimsical character that distinguishes the more fashionable places of resort. The sole object of the Bristolians is trade, and every face you meet with has a ledger-like countenance, closely resembling the calculating citizen of London, whose every thought is directed to the accumulation of wealth, by increased sales of merchandize, or the overreaching his neighbour in taking the first advantage of the market.

The arrival of the London mail, which comes in about ten o'clock in the morning, afforded Transit another opportunity of picking up what little of character there was to be found. At Bristol there is always a great anxiety to obtain the London news and price current; so much so, that the leading merchants and others assemble in front of the Post-office, which also joins the Exchange, to wait the arrival of the mail (see Plate), and receive the letters of advice which are to regulate their concerns. It is but justice to add, there is no place in the kingdom of the same distance to which the conveyance is quicker, and the facility of delivery more promptly attended to. After breakfast we took a stroll round the docks, and then bent our steps towards the heights, and along the delightful walk which leads to the Hot Wells and Clifton.

To attempt a just description of the magnificent and romantic scenery which surrounds Clifton, as it is viewed from the Downs, would occupy more space than our limits will allow us to devote to the beauties of landscape; and would, besides, interfere with an intention which Transit and myself have in view at some future period of our lives, namely, the making a topographical and characteristic tour through the United Kingdoms, which being divided into counties, [294]and embracing not only the historical and the picturesque, will be enlivened by all the humorous vagaries, eccentric characters, and peculiar sports of each, written in a colloquial style; and embracing the lingual localisms, proverbs, and provincialisms of the inhabitants: thus producing a humorous but most correct view of the present state of society and manners. The materials for such a work have gradually presented themselves during the progress of the present eccentric volumes; but, as our object here has been good-humoured satire joined to comic sketches of existing persons and scenes, more in the way of anecdote than history, we hope to meet with the same kind friends in a more extended work, among those who have journeyed onwards with us through two years—pleasantly we must suppose, by their continued support; and profitably, we are gratefully bound to acknowledge, to all parties interested. An early dinner at Clifton, and a pleasant walk back by the terrace-road, brought us once more into the busy streets of Bristol, where after sauntering away the time until five o'clock, we mounted a Bath coach, and started forwards with a fresh impetus, and much promise of amusement, to explore the territories of King Bladud.

SKETCHES IN BATH.

[235]

     First View of the elegant City—Meeting with Old Blackstrap
     —Domicile at the Castle Tavern—Matthew and Mrs. Temple
     worthy Characters—Sportsmans Hall—Bath Heroes of the Turf
     the Ring, and the Chace—Portraits and Peculiarities drawn
     from the Life.

          May I ne'er flutter in the thoughtless train
          With fashion's elves, the giddy, and the vain;
          May I ne'er stroll again with Milsom swells
          To Tully's shop, or lounge with pump-room belles;
          May I no more to Sidney Gardens stray,
          If, Bath, I wrong thee in my hum'rous lay.
          Court of King Blad', where crescents circling rise
          Above each other till they reach the skies;
          And hills o'er-topping with their verdant green
          The Abbey Church, are in the distance seen:

[296]Where inns invite ye, and where lodgings smile A ready welcome to some Grecian pile; Where chairmen wait ye, ready to attend And box ye up upon your latter end; Where summer breezes on Hygeia wait, And cards and fashion hold their courts of state. Hither we're come to Bath, to spy and tell What reigning follies mark the beau and belle; What stars eccentric move within thy sphere, Or who's the greatest lion of the year. "Have at ye all," we satirists give no quarter; Yet shall our mirth prove grateful as Bath water.

The distant appearance, or first glimpse of the city of Bath, is enough to impress a stranger with the most favourable opinions of the place. The regularity of the streets, and the tasteful character of the architecture of the principal buildings, are certainly superior to that of any other place of public resort in England; added to which, there is an attention to cleanliness apparent in the costume of the lower classes that is not so conspicuous in other places. "Blest source of health! seated on rising ground, With friendly hills by nature guarded round; From eastern blasts and sultry south secure, The Air's balsamic, and the soil is pure." Surrounded by delightful scenery, and guarded from the piercing north winds by the hilly barriers of nature, the spot seems above all others best calculated to restore the health of the valetudinarian, whose constitution has become shattered and infirm by a course of fashionable dissipation, or a lengthened residence in the pestilential climates of the Indies. "Sweet Bath! the liveliest city of the land; Where health and pleasure ramble hand in hand, Where smiling belles their earliest visit pay, And faded maids their lingering blooms delay. Delightful scenes of elegance and ease! Realms of the gay, where every sport can please." [297]Thus sings the Bath poet, Bayly; who, if he is somewhat too servile an imitation of Moore in his style, has certainly more of originality in his matter than generally distinguishes poems of such a local nature. One of the greatest characters in the city of Bath was the worthy host of our hotel, the Castle; at whose door stood the rubicund visage of our Cheltenham friend, Blackstrap, ready to give us a hearty welcome, and introduce us to Matthew Temple, who making one of his best bows, led the way into the coffee-room, not forgetting to assure us that Mistress Temple, who was one of the best women in the world, would take the greatest care that we had every attention paid to our commands and comforts; and, in good truth, honest Matthew was right, for a more comely, good-humoured, attentive, kind hostess exists not in the three kingdoms of his Gracious Majesty George the Fourth. In short, Mrs. Temple is the major-domo of the Castle, while honest Matthew, conscious of his own inability to direct the active operations of the garrison within doors, beats up for recruits without; attends to all the stable duty and the commissariat, keeps a sharp look-out for new arrivals by coach, and a still sharper one that no customer departs without paying his bill; and thus having made his daily bow to the inns and the outs, honest Matthew retires at night to take his glass of grog with the choice spirits who frequent Sportsman's Hall, a snug little smoking room on the left of the gateway, where the heroes of the turf and the lads of the fancy nightly assemble to relate their sporting anecdotes, sing a merry chaunt, book the long odds, and blow a friendly cloud in social intercourse and good fellowship.

I do not know that it matters much at what end of Bath society I commence my sketches; and experience has taught me, that the more fashionable frivolities of high life seldom present the same opportunity for the [298]study of character, which is to be found in the merry, open-hearted, mirthful meetings of the medium classes and the lower orders. The pleasure we had felt in Blackstrap's society at Cheltenham, induced us to engage him to dine in the coffee-room, with our early friends Heartly and Eglantine, both of whom being then at Bath, we had invited to meet us, in the expectation that Dick Gradus, having arranged his legal affairs at Berkeley, would, by the dinner hour, arrive to join such a rare assemblage of old Eton cons—a gratification we had the pleasure to experience; and never did the festive board resound with more pleasant reminiscences from old friends: the social hour fled gaily, and every fresh glass brought its attendant joke. Heartly and Eglantine had, we found, been sufficiently long in Bath to become very able instructors to Transit and myself in all that related to the haute class, and old Barnaby Blackstrap was an equally able guide to every description of society, from the mediums down to the strange collections of vagrant oddities which are to be found in the back Janes and suburbs of the city of Bath. It has been well said, in a spirited reply to the Reverend Mr. Ek—r—s—l's illiberal satire, entitled "The Bath Man," that "London has its divisions of good and bad sets as well as Bath; nay, every little set has its lower set; Bank looks down contemptuously upon wealth; those who are asked to Carlton Palace cut the muligatawny set; the ancient aristocracy call law-lords and parvenues a bad set; and so downward through the whole scale of society, from Almack's to a sixpenny hop, 'still in the lowest deep a lower deep,' and human pride will ever find consolation that there is something to be found beneath it. Plain men, accustomed to form their notions of good and evil on more solid foundations than grades of fashionable distinctions, will not consent to stigmatize as bad any class of society because there may happen to [299]be a class above it." And what better apology could we desire for our eccentric rambles through every grade of Bath society? with us every set has its attractions, and I have known my friend Transit cut a nobleman and half a dozen honourables for the delightful gratification of enjoying the eccentricities of a beggars' club, and being enabled to sketch from the life the varied exhibition of passion and character which such a meeting would afford him. It will not, therefore, create any surprise in my readers, that our first evening in Bath should have been devoted to the social pipe; the pleasant account Blackstrap gave us of the sporting party, in Matthew Temple's snuggery, induced us to adjourn thither in the evening, where we might enjoy life, smoke our cigars, join a little chaffing about the turf and the ring, sip our punch and grog, enjoy a good chaunt, and collect a little character for the pages of the English Spy. To such as are fond of these amusements, most heartily do I recommend a visit to the Sporting Parlour at the Castle, where they will not fail to recognise many of the jovial characters represented in the opposite page; and as old Time pays no respect to worth and mellow-hearted mortals, but in his turn will mow down my old friend Matthew and his merry companions, I am desirous to perpetuate their memory by a song, which will include all of note who upon this occasion joined the festive scene.

