tus nil nisi verum." Of whom shall we speak the truth, if not of the dead-supposing that truth to be injurious to their name?—of the living (especially behind their backs), it is an excellent general rule to speak nothing but the good we know. This practice at once proves good-nature, and promotes good-fellowship; and those who conscientiously adopt it, may safely indulge themselves in that natural propensity of our kind, which we possess in common with no other animal. Man (I do

not, of course, include woman!) is by nature a backbiting animal; and, in the name of truth, let him enjoy this proud distinction in peace, provided he exercise it only towards those whom it cannot harm.-Gas, then, (I am determined, now that he is dead, to make a scapegoat of him, for he was a black sheep while he lived).— Gas was a memorable example of the instability of human resolution, and the flexibility of human virtue. Like the next greatest among modern heroes (I mean Buonaparte), he began well, I dare say; but like him also, he lived to be a tyrant and a boaster, and died as such heroes should die-namely, not in the field of battle. "This is the hand" (he used to exclaim at the Fives Court,)" This is the hand," (doubling his deadly dexter,)" that shall dig the graves of a few more of 'em, before I've done!" This was not long before his own grave was dug for him.-The stage-coachman by whose side I went down to see his last grand battle, told me what he had heard him say to a brother whip on that road the day before. Well, Tom, shall you beat him?"—" Beat him!" he replied, with a sneer of ineffable contempt-"Look here"-pulling a twenty pound note out of his breeches pocket-" if you 've a mind to cover that, I'll lay I beat him and you too, within a quarter of an hour!"

Never shall I forget that memorable day! Next to Wordsworth's, it was the most interesting and instructive" excursion" I ever made. And the events of it live in my memory even more vividly than those of the other poem do, because, in reading the one, I always make a point of forgetting as soon as I have read, in order that I may be able to recur to the theme again in all its first freshness; whereas, knowing that I should enjoy the other a second time only through the medium of memory, I took care to impress it there as deeply as the materials would permit. The poetry that I read I suffer to impress itself only on the sands of my memory-but the poetry that I see, I engrave on the rocks.

Perhaps the reader may not object to see a few of these lithographic etchings, relating to the above occasion, struck off on the pages of the Album-especially as the subject of them has quitted the scene of life, and can stand up for a model no more.

I had not shackled myself with any engagements about the manner, &c., of going down, lest the arrangements of others might put me out; and I had not made a single bet on the event, lest my interest might interfere to warp the impartiality of my judgment.Indeed I may here remark, that I discountenance the practice of betting on such occasions, altogether; and hold that no real lover of the art ever indulges in them. Those who love the thing with a due and becoming love," love it for itself alone," and would no more bet on a pitched battle, than they would on a game of chess.I started, therefore, a thoroughly free agent, both in body and mind-my actions unchecked by the will of friends, and even my wishes unbent by the influence of bets.--At five o'clock, then, in a December evening, behold me seated on the box of the Bath Heavy, enveloped

in an impenetrable covering of coats and capes, and prepared to brave the worst weather that winter could pour upon me. I remember that, for want of something better to do, I counted, as we went along, the coverings that intervened between my person and the piercing night air, and that they amounted to fifteen. Under such circumstances, what were the rains and the winds to me!--Accordingly, I bid them a "blithe defiance ;" which they seemed very readily to accept-for I now, by an effort of memory, can just recollect that it blew a storm, and rained torrents nearly the whole night long, till four o'clock in the morning; at which time I, and a young Cantab who sat on the roof, and who had come up from college that morning on the same errand, descended in the dark before the door of a large inn at Hungerford, and in a moment heard the wheels rattle away from us, and leave us to the mercy of the open street. We were not slow or nice in knocking at the door of the Bear; but, "knock, and it shall not be opened to you" (at least in the middle of the night, and when it was already full) was the motto of this "heaven"-for what less is a country inn, after a long journey through a winter's night?-So after thundering at the door, and rattling at the windows for half an hour, till we had satisfied our spite by awakening all the sleepers in the house, we were fain to turn in to a little hedge. ale-house on the other side the road, whose inhabitants had been disturbed by our clamour, and came out to see what was the matter. Here we were willingly admitted to take shelter from the weather, but nothing more,seeing that all the beds in the house were already occupied-ranking each of the chairs as one. Here (I don't remember how) I lost sight of my college companion; for which, by the way, I was not sorry-for in

stead of discoursing on the coming event, he had done little else all the way down but talk to me of his successful intrigues with the tradesmen's daughters of Cambridge, and his "perilous hair-breadth 'scapes" from the indignation of their fathers and brothers.

The scene, on entering this house, is as present to me as if I were in it at this moment. The master was too sensible of the value of the accommodation he was affording, to be very particular about the manner of offering it; so he merely let us in, shut the door, and left us in the dark to shift for ourselves.-I opened a door on the left of the passage just as you enter from the street, and there, by the light of a large dull fire, I could distinguish six persons, sleeping more soundly and wholesomely than if they had been lying on beds of down-two couples were lying on chairs, with their feet in their great coat pockets-one on a table in the corner of the room, and one on the floor.-There was a chair. vacant by the fire, and there (getting out of my greatest coat-my superlative—and keeping my positive and comparative on) I composed my thoughts, and waited, patiently expectant, the break of day.-About seven (for I did not attempt to sleep a wink) the cold grey light began to peer through the round eyes of the windowshutters, and the silent stir that had not ceased during the night began to thicken. The seven sleepers (they were seven-for the apparent pile of wearing apparel to which I had added the weight of my huge wet box-coat, turned out to be a mountain of a man, who had heaved his bulk on to a side-table at my right hand)—the "seven sleepers" now began gradually to awake and wonder where they were-the bustle in the house became universal-it thickened at a particular point which seemed to be over our heads-and suddenly, the door of

our dormitory flying open, in rushed a tumultuous rout, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be near their leader, and all at once shouting for their breakfasts. From the cut of their clothes, and the twang of their tongues, these could not be Londoners; and from the immeasured impudence of their manner, and the thoroughpaced slang of their talk, they could not be countrymen ; -their exuberant joy at the anticipated triumph of the day-the event, of which they seemed as certain about as if it had already taken place-indicated them to be no other than a party of Bristolians, come to share in the honours and profits of the day, and to laud themselves in the person of their hero: and such, in fact, they were. I shall not attempt to depict any of these specimens of the Provincial Fancy, or to record any of their flash conversation,-brilliant and striking as it was in its way;-for as I have said above, I entirely disapprove of transforming the "art" of fighting into a "mystery," and of translating the natural and universally intelligible language, in which it may and ought to be described, into an artificial abracadabra, which is " Hebrew Greek" to all but the initiated few. Still justice compels me not to pass over in silence the leader of this band of Bristolians, for I frankly confess that if any thing could have reconciled me to the language in question, it would have been the brilliant effect which it was made to produce in the mouth of this accomplished professor. The torrent of talk that issued from the lips of Sam Porch on this occasion, (for that was his name,) was, in fact, no whit inferior, either in wit or learning, fancy or imagination, copiousness, brilliancy, or unintelligibility, to that which I have heard flow from the no less inspired tongue of a half-namesake of his whom I need not mention to those who have heard him,