SPORTSMAN'S HALL.

A SCENE AT THE CASTLE.

          Come all you gay fellows, so merry and witty,
          Ye Somerset lads of the elegant city,
          Ye sons of the turf who delight in a race,
          And ye Nimrods of Bath who are fond of the chase;
          Come join us, and pledge us, like true brothers all,
          At old Matthew Temple's, the Castle and Ball.

          Will Partridge, the father of sports, in the chair,
          With honest George Wingrove will welcome you there,
          While Handy, who once on two horses could ride,
          And merry Jack Bedford will meet you beside;
          Then for sport or for spree, or to keep up the ball,
          We've an excellent fellow, you'll own, in Bill Hall.

          Captain Beaven, a yeoman of merry renown,
          Will keep up the joke with the gay ones from town,
          While, if you'd go off in a canter or speed,
          You've only to take a few lessons with Mead;
          Then Sharland can suit every beau to a T,
          So haste to the Castle, ye lovers of glee.

          Sweet Margerim, clerk of the course, will be found
          With any young sportsman to trot o'er the ground,
          Though his Honesty, since at Wells races 'twas tried,
          It must be admitted, has bolted aside;
          The Newcombe's are good at all sports in the ring,
          While, like Chanticleer, Hunt the Cocker will sing.

          Jack Langley, the fam'd 'Squire Western of Bath,
          A jolly fox-hunter, who's fond of a laugh,
          With mellow Tom Williams, of Brewers a pair,
          Are the bacchanals form'd for to banish dull care;
          Then haste to the Castle, ye true merry sprites,
          Where the song, and the chase, and the fancy delights.

          Give a host more to name of the jovial and free,
          That my song would extend till to-morrow d'ye see:
          But a truce to particulars; take them all round,
          There's nothing in Bath like themselves to be found;
          Where harmony, friendship, and mirth can combine,
          The pleasures of life with kind hearts and good wine.

And in good truth, there is no place within the dominions of King Bladud, where the social man can find more cheerful companions, the sporting man more kindred spirits, and the lovers of the characteristic and the humorous meet with a greater variety of genuine eccentricity, unalloyed with any baser or offensive material. Matthew Temple himself is a great original, pure Somerset, perfectly good-natured, ever ready to oblige, and although for many years the commander-in-chief of the Castle, is yet in all the chicanery of his

profession, and the usual obtrusiveness of a landlord, as unlike the generality of his brethren as a raw recruit is to an effective soldier. Old Master William Partridge is also worthy of notice as the father of the turf, and then if you would ride to hounds, no man in Bath can mount you better, or afford you such good corn, great attentions, and a warm stall for a prime hack. Rich in anecdote, and what is still better, with a charitable purse and a worthy heart, there are few men who have earned for themselves more respect in this life, or deserve it better, than William Handy, Esq. the once celebrated equestrian, who having realized a handsome competency, retired, some years since, to Bath, to enjoy his otium cum dignitate: here, at an advanced age, with all the spirits of youth, and a lively interest in every thing relating to sporting, you will meet with the character I have described; and, take my word for it, will not be disappointed in the likeness. Among the bon vivants of Sportsmans' Hall I must not omit that care-killing soul Captain Beaven, whose easy flow of good-humour and love of good sport is not less conspicuous than his love for a pretty lass, and his delight in a good song and a cheerful glass. Honest George Wingrove, a wealthy baker, and the patriarch of the room, will never prove a crusty customer, I am sure; and if that good-looking fellow Mead, the riding-master, does sometimes "o'erstep the modesty of nature" in his mode of addressing his pupils, adopting the familiar style of addressing them by their christian name—as, for instance, "set upright, Sally; more forward, Eliza; keep your rein-hand more square, Ellen;" and soon; he hath, however, yet many good points that amply compensate for this perverseness of habit. Among the genuine good ones, the real thing, as the sporting phrase has it, not a biped in Bath beats Tom Williams, who, agreeable to our Eton Gradus, is good at every thing: a more jovial, worthy-hearted, respected soul breathes not within the merry court of King Bladud, and very [303]few there that can rival him in a good horse, a long run, or as a lively companion. Tom is married to the sister of Bartley, the comedian, and carries with him into private life the estimation which ever attends him in public. For a rum story, a bit of real life, or a roguish joke, who shall excel Jack Bedford? And then, if your honour would knock the balls about, why "Jack's the lad" to accommodate you. And little Bill Hall, who keeps the Kingston billiard-rooms, will be most happy to make his best bow to you without any view to the mace. But, i' faith, I am sketching away here in Sportsman's Hall at old Matthew Temple's, and could continue so to do for another chapter; forgetting, as Transit says, that we have yet to traverse the whole city of Bath through, spying into the vagaries and varieties of the more polished, and taking a slight occasional glance at the lowest grade of society, in order to diversify and keep up the chiaroscuro of our pictures.

Merry reader, for such I hope thou art, we have now travelled on for
nearly two years together; and many a varied scene in life's pilgrimage
have we set before you, from the gilded dome of royalty to the humble
shed of the Emeralder; but our visit to Bath will afford you a richer
treat than aught that has yet preceded it. It was when the party broke
up at Temple's, and that was not before the single admonition of old
father Time had sounded his morning bell, that a few bon vivants
of the Castle, accompanied by the English Spy and his merry friends,
sallied forth in quest of strange adventure; for it must be admitted,
that in the elegant city
          
          "Candles and ladies' eyes oft shine most bright,
          When both should be extinguish'd for the night."

A fancy ball at the Upper Rooms on this night had attracted all the elegance, fashion, and beauty to be found within the gay circle of pleasure, and thither [304]we bent our steps, having first provided ourselves with the necessary introductions. The scene above all others in the fascination of gay life and the display of female charms is a fancy ball; a species of entertainment better suited to the modest character of our countrywomen than the masquerade, and, in general, much better liked in this country, where the masked entertainment, unless in private, is always avoided by females of rank and character. One of the most amusing scenes which first presented itself to our notice on approaching the entrance to the rooms was the eager anxiety and determined perseverance of the liveried Mercuries and Bath dromedaries, alias chairmen, to procure for their respective masters and mistresses a priority of admission; an officious zeal that was often productive of the most ludicrous circumstances, and, in two or three instances, as far as indispensable absence from the pleasures of the night could operate, of the most fatal effects. A well-known city beau, who had been at considerable expense in obtaining from London the splendid dress of a Greek prince, was completely upset and rolled into the kennel by his chairmen running foul of a sedan, in which Lord Molyneaux and his friend Lord Ducie had both crammed themselves in the dress of Tyrolese chieftains. The Countess of D————, who personated Psyche, in attempting to extricate herself from an unpleasant situation, in which the obstinacy of her chairmen had placed her, actually had her glittering wings torn away, unintentionally, from her shoulders by the rude hand of a Bath rustic, whose humanity prompted him to attempt her deliverance. Old Lady L————, in the highest state of possible alarm, from feeling her sedan inclining full twenty degrees too much to the right, popped her head up, and raising the top part of the machine, screamed out most piteously for assistance, and on drawing it back [305]again, tore off her new head-dress, and let her false front shut in between the flap of the chair, by which accident, all the beautiful Parisian curls of her ladyship were rendered quite flat and uninteresting. An old gentleman of fortune, who was suffering under hypochondriacal affection, and had resolved to attempt Sir John Falstaff, received the end of a sedan pole plump in his chest, by which powerful application he was driven through the back part of the machine, and effectually cured of "la maladie imaginaire" by the acuteness of a little real pain. The flambeau of a spruce livery servant setting fire to the greasy tail of a Bath chairman's surtout produced a most awkward rencontre, by which a husband and wife, who had not been associated together for some years, but were proceeding to the ball in separate chairs, were, by the accidental concussion of their sedans in a moment of alarm, actually thrown into each other's arms; and such was the gallantry of the gentleman, that he marched into the ball-room bearing up the slender frame of his heretofore forsaken rib, to whom he from that time has become reunited. The lady mayoress of the city was excessively indignant on finding her preeminence of entrée disputed by the wife of a Bristol butcher; while the chair of the master of the ceremonies was for some time blocked in between the sedans of two old tabbies, whose expressions of alarm, attempts at faintings, and little flights of scandal, had so annoyed the poor M. C. that when he entered the ball-room, he felt as irritable as a tantalized lover between two female furies. In short, the scene was rich in amusement for the group of merry hearts who had left the Castle in quest of adventure; and while we were enjoying the ludicrous effects produced by the jostling of the sedans, my friend Transit had sketched the affair in his usual happy style, and designated it thus: [306]

THE BATTLE OF THE CHAIRS.

           "The chairs are order'd, and the moment comes,
           When all the world assemble at the rooms."

For the ball-room itself, it was the most splendid scene that the magic power of fancy could devise. The variety of characters, the elegance of the dresses, and the beauty of the graceful fair, joined to their playful wit and accomplished manners, produced a succession of delights which banished from the heart of man the recollection of his mortal ills, and gave him, for the passing time, a semblance of Elysian pleasures. The rooms are admirably calculated for this species of entertainment, and are, I believe, the largest in England; while the excellent regulations and arrangements adopted by the master of the ceremonies to prevent any of those unpleasant intrusions, too often admitted into mixed assemblies, deserved the highest commendation. It is from scenes of this description that the writer on men [307]and manners extracts his characters, and drawing aside from the mirth-inspiring group, contemplates the surrounding gaieties, noting down in his memory the pleasing varieties and amusing anecdotes he has there heard; pleasantries with which at some future time he may enliven the social circle of his friends, or by reviving in print, recall the brightest and the best recollections of those who have participated in their gay delights.

          "In this distinguish'd circle you will find
          Many degrees of man and woman kind."

And as I am here "life's painter, the very Spy o' the time," I shall endeavour to sketch a few of the leading Bath characters; most of the gay well-known being upon this occasion present, and many an eccentric star shining forth, whose light it would be difficult to encounter in any other circle. The accompanying view of the rooms by Transit will convey a correct idea of the splendour of the entertainment, and the fascinating appearance of the assembled groups.

          "Ranged on the benches sit the lookers-on,
          Who criticise their neighbours one by one;
          Each thinks herself in word and deed so bless'd,
          That she's a bright example for the rest.
          Numerous tales and anecdotes they hatch,
          And prophesy the dawn of many a match;
          And many a matrimonial scheme declare,
          Unknown to either of the happy pair;
          Much delicate discussion they advance,
          About the dress and gait of those who dance;
          One stoops too much; and one is so upright,
          He'll never see his partner all the night;
          One is too lazy; and the next too rough;
          This jumps too high, and that not high enough.
          Thus each receives a pointed observation,
          Not that it's scandal—merely conversation."

A three months' sojournment at Bath had afforded my friend Eglantine an excellent opportunity for [308]estimating public character, a science in which he was peculiarly well qualified to shine; since to much critical acumen was joined a just power of discrimination, aided by a generosity of feeling that was ever enlivened by good-humoured sallies of playful satire. To Horace Eglantine, I may apply the compliment which Cleland pays to Pope—he was incapable of either saying or writing "a line on any man, which through guilt, through shame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interest, he would ever be unwilling to own." It too often happens that the cynic and the satirist are themselves more than tinged with the foibles which they so severely censure in others. "You shall have a specimen of this infirmity," said Horace, "in the person of Peter Paul Pallet; a reverend gentleman whom you will observe yonder in the dress of a Chinese mandarin. Some few years since this pious personage took upon himself the task of lashing the prevailing follies of society in a satire entitled Bath Characters, and it must be admitted, the work proves him to have been a fellow of no ordinary talent; but an unfortunate amour with the wife of a reverend brother, which was soon after made public, added to certain other peculiarities and eccentricities, have since marked the satirist himself as one of the most prominent objects for the just application of his own weapon."

          Come hither, Paul Pallet, your portrait I'll paint:
          You're a satirist, reverend sir, but no saint.

But as some of his characters are very amusing, and no doubt very correct portraits of the time, 1808, my readers shall have the advantage of them, that they may be the better able to contrast the past with the present, and form their own conclusions how far society has improved in morality by the increase of methodism, the influx of evangelical breathings, or the puritanical pretensions of bible societies. I shall pass by his description of the club; gaming ever was [309]and ever will be a leading fashionable vice, which only poverty and ruin can correct or cure. The clergy must, however, be greatly delighted at the following picture of the cloth, drawn by one of their holy brotherhood. "The Bath church," says the satirist, "is filled with croaking ravens, chattering jays, and devouring cormorants; black-headed fanatics and white-headed 'dreamers of dreams;' the aqua-fortis of mob politics, and the mawkish slip-slop of modern divinity; rank cayenne pepper, and genuine powder of post!" Really a very flattering description of our clerical comforters, but one which, I lament to say, will answer quite as well for 1826, with, perhaps, a little less of enthusiasm in the composition, and some faint glimmerings of light opposed to the darkness of bigotry and the frauds of superstition. Methodism is said to be on the wane—we can hear no better proof that true religion and good sense are coming into fashion. The sketch of Mrs. Vehicle, by the same hand, is said to have been a true copy of a well-known female gambler; it is like a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, a picture worthy of preservation from its intrinsic merits, long after the original has ceased to exist: how readily might it be applied to half a score card-table devotees of the present day! "Observe that ton of beauty, Mrs. Vehicle, who is sailing up the passage, supported like a nobleman's coat of arms by her amiable sisters, the virtuous widow on one side, and the angelic Miss Speakplain on the other. By my soul! the same roses play upon her cheeks now that bloomed there winters ago, the natural tint of that identical patent rouge which she has enamelled her face with for these last twenty years; her gait and presence, too, are still the same—Vera incessa patuit Dea; she yet boasts the enchanting waddle of a Dutch Venus, and the modest brow of a Tower-hill Diana. Ah, Jack, would you but take a few lessons from my old friend [310]at the science of shuffle and cut, you would not rise so frequently from the board of green cloth, as you now do, with pockets in which the devil might dance a saraband without injuring his shins against their contents. Why, man, she is a second Breslaw with a pack; I have known her deal four honours, nine trumps to herself three times in the course of one rubber, and not cut a higher card to her adversary than a three during the whole evening. Sensible of her talents, and of the impropriety of hiding them in a napkin, she chose Bath, independence, and her own skill in preference to a country parsonage, conjugal control, and limited pin-money. Her caro sposo meanwhile retired to his living; and now blesses himself on his escape from false deals, odd tricks, and every honour but the true one." One more sketch, and I have done; but I cannot pass by the admirable portrait of a Bath canonical, "Jolly old Dr. Mixall, rosy as a ripe tomata, and round as his own right orthodox wig,

          'With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
          The weight of mightiest monarchies!'

Awful and huge, he treads the ground like one of Bruce's moving pillars of sand! What a dark and deep abyss he carries before him—the grave insatiate of turtle and turbot, red mullet and John Dories, haunches and pasties, claret, port, and home-brewed ale! But his good-humour alone would keep him at twenty stone were he to cease larding himself for a month to come; and when he falls, may the turf lie lightly on his stomach! Then shall he melt gently into rich manure;

          'And fat be the gander that feeds on his grave.'"

          "But now for the moderns," said Horace; "for the
          enchanting fair,

          'Whose snow-white bosoms fascinate the eye,
          Swelling in all the pride of nudity;

          The firm round arm, soft cheek, and pouting lip,
          And backs exposed below the jutting hip;
          To these succeed dim eyes, and wither'd face»,
          And pucker'd necks as rough as shagreen cases,
          But whose kind owners, hon'ring Bladud's ball,
          Benevolently show their little all.'"

But I must not particularize here, as I intend sketching the more prominent personages during a morning lounge in Milsom-street; when, appearing in their ordinary costume, they will be the more easily recognised in print, and remain a more lasting memorial of Bath eccentrics,

SKETCHES IN BATH—CHAPTER II.

[312]

     Well-known Characters in the Pump-room taking a Sip with
     King Bladud—Free Sketches of Fair Game—The awkward
     Rencontre, or Mr. B———and Miss L.—Public Bathing or
     stewing alive—Sober Thoughts—Milsom-street Swells—A
     Visit to the Pig and Whistle, Avon-street—of the Buff
     Club.

          To the pump-room we went, where the grave, and the gay,
          And the aged, and the sickly, lounge time away;
          Where all the choice spirits are seen making free
          With the sov'reign cordial, the true eau de vie.

The déjeuné over, the first place to which the stranger in Bath is most desirous of an introduction is the Pump-room; not that he anticipates restoration to health from drinking the waters, or imagines the virtues of immortality are to be found by immersion in the baths; but if he be a person of any condition, he is naturally anxious to show off make his bow to the gay throng, and, at the same time, elucidate the exact condition of Bath Society. If, however, he is a mere plebeian in search of novelty, coupling pleasure with business, or an invalid sent here by his doctors to end his days, he is still anxious, while life remains, to see and be seen; to observe whom he can recognise among the great folks he has known in the metropolis, or perchance, meet consolation from some suffering fellow citizen, who, like himself, has been conveyed to Bath to save his family the misery of seeing him expire beneath his own roof. "What an admirable variety of character does this scene present," said Transit, who, on our first [313]entrance, was much struck with the magnificence of the rooms, and still more delighted with the immense display of eccentricities which presented themselves. "I must introduce you, old fellow," said Eglantine, "to a few of the oddities who figure here. The strange-looking personage in the right-hand corner is usually called Dick Solus, from his almost invariably appearing abroad by himself, or dangling after the steps of some fair Thespian, to the single of whom he is a very constant tormentor. Mrs. Egan of the theatre, 'who knows what's what,' has christened him Mr. Dillytouch; while the heroes of the sock and buskin as invariably describe him by the appellation of Shake, from an unpleasant action he has both in walking and sitting. The sour-visaged gentleman at this moment in conversation with him is the renowned Peter Paul Pallet, esq., otherwise the Reverend Mr. M—————-. Behind them appears a celebrated dentist and his son, who has attained the rank of M.D., both well known here by the titles of the Grand Duke of Tusk-aney and Count Punn-tusk-y, a pair of worthies always on the lookout for business, and hence very constant attendants at the promenade in the Pump-room. The old gentleman in the chintz morning-gown hobbling along on crutches, from the gout, is a retired vinegar merchant, the father of a Chancery M.P., of whom the Bath wags say, 'that when in business, he must always have carried a sample of his best vinegar in his face.'" At this moment old Blackstrap advanced, and requested permission to introduce to our notice Jack Physick, an honest lawyer, and, as he said, one of the cleverest fellows and best companions in Bath. Jack had the good fortune to marry one of the prettiest and most attractive actresses that ever appeared upon the Bath stage, Miss Jamieson, upon which occasion, the wags circulated many pleasant jeux d'esprits on the union of "love, law, and physic." The arrival of a very pompous gentleman, who appeared to [314]excite general observation, gave my friend Eglantine an opportunity of relating an anecdote of the eccentric, who figures in Pultney-street under the cognomen of the Bath bashaw. "There," said Horace, "you may see him every morning decorated in his flannel robe de chambre and green velvet cap, seated outside in his balcony, smoking an immensely large German pipe, and sending forth clouds of fragrant perfume, which are pleasantly wafted right or left as the wind blows along the breakfast tables of his adjoining neighbours. This eccentric was originally a foundling discovered on the steps of a door in Rath, and named by the parochial officers, Parish: by great perseverance and good fortune he became a Hambro' merchant, and in process of time realized a handsome property, which, much to his honour and credit, he retired to spend a portion of among the inhabitants of this city, thus paying a debt of gratitude to those who had protected him in infancy when he was abandoned by his unnatural parents. The little fellow yonder with a military air, and no want of self-conceit, is a field-officer of the Bath volunteers, Adjutant Captain O'Donnel, a descendant from the mighty King Bryan Baroch, and, as we say at Eton, no small beer man, I assure you." "Who is that gigantic fellow just entering the rooms'?" said Heartly. "That is Long Heavisides," replied Eglantine, "whom Handsome Jack and two or three more of the Bath wits have christened, in derision, Mr. Light-sides, a right pleasant fellow, quite equal in intellect and good-humour to the altitude of his person, which, I am told, measures full six feet six." "Gentlemen," said the facetious Blackstrap, "here comes an old lady who has paid dearly for a bit of the Brown, lately the relict of the late Admiral M'Dougal, and now fresh at seventy the blooming wife of a young spark who has just attained the years of discretion, at least, as far as regards [315]pecuniary affairs; for before leading the old lady into church, she very handsomely settled three thousand per annum upon her Adonis, as some little compensation to his feelings, for the rude jests and jeers he was doomed to bear with from his boon companions." "Eyes right, lads," said Eglantine; "the tall stout gentleman in a blue surtout and white trowsers is General B————-."

"Pshaw! never mind his name," said Heartly; "what are his peculiarities?" "Why—imprimis, he has a lovely young female commander in chief by his side—is a great reader with a very little memory. A very good story is told of him, that I fear might be applied with equal justice to many other great readers; namely, that some wags having at different times altered the title-page, and pasted together various leaves of a popular Scotch novel, they thus successfully imposed upon the General the task of reading the same matter three times over—by this means creating in his mind an impression, not very far from the truth, that all the works of the Great Unknown bore a very close similitude to each other; an opinion which the General is said to maintain very strenuously unto this hour. Of all the characters in the busy scene of life which can excite a pleasurable sensation in the close observer of men and manners, is your gay ancient, whether male or female; the sprightly Evergreens of society, whose buoyant spirits outlive the fiery course of youth, while their playful leafage buds forth in advanced life with all the freshness, fragrance, and vigour of the more youthful plants. Such," said Eglantine, "is the old beau yonder, my friend Curtis, who is here quaintly denominated the Everlasting.

The jolly Bacchanalian, who accompanies him in his morning's lounge, is Charles Davis, a right jolly fellow, universally respected, although, it must be admitted, he is a party man, since in a [316]show of hands, Charles must always, unfortunately, be on one side." A promenade up and down the room, and a visit to the goddess Hygeia, for such, I suppose, the ancient matron who dispenses the healing draught must be designated, gave us an opportunity of observing the fresh arrivals, among whom we had the pleasure to meet with an old naval officer, known to Heartly, a victim to the gout, wheeled about in a chair, expecting, to use his own sea phrase, to go to pieces every minute, but yet full of spirits as an admiral's grog bottle, as fond of a good joke as a fresh-caught reefer, and as entertaining as the surgeon's mate, or the chaplain of the fleet. "I say, Master Heavtly," said the captain, "the frigate yonder with the brown breast works, and she with the pink facings, look something like privateers. My forelights, Master Heartly, but if I had the use of my under works, I should be for firing a little grape shot across their quarters to see if I could not bring them into action!" "And I will answer for it, they would not show any objection to lie alongside of you, captain," said Eglantine, "while you had got a shot left in your locker. Mere Cyprian traders, captain, from the Gulf of Venus, engaged in gudgeon bawling, or on the lookout for flat fish. The little craft, with the black top, is called the Throgmorton; and the one alongside the Ormsby of Berkeley is the Pretty Lacy, a prime frigate, and quite new in the service. If you have a mind to sail up the Straits of Cytherea, captain, I can answer for it we shall fall in with a whole fleet of these light vessels, the two Sisters; the Emery's; the yawl, Thomson; that lively little cutter, Jackson; the transports, King and Hill; the lugger, Lewis; and the country ship, the Lady Grosvenor, all well found, and ready for service, and only waiting to be well manned. A good story is just now afloat about the Lacy, who, being recently taken up for private trade by Commodore Bowen, was [317]discovered to be sailing under false colours. It appears, that during the commander's absence a dashing enemy, the captain of the Hussar, a man of war, had entered the cabin privately, and having satisfied himself of the state of the vessel, took an opportunity to overhaul the ship's stores, when drinking rather freely of some choice love-age, a cordial kept expressly for the commodore's own use, he was unexpectedly surprised by the return of the old commander on board; and in making his escape through the cabin window into a boat he had in waiting, unfortunately left his time-piece and topmast behind. This circumstance is said to have put the commodore out of conceit with his little frigate, who has since been paid off', and is now chartered for general purposes." At this little episode of a well-known Bath story, the captain laughed heartily, and Transit was so much amused thereat, that on coming in contact with the commodore and the captain in our perambulations, he furnished the accompanying sketch of that very ludicrous scene, under the head of

          The Bath beau and frail belle,
          Or Mr. B———and Miss L——-.

An excellent band of music, which continues to play from one to half past three o'clock every day during the season, greatly increases the attraction to the rooms, and also adds much to the cheerfulness and gaiety of the scene. We had now nearly exhausted our materials for observation; and having, to use Transit's phrase, booked every thing worthy of note, taken each of us a glass of the Bath water, although I confess not swallowing it without some qualmish apprehensions from the recollection of the four lines in Anstey's Bath Guide.

          "They say it is right that for every glass,
          A tune you should take that the water may pass;
          So while little Tabby was washing her rump,
          The ladies kept drinking it out of the pump."

[318]A very pleasant piece of satire, but somewhat, as I understand, at the expense of truth, since the well from which the water in the pump room is obtained is many feet below the one that supplies the baths; situation certainly assists the view of the satirist. I ought not to pass over here the story told us by our old friend Blackstrap, respecting the first discovery of these waters by Bladud, the son of Lud Hudibras, king of Britain; a fabulous tale, which, for the benefit of the city all true Bathonians are taught to lisp with their horn book, and believe with their creed, as genuine orthodox; and on which subject my friend Horace furnished the following impromptu.

          Oh, Lud! oh, Lud! that hogs and mud{1}
          Should rival sage M.D.'s;
          And hot water, in this quarter,
          Cure each foul disease.

"Throw physic to the dogs, I'll have none on't,'" said Horace: "if hot water can effect such wonders, why, a plague on all the doctors! Let a man be content to distil his medicine fresh from his own teakettle, or make his washing copper serve the double purpose for domestic uses and a medicated bath.

          'But what is surprising, no mortal e'er view'd
          Any one of the physical gentlemen stew'd.
          From the day that King Bladud first found out these bogs,
          And thought them so good for himself and his hogs,
          Not one of the faculty ever has tried
          These excellent waters to cure his own hide;
          Though many a skilful and learned physician,
          With candour, good sense, and profound erudition,
          Obliges the world with the fruits of his brain,
          Their nature and hidden effects to explain.'

     1 See the fabulous account alluded to in Warner's History of
     Bath, where Bladud is represented to have discovered the
     properties of the warm springs at Beechen Wood Swainswick,
     by observing the hogs to wallow in the mud that was
     impregnated therewith, and thus to have derived the
     knowledge of a cure for 'tis leprous affection.

[319]But allons, lads," said Horace, "we are here to follow the fashion, and indulge in all the eccentricities of the place; to note the follies of the time, and depict the chief actors, without making any personal sacrifice to correct the evil. Our satire will do more to remove old prejudices when it appears in print, aided by Bob Transit's pencil, than all our reasonings upon the spot can hope to effect, although we followed Mr. M'Culloch's economy, and lectured upon decency from break of day to setting sun. In quitting the pump-room we must not, however, omit to notice the statue of Beau Nash, before which Transit appears, in propria personæ, sketching off the marble memento, without condescending to notice the busts of Pope and Newton, which fill situations on each side; a circumstance which in other times produced the following epigram from the pen of the witty earl of Chesterfield.

          "The statue plac'd the busts between
          Adds satire to the strength;
          Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
          But Folly at full length."

Such is the attachment of man to the recollections of any thing associated with pleasure, that it is questionable if the memory of old Joe Miller is not held in higher estimation by the moderns than that of Father Luther, the reformer; and while the numerous amusing anecdotes in circulation tend to keep alive the fame of Nash, it is not surprising that the merry pay court to his statue, being in his own dominions, before they bow at the classic shrine of Pope, or bend in awful admiration beneath the bust of the greatest of philosophers.

          "'Twas said of old, deny it now who can,
          The only laughing animal is man."

And we are about to present the reader with a right merry scene, one, too, if he has any fun in his composition, or loves a good joke, must warm the cockles [320]of his heart. Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one of our most celebrated places of fashionable resort, there should be found baths where the young and the old, the beauteous female and the gay spark, are all indiscriminately permitted to enjoy the luxurious pleasure together. That such is the case in Bath no one who has recently participated in the pleasures of immersion will dispute, and in order to perpetuate that gratification, Bob Transit has here faithfully delineated the scene which occurred upon our entering the King's Bath, through the opening from the Queen's, where, to our great amusement and delight, we found ourselves surrounded by many a sportive nymph, whose beauteous form was partially hidden by the loose flannel gown, it is true; but now and then the action of the water, produced by the continued movements of a number of persons all bathing at the same time, discovered charms, the which to have caught a glimpse of in any other situation might have proved of dangerous consequences to the fair possessors. The baths, it must be admitted, are delightful, both from their great extent and their peculiar properties, as, on entering from the Queen's Bath you may enjoy the water at from 90 to 96 degrees, or requiring more heat have only to walk forward, through the archway, to obtain a temperature of 116. The first appearance of old Blackstrap's visage floating along the surface of the water, like the grog-blossomed trunk of the ancient Bardolph, bound up in a Welsh wig, was truly ludicrous, and produced such an unexpected burst of laughter from my merry companions, that I feared some of the fair Naiads would have fainted in the waters from fright, and then Heaven help them, for decency would have prevented our rushing to their assistance. The notices to prevent gentlemen [321]from swimming in the baths are, in my opinion, so many inducements or suggestions for every young visitor to attempt it. Among our mad wags, Horace Eglantine was more than once remonstrated with by the old bathing women for indulging in this pleasure, to the great alarm of the ladies, who, crowding together in one corner with their aged attendants, appeared to be in a high state of apprehension lest the loose flannel covering that guards frail mortality upon these occasions should be drawn aside, and discover nature in all her pristine purity—an accident that had very nearly happened to myself, when, in endeavouring to turn round quickly, I found the water had disencumbered my frame of the yellow bathing robe, which floated on the surface behind me.

One circumstance which made our party more conspicuous, was, the rejection of the Welsh wigs, which not all the entreaties of the attendant could induce any of the wags to wear. The young ladies disfigure themselves by wearing the black bonnets of the bathing women; but spite of this masquerading in the water, their lovely countenances and soul-subduing eyes, create sensations that will be more easily conceived than prudently described. A certain facetious writer, who has published his "Walks through Bath," alluding to this practice, speaks of it as having been prohibited in the fifteenth century. How long such prohibition, if it ever took place, continued, it is not for me to know; but if the Bath peripatetic historian had made it his business to have seen what he has described, he would have found, that the practice of bathing males and females together in puris naturalibus was still continued in high perfection, in spite of the puritans, the Vice Society, or the prohibition of Bishop Beckyngton.{2}

     2 It appears, that about the middle of the fifteenth century
     it was the custom for males and females to bathe together,
     in puris naturalibus, which was at length prohibited by
     Bishop Beckyngton, who ordered, by way of distinction, the
     wearing of breeches and petticoats; this indecency was
     suppressed, after considerable difficulty, at the end of the
     sixteenth century, (quere, what indecency does our author of
     the "Walks through Bath" mean? the incumbrance of the
     breeches and petticoats, we must imagine). It also seems,
     that about 1700 it was the fashion for both sexes to bathe
     together indiscriminately, and the ladies used to decorate
     their heads with all the advantages of dress, as a mode of
     attracting attention and heightening their charms. The
     husband of a lady in one of the baths, in company with Beau
     Nash, was so much enraptured with the appearance of his
     wife, that he very im-prudently observed, "she looked like
     an angel, and he wished to be with her." Nash immediately
     seized him by the collar, and threw him into the bath; this
     circumstance produced a duel, and Nash was wounded in his
     right arm: it however had the good effect of establishing
     the reputation of Nash, who shortly after became master of
     the ceremonies.

          "You cannot conceive what a number of ladies
          Were wash'd in the water the same as our maid is:
          How the ladies did giggle and set up their clacks
          All the while an old woman was rubbing their backs;
          Oh! 'twas pretty to see them all put on their flannels,
          And then take the water, like so many spaniels;
          And though all the while it grew hotter and hotter,
          They swam just as if they were hunting an otter.
          'Twas a glorious sight to behold the fair sex
          All wading with gentlemen up to their necks,
          And view them so prettily tumble and sprawl
          In a great smoking kettle as big as our hall;
          And to-day many persons of rank and condition
          Were boil'd, by command of an able physician."

From the baths we migrated to the grand promenade of fashion, Milsom Street, not forgetting to take a survey of the old Abbey Church, which, as a monument of architectural grandeur without, and of dread monition within, is a building worthy the attention of the antiquarian and the philosopher; while perpetuating the remembrance of many a cherished name to worth, to science, and to virtue dear, the artist and the amateur may derive much gratification from examining the many excellent [323]pieces of sculpture with which the Abbey abounds. But for us, gay in disposition, and scarcely allowing ourselves time for reflection, such a scene had few charms, unless, indeed, the English Spy could have separated himself from the buoyant spirits with which he was attended, and then, wrapt in the gloom of the surrounding scene, and given up to serious contemplation, the emblems of mortality which decorate the gothic pile might have conjured up in his mind's eye the forms of many a departed spirit, of the blest shades of long-lost parents and of social friends, of those who, living, lent a lustre to the arts, of witty madcaps frost-bitten by the sable tyrant Death, nipped in the very bud of youth, while yet the sparkling jest was ripe upon the merry lip, and the ruddy glow of health upon the cheek gave earnest of a lengthened life———But, soft! methinks I hear my reader exclaim, "How now, madcap, moralizing Mr. Spy? art thou, too, bitten by the desire to philosophize, thou, 'the very Spy o' the time,' the merry buoyant rogue who has laughed all serious scenes to scorn, and riding over hill, and dale, and verdant plain upon thy fiery courser, fleet as the winds, collecting the cream of comicalities, and, beshrew thee, witling, plucking the brightest flowers that bloom in the road of pleasure to give thy merry garland's perfume, and deck thy page withal, art thou growing serious? Then is doomsday near; and poor, deserted, care-worn man left unprotected to the tempest's rage!" Not so, good reader, we are still the same merry, thoughtless, laughing, buoyant sprite that thou hast known us for the last two years; but the archer cannot always keep his bow upon the stretching point; so there are scenes, and times, and fancies produced by recollective circumstances and objects, which create strange conceits even in the light-hearted bosom of the English Spy. Such was the train of reflections which rushed in [324]voluntarily upon my mind as I noted down the passing events of the day, a practice usual with me when, retiring from the busy hum of men, I seek the retirement of my chamber to commit my thoughts to paper. I had recently passed through the depository where rest the remains of a tender mother—had sought the spot, unnoticed by my light-hearted companions, and having bedewed with tears of gratitude her humble grave, gave vent to my feelings, by the following tribute to a parent's worth.

          Beneath yon ivy-mantled wall,
          In a lone corner, where the earth
          Presents a rising green mound, all
          Of her who lov'd and gave me birth

          Lies buried deep.   No trophied stone,
          Or graven verse denotes the spot:
          Her worth her epitaph alone,
          The green-sward grave her humble lot.

          How silent sleep the virtuous dead!
          For them few sculptured honours rise,
          No marble tablet here to spread
          A fame—their every act implies.

          No mockery here, nor herald's shield,
          To glitter o'er a bed of clay;
          But snow-drops and fresh violets yield
          A tribute to worth pass'd away.

          Tread lightly, ye who love or know
          En life's young road a parent's worth,
          Who yet are strangers to the woe
          Of losing those who gave you birth,

          Who cherish'd, fondled, fed, and taught
          From infancy to manhood's pride,
          Directing every opening thought,
          Teaching how Reason's power should guide.

          Ye rich and bold, ye grave and gay,
          Ye mightiest of the sons of men,
          Wealth, honours, fame shall sink away,
          And all be equalized again;

          Save what the sculptor may pourtray,
          And any tyrant, fool, or knave
          Who has the wealth, may in that way
          His name from dull oblivion save;

          That is, he may perpetuate
          His worthlessness, his frauds, and crimes;
          No matter what his tomb relate,
          His character lives with the times.

          Shade of my parent! couldst thou hear
          The voice of him, thine only child,
          Implore thy loss with filial tear,
          And deck thy grave with sonnets wild,

          'Twould all thy troubles past repay,
          Thy anxious cares, thy hopes and fears,
          To find as time stole life away,
          Thy mem'ry brighten'd with his years.

          Yes, sacred shade! while mem'ry guides
          This ever wild eccentric brain,
          While reason holds or virtue chides,
          Still will I pour the filial strain.

"What," said my old friend Horace Eglantine, after reading this tribute to parental worth, "Bernard Blackmantle moralizing; our Spy turned [326]monody-maker, writing epitaphs, and elegies, and odes to spirits that have no corporal substance, when there are so many living subjects yet left for his merrier muse to dwell upon? Come, old fellow, shake off this lethargy of the mind, this vision of past miseries, and prepare for present merriments.

          'The streets begin to fill, the motley throng
          To see and to be seen, now trip along;
          Some lounge in the bazaars, while others meet
          To take a turn or two in Milsom-street;
          Some eight or ten round Mirvan's shop remain,
          To stare at those who gladly stare again.'

In short, my dear fellow, we are all waiting your company to join the swells in Milsom-street; where, I have no doubt, you will find many a star of fashion, whose eccentricities you will think justly entitles him to a niche in your gallery of living characters.

          'Lords of the creation, who, half awake,
          Adorn themselves their daily lounge to take;
          Each lordly man his taper waist displays,
          Combs his sweet locks, and laces on his stays,
          Ties on his starch'd cravat with nicest care,
          And then steps forth to petrify the fair.'

Such, for instance, is that roué yonder, the very prince of Bath fops, Handsome Jack, whose vanity induces him to assert that his eyebrows are worth one hundred per annum to any young fellow in pursuit of a fortune: it should, however, be admitted, that his gentlemanly manners and great good-nature more than compensate for any little detractions on the score of self-conceit. What the son is, the father was in earlier life; and the old beau is not a little gratified to observe the estimation in which his son is held by the fair sex, on account of his attractive person and still more prepossessing manners.

"You have heard of Peagreen Hayne's exploits at Burdrop Park; and here comes the proprietor of the [327]place, honest Tom Calley, as jovial a true-hearted English gentleman as ever followed a pack of foxhounds, or gloried in preserving and promoting the old English hospitalities of the table: circumstances, the result of some hard runs and long odds, have a little impaired the family exchequer; however the good wishes of all who know him attend him in adversity. But the clouds which have for a time obstructed his sunshine of mirth are fast wearing away, and when he shall return to the enjoyment of his patrimonial acres, he will be sure to meet a joyous welcome from all surrounding him, accompanied with the heartfelt congratulations of those to whom in Bath he is particularly endeared. The smart little fellow driving by in his cabriolet is beau Burgess, a single star, and one of no mean attraction among the fair spinsters, who can estimate the merits and admire the refulgence of ten thousand sovereign attendant satellites.

Bath is, perhaps, now the only place in the kingdom where there is yet to be found a four-in-hand club; a society of gentlemen Jehus, who formerly in London cut no inconsiderable figure in the annals of fashion, and who, according to our mode of estimating the amusements of the gay world, were very unfairly satirized, seeing, that with the pursuit of pleasure was combined the additional employment of a large number of mechanics, and a stimulus given, not only to the improvement of a noble breed of horses, but to the acquirement of a knowledge, the perfection of which in the metropolis is particularly necessary to the existence of the peripatetic pleasures of his majesty's subjects. Here we have Colonel Allen, who puts along a good team in very prime style, and having lately been spliced to a good fortune, is a perfect master in the manage-ment of the bit.

"Squire Richards is, also, by no means a contemptible knight of the ribbons, only he sometimes measures [328]his distance a little too closely; a practice, which if he does not improve upon, may some day, in turning a corner, not bring him off right. 'A follower of the Buxton school and a true knight of the throng,' says old Tom Whipcord in the Annals of Sporting, 'must not expect to drive four high-bred horses well with an opera-glass stuck in his right ogle.' A bit of good advice that will not only benefit the squire if he attends to it, but perhaps save the lives of one or two of the Bath pedestrians. The leader of the club, who, by way of distinction from his namesake the colonel, is designated Scotch Allen, is really a noble whip, putting along four horses in first-rate style, all brought well up to their work, and running together as close and as regular as the wheels of his carriage. The comical little character upon the strawberry pony is the Bath Adonis; a fine specimen of the Irish antique, illustrated with a beautiful brogue,and emblazoned with a gold coat of arms. The amours of old B—————-in Bath would very well fill a volume of themselves; but the anecdote I gave you in the Pump-room of little Lacy and her paramour will be sufficient to show you in what estimation he is held by the ladies." "Give me leave to introduce you to a Raer fellow," said Heartly; "an old friend of mine, who has all his lifetime been a wholesale dealer in choice spirits, and having now bottled off enough for the remainder of his life, is come to spend the evening of his days in Bath among the bon vivants of the elegant city, enjoying the tit bits of pleasure, and courting the sweet society of the pretty girls. By heavens! boys, we shall be found out, and you, Mr. Spy, will be the ruin of us all, for here comes our old sporting acquaintance, Charles Bannatyne, with his Jackall at his heels, accompanied by that mad wag Oemsby, the Cheltenham amateur of fashion, and the gallant little Lieutenant Valombre, who having formerly made a rich capture of Spanish dollars, is perhaps upon the look-out here [329]for a frigate well-laden with English specie, in order to sail in consort, and cruize off the straits of independence for life. Well, success attend him," said Heartly; "for he well deserves a good word whether at sea or on shore. The military-looking gentleman yonder, who is in close conversation with that rough diamond, Ellis, once a London attorney, is the highly-respected Colonel Fitzgerald, whom our friend Transit formerly caricatured under the cognomen of Colonel Saunter, a good-humoured joke, with which he is by no means displeased himself." "But, my dear fellows," said Transit, "if we remain fixed to this spot much longer, we shall have the eyes of all the beau monde upon us, and stand a chance of being pointed at for the rest of the time that we remain in Bath." A piece of advice that was not wholly unnecessary, for being personally known to a few of the sporting characters, our visit to the elegant city had spread like wildfire, and on our appearance in Milsom-street, a very general desire was expressed by the beaux to have a sight of the English Spy and his friend Transit, by whose joint labours they anticipated they might hereafter live to fame.

One of the most remarkable personages of the old school still left to Bath is the celebrated Captain Mathews, the author of "a short Treatise on Whist," and the same gentleman who at an early period of life contested with the late R. B. Sheridan, upon Lansdowne, for the fair hand of the beauteous Miss Lindly, the lady to whom the wit was afterwards married. In this way did my pleasant friends Heartly and Eglantine continue to furnish me with brief notices of the most attractive of the stars of fashion who usually lounge away the mornings in Milsom-street, exchanging the familiar nod and "How d'ye do?" and holding sweet discourse among their fragrant selves upon the pursuits of the haute classe, the merits of the last new novel, or the fortune of the last unmarried feminine [330]arrival. To these may be added reminiscences of the last night's card-table and remarks upon the Balls at the rooms; for

          "Two musical parties to Bladud belong,
          To delight the old rooms and the upper;
          One gives to the ladies a supper, no song,
          And the other a song and no supper."

"The jolie dame to the right," said Horace, "is the mother of England's best friend, the Secretary for the Foreign Department, George Canning, a man to whom we are all indebted for the amalgamation of party, and the salvation of the country The clerical who follows immediately behind Mrs. Hunn is a reverend gentleman whose daughters both recently eloped from his house on the same morning attended by favoured lovers to bind with sacred wreaths their happy destinies at the shrine of Hymen." We had now reached the bottom of the street again, after having made at least a dozen promenades to and fro, and were on the point of retiring to our hotel to dress for dinner, when Heartly directed my attention to a dashing roue, who, dressed in the extreme of superlative style, was accompanied by a beautiful piece of fair simplicity in the garb of a Puritan. "That," said my friend, "is the beautiful Miss D**T—one of the faithful, whom the dashing Count L***c***t has recently induced to say ay for life: thus gaining a double prize of no mean importance by one stroke of good luck—a fine girl and a fine fortune into the bargain." I must not forget our friend the consulting surgeon H***ks, or omit to notice that in Bath the faculty are all distinguished by some peculiar title of this sort, as, the digestive Physician, the practical Apothecary, and the operative Chemist; a piece of quackery not very creditable to their acknowledged skill and general respectability. At dinner we were again joined by our facetious [331]friend Blackstrap, who, to use his own phraseology, having made "a good morning's work of it," hoped he might be permitted to make one among us, a request with which we were most willing to comply. In the evening, after the bottle had circulated freely, some of our party proposed a visit to the theatre, but as Bath theatricals could not be expected to afford much amusement to London frequenters of the theatres royal, Transit suggested our sallying forth for a spree;" for," said he, "I have not yet booked a bit of true life since I have been in Bath. The pump-room, the bathers, and the swells in Milsom-street, are all very well for the lovers of elegant life; but our sporting friends and old college chums will expect to see a genuine touch or two of the broad humour of Bath—something suburban and funny. Cannot you introduce us to any thing pleasant of this sort!" said Transit, addressing Blackstrap: "perhaps give us a sight of the interior of a snug convent, or show us where the Bath wonderfuls resort to carouse and sing away their cares."—"It is some years since," said Blackstrap, "that in the company of a few merry wags, I paid a visit to the Buff-club in Avon-street: but as you, gentlemen, appear disposed for a little fun, if you will pledge yourselves to be directed by me, I will undertake to introduce you to a scene far exceeding in profligacy and dissipation the most florid picture which our friend Transit has yet furnished of the back settlements in the Holy-land." With this understanding, and with no little degree of anticipatory pleasure, did our merry group set forth to take a survey of the interior of the long room at the Pig and Whistle in Avon-street. Of the origin of this sign, Blackstrap gave us a very humorous anecdote: the house was formerly, it would appear, known by the sign of the Crown and Thistle, and was at that time the resort of the Irish Traders who visited Bath to dispose of their linens. One of these Emeralders [332]having lost his way, and being unable to recollect either the name of the street or the sign of his inn, thus addressed a countryman whom he accidentally met: "Sure I've quite forgotten the sign of my inn." "Be after mentioning something like it, my jewel," said his friend. "Sure it's very like the Pig and Whistle," replied the enquirer. "By the powers, so it is:—the Crown and Thistle, you mean;" and from this mistake of the Emeralder, the house has ever since been so designated. Upon our visit to this scene of uproarious mirth, we found it frequented by the lowest and most depraved characters in society; the mendicants, and miserable of the female sex, who, lost to every sense of shame or decency, assemble here to indulge in profligacies, the full description of which must not stain the pages of the English Spy.

As a scene of low life, my friend Transit has done it ample justice, where the portraits of Lady Grosvenor as one of the Cyprian frequenters is designated, the Toad in a Hole, and Lucy the Fair, will be easily recognised. A gallon of gin for the ladies, and a liberal distribution of beer and tobacco for the males, made us very welcome guests, and insured us, during our short stay, at least from personal interruption. It may be asked why such a house is licensed by the magistracy; but when it is known that characters of this sort will always be found in well-populated places, and that the doors are regularly closed at eleven o'clock, it is perhaps thought to be a measure of prudence to let them continue to assemble in an obscure part of the suburbs, where they congregate together under the vigilant eye of the police, instead of being driven abroad to seek fresh places of resort, and by this means increase the evils of society.

The next morning saw my friend Transit and myself again prepared to separate from our friends Heartly and Eglantine, on our way to Worcester, [333]where we had promised to pay a visit to old Crony on our road back to London. Reader, if our sketches in Bath are somewhat brief, remember we are ever on the wing in search of novelty, and are not disposed to stay one day longer in any place than it affords fresh food for pen and pencil In the characters we have sketched we disclaim any thought of personal offence; eccentrics are public property, and must not object to appear in print, seeing that they are in the journey through life allowed to ride a free horse, without that curb which generally restrains the conduct of others But I must here take my farewell of the elegant city of that attractive spot of which Bayley justly sings

          "In this auspicious region all mankind
          (Whate'er their taste) congenial joys may find;
          Here monied men may pass for men of worth;
          And wealthy Cits may hide plebeian birth.
          Here men devoid of cash may live with ease,
          Appear genteel, and pass for what they please."

WAGGERIES AT WORCESTER.

[334]The meeting with an old friend at Worcester induced us to domicile there for the space of three days, during which time I will not say we were laid up with Lavender, but certainly near enough to scent it. Most of our Worcester acquaintance will however understand what is meant by this allusion to one of the pleasantest fellows that ever commanded the uncivil customers in the Castle, since the time of the civil wars. The city is perhaps as quiet a dull place as may be found within his majesty's dominions, where a cannon-ball might be fired down the principal street at noon-day without killing more than the ruby-nosed incumbent of a fat benefice, a superannuated tradesman, or a manufacturer of crockery-ware. No stranger should, however, pass through the place without visiting the extensive China works of Messrs. Flight and Barr, to which the greatest facility is given by the proprietors; and the visit must amply repay any admirer of the arts. A jovial evening, spent with our old friend of the Castle, had ended with a kind invitation from him to partake of a spread at his hotel on the following morning; but such was the apprehensions of Transit at the idea of entering this mansion of the desolate, from being troubled with certain qualmish remembrances of the previous night's debauch, that not all my intreaties, nor the repeated messages of the worthy commander of the Castle, could bring our friend Transit to book.

[335]To those who know my friend John, and there are few of any respectability who do not both know and admire him, his facetious talent will require but little introduction. Lavender is what a man of the world, whose business it has been to watch over the interests of society, should be, superior in education and in mind, to any one I ever met with filling a similar situation: the governor of the Castle is a companion for a lord, or to suit the purposes of justice, instantly metamorphosed into an out and outer, a regular knowing cove, whose knowledge of flash and the cant and slang used by the dissolute is considered to be superior to that of any public officer. A specimen of this will be found in the following note, which a huge fellow of a turnkey brought to my bedside, and then apologised for disturbing me, by pleading the governor's instructions.

     "QUEER COVES,

     "I hope you have left your dabs,{1}
     and nobs,{2} all right: perhaps prime legs{3} is queer in
     the oration-box{4} from a too frequent use of the
     steamer{5} last darky.{6} I make this fakement{7} to let
     you know I and morning spread are waiting.

     Steel-hotel,                                       Yours, &c.

     June 9, 1825.                                      LOCKIT."

My readers will very readily conceive that with such a companion we were not long in tracing out what little of true life was to be found in Worcester, and certainly one of the pleasantest scenes in which we participated was a visit to the Subscription Bowling Alley, where, in the summer time, the most respectable of the inhabitants of Worcester meet every evening

     1 Beds.

     2 Heads.

     3 Cruikshank..

     4 Cranium.

     5 A pipe.

     6 Night.

     7 A note.

[336]for recreation; and a right pleasant company we found them. The Caleb Quotem of the society, Dr. Davis, united in one person all the acquirements of the great original: he not only keeps the time of the city, but keeps all the musicians of the place in time; regulates the watch and the watches, and plays a solo à la Dragonetti upon the double bass. Sam Swan is another choice spirit, who sings a good chant, lives well respected, and sails down the stream of time as pleasantly as if he was indeed a royal bird.

An old Burdettite, Will Shunk, recognised in us a partizan of the government candidate at one of the Westminster Elections: "But, sir," said Will, "politics and I have nearly parted; for you must know, I am tolerably well breeched, and can fairly say I am hand and glove with all the first nobility in the kingdom." A truth to which Captain Corls readily assented by explaining that Master William Shunk was a first-rate glover, and considered worth a plum at least: "in short, sir," said the captain, "he is a nabob here, and brings to my mind some of the eastern princes with whom I have met during my Campaigns in the East." The very mention of which exploit induced our friend the governor to tip us the office, and the joke was well humoured until silver Powell, who they say comes from Norfolk, interrupted our travels in India, with, "Captain, can't you see that ere Athlantic fellow, the governor, is making fun of you to amuse his London friends." A hint that appeared to strike the Captain very forcibly, for it struck him dumb. A good-humoured contest between honest Joe Shelton, and Probert the school-master, elicited some very comical exposures in the way of recriminations. Joe, it would appear, is an artist in economy; and an old story about a lobster raised Joe's ire to its height, and produced the Lex taliones on Probert, [337]whose habits of frugality wanted his competitor's humour to make them pass current. Transit, who had been amusing himself with sketching the characters, had become acquainted with a sporting Reverend, whose taste for giblets had proved rather expensive; and who was most desirous of appearing in print: a favor merry Stephen Godson, the lawyer, requested might also be extended to him." "Ay," said John Portman, "and if you want a character for your foreground rich in colour, my phiz is much at your service; and here's George Brookes, the radical, to form a good dark object in the distance." In this way the evening passed off very pleasantly. Our friend had made the object of our visit to the Bowling Alley known to some few of his intimates, circumstance that I have no doubt rather operated to prevent a display of some of those good-humoured eccentricities with which it is not unfrequently marked. Upon my return to town, I received a farewell ode from my Spirit in the Clouds, evidently written under a misconception that the English Spy was about to withdraw himself for a time, from his sketches on men and manners, when in fact, although his labours will here close with the completion of a Second Volume, his friends will find, that he is most desirous of still engaging their attentions in a new form, attended not only by all his former associates, but uniting in his train the brightest and the merriest of all the choice Spirits of the Age.

BERNARD BLACKMANTLE TO HIS READERS.

To prevent a misconception, and do himself justice, the author of the English Spy feels it necessary to state, that in every instance the subjects for the Plates illustrating this work have been furnished by his pen, and not unfrequently, the rough ideas have [338]first emanated from his own pencil; while he states this fact to prevent error, he is most anxious to acknowledge the great assistance he has derived from the inimitable humour and graphic skill in the execution of the designs, by his friend Robert Transit.

A SHORT ODE AT PARTING,

FROM HIS "SPIRIT IN THE CLOUDS"

     Prospero. Now does my project gather to a head;
     My charms crack not; my spirits obey:
     ——How's the day?

     Ariel.  On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
     You said our work should cease.

     —Shakspkare's Tempest.

     So fare you well; I have left you commands.
     Ibid.—As you like it.

          "'Tis true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true,"
          That though on fairest winds we flew,
          I in the clouds, beneath them you,
          We still must parted be;

          And that, e'en whilst the world still hung
          On what you wrote, and what I sung,
          Enamour'd of our double tongue,
          Exits my Bernard B——-.

          Well, all great actors must have pause,
          When toiling in a patriot cause,
          And ere another scene he draws,
          New characters to cast,

          Secure of having played his part,
          As nature dictates, from the heart,
          'Tis fair before another start,
          He brush up from the last.

          But how will humbugs of the age,
          (I don't mean Mr. B.'s dull page,)
          Crow that they scape satiric rage,
          And get off in whole skins;

          How will dramatic fools rejoice!
          No more is heard great Bernard's voice,
          And that, Heav'n knows, there is a choice,
          Their flummery begins.{1}

          But go your ways; it may be wise,
          To let these puny, pestering flies
          Buzz about people's ears and eyes,
          A season or two longer;

          There must be evil mixed with good,
          A bottom to the clearest flood,
          And let them stand where others stood,
          Till shown who is the stronger.

          Then, fortune-hunting squires of Bath,
          Fine as the Burmese jewell'd Rath,{2}
          Pray totter o'er your Bond-street path,
          A respite short is yours.

     1 I speak of would-be actors (male and female), vain and
     incompetent managers, flippant and unequal critics, puffed
     and translating authors, in short, of all before and behind
     the curtain who have injured, or may injuro, the legitimate
     drama. Let the theatres, like our trade, be free, and
     monopoly thrive not, and for their success the Spirit will
     ever pray; at present, it is "a mad world, my masters;" and
     I am afraid Mr. Rayner with his long and set speeches, as
     chairman of Thomas's Shakspeareans, will not mend the
     matter. We note this to him in a friendly way; seeing, that
     he is a worthy fellow, and a clever Caliban, and really
     loves Shakspeare next to Newmarket and Doncaster.

     2 The  Burmese   carriage is certainly  a curious   machine
     of Indian workmanship; but it is, we should fancy, mere
     outside—fine to look at, but a "rum one to go," like the
     be-togged, be-booted, be-spurred, furred, and cloaked half
     pays, fortune-hunters, gentlemen with the brogue, &c. that
     pay their court so assiduously to Mrs. Dolland's cheesecakes
     and Mr. Heaviside's quadrilles. But the world is often
     ornament caught.

          And daughter-selling mothers, still
          Lure the young boys, their eyes may kill,
          To wed your flesh and blood, and fill
          Your purse, and pay your tours.

          Ye London blacks, ye Cheltenham whites,{3}
          Ye turners of the days to nights,
          Make, make the most of all your flights,
          Whilst I and Bernard doze;

          But still be sure, by this same token,
          We still shall sleep with one eye open{4}
          And the first hour our nap is broken,
          You'll pay for't through the nose.

     3 There are indeed "black spirits and white spirits" of all
     sorts and sizes, at all times and places; and a well-cut
     coat and a white satin dress are frequently equally
     dangerous glossings to frail and cunning mortality within.
     To be sure, we have brought down the "tainted wethers of
     dame Nature's flock" with the double barrels of wit and
     satire, right and left; but like mushrooms or mole-hills,
     they are a breeding, increasing species, and it will be only
     a real battue of sharp-shooting that will destroy the
     coveys.    Nevertheless,

          "I have a rod in pickle,
           Their—————————"

     I declare the Spirit is growing earthly.

     4 The Bristol men "down along," sleep, they say, in this way
     and hence is it rare for Jew or Gentile, Turk or infidel, to
     get the blind side of them. Some of them, however, have ere
     now been done brown, and that too by being too fanciful and
     neat in their likings.    These tales of the sleepers of an
     eye are too good to be lost; they shall be bound up in the
     volume of my brain, hereafter to be perused with advantage.
     At present,

          "I hear a voice thou canst not hear;
          I see a hand thou canst not see;
          It calls to me from yonder sphere,
          It points to where my brethren be."

          When that time comes, and come it must,
          For what we say is not pie-crust,
          To yield to every trifling thrust,
          England shall see some fun.

          Like "eagles in a dove-cote," we
          Both rooks and pigeons will make flee,
          Whilst every cashless company
          Shall, laugh'd at, "cut and run."

          Thus telling painted folly's sect,
          What they're to look to, what expect,
          My farewell words I now direct
          To thee, migrating Spy;

          That done, deliver'd all commands,
          I man a cloud-ship with brave hands,
          And sail to (quitting mortal lands),
          My parlour in the sky.

          Bernard, farewell; may rosy health
          Companion'd by that cherub wealth,
          Be constant to you, like myself,
          Your own departing spirit.

          Not that you're going to die; no, no,
          You'll only take a nap or so;
          But yet I wish you, 'fore you go,
          These blessings to inherit.

          Bernard, farewell; pray think of me,
          When you ride earth, or cross the sea;
          On both, you know, I've been with thee,
          And sung some pretty things;

          Great Spy, farewell; when next you rise
          To make of fools a sacrifice,
          You'll hear, down-cleaving from the skies,
          The rustle of my wings.

          January, 1826.

Bernard Blackmantle and Bob Transit,