merits of cramming in so many on one side. It is a curious fact, that you may go all through the week mixing with hundreds of people. and the universal cry will be, "How hot it is!" or "How cold it is!" as the case may be. Let it be hot or cold, as long as you are not inside a coach, the cry is a general one; but as soon as ever you enter that curricular piece of mechanism, there, among only half a dozen people, you will not find two common opinions as to the thermometrical temperature.

Seeing that time was rapidly advancing, and the probability in case of further delay of not getting any seats at all, I entered the booking office and inquired if Mr. Yellowhammer had secured places for two. "How many?" "Two outsides?" "Yes," "can't say; don't know the name, 66 no!"

These were rather unsatisfactory answers, so I resolved to seek that worthy myself, and to do so, thought the most likely place to find him, would be inside the Tavern.

There were some half dozen people standing at the bar, and the common taste among them, seemed to be for hot brandy and water. I don't mean for a moment, common, in the vulgar acceptation of the term; for who indeed likes a night-cap better than the aristocracy of the present day? Besides, it is well known that delicate ladies are ordered it by the medical faculty in doses of "a little and often," and although it is very disagreeable (as they, the ladies themselves, will tell you) to the palate, still the doctor says, it is most efficacious is cases of low fever and general debility: but I mean the special demand was, "A little hot water please, with a lump of sugar, and you may put in six penn'orth of brandy; thank you."

I made my way into the more

remote coffee room, where a few were also most assiduously looking after their inner man, but not in the same fashion; pork pie and bitter ale was the order there, and chairs and tables seemed to be indispensable appendages. In a corner, I beheld the far-famed Yellowhammer exercising his gastronomic powers, to positively an alarming extent. To say he was discussing the smoking contents of a large dish would be as mild as calling the temperature of the torrid zone, warm. Not even were I to forget myself for a moment, and be so vulgar as

to affirm that Mr. Yellowhammer was pecking into liver and bacon, should I adequately convey an idea of the manner in which that magnanimous gentleman was dispatching those comestibles. I never saw before or since anything approaching it. But how I envy the being with even a moderate digestion! how I envy him, who can take cucumber in season, and lobster salad for supper, without dreaming that he is falling over a precipice, or that a mad bull's running after his red pockethandkerchief, which, worseluck, peeps out of his coat-tailpocket, and feeling that those would-be useful mechanisms, sometimes denominated chalks, sometimes sticks, sometimes legs, are wholly incapable of either walking, cutting, or running. But no! I belong to that most unhappy class of peeple termed dyspeptics. I have been a dyspeptic as long as I can remember, my father was a dyspeptic before me, and it is a family tradition, that my grandmother, when a two year old, overtaxed her digestive organs by swallowing exactly half the contents of a Noah's Ark, the crying mechanical portion of her wax doll, and the hind wheel of a cart; if this tradition be true, dyspepsia in our family is immediately accounted for. But to return to the Coffee Room in the Saracen's Head.

To ask a man a question when he is in the act of eating, is of course, most impolite, and for him to answer with his mouth full, is undoubtedly dangerous. So I dared not interrupt the worthy gentleman at his meal, lest he should choke himself, prematurely, and thus snatch away from the world one of its most illustrious stars. I went into the open air, and sitting upon a bench, outside the entrance, betook myself "to linking fancy into fancy," as the poet says. "What different ways we go in this wide world," thought I. "How everybody is jostling somebody else, and heeds no one but himself. There! there's that good-hearted old woman down at Ipswich, perhaps dying, and not a friend to comfort her, no one but a careless, ignorant servant girl, with an unwashed face, to whom she can look for a kind word or smile. 'Tis very sad, and particularly so, to think that she is troubled in her mind, specially at an hour of spasms. She ought not to have a care, she who has been so generous. 'Tis very sad." Thus I mused, and was

getting quite into a deep reverie, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Happy man to be able to sleep!" I recognized Yellowhammer's voice, and turning round replied, "Oh! here you are, I was not asleep but waiting to ask you if our seats were taken.' Lethargic being," he resumed, " you were not asleep? Why, what do you call sleep, man? you define sleep as a sempiternal liveliness of the organs of sense? a constant acute wakefulness of the intellectual faculties? Do you feel its approach by a consciousness of the ideas becoming bright? an increasing activity of the mind? the limbs bracing up, the eyelids opening? If you do, I grant you were not asleep."

Do

"I think, sir, it is more difficult to define the nature of sleep, than to elucidate its phenomena," I said. "Then you are nor a physiologist, you are not versed in the science of the functions of organized beings. Happy man! I'll tell you what, you look as if you hybernated. Indeed, I'm sure that you retreat to your suburban villa, and like the marmot and some mammalian, many amphibious, and all molluscous tribes, you hybernate." "My dear sir, I can assure you I have something else to do, something more profitable; a profession to follow, a reputation to support. You caught me in a reverie in which I seldom indulge, and when you tapped me on the shoulder, I was thinking of what a friend once said to me; 'One can often guess another's thoughts, and sometimes can divine what occupations people follow, what object they've in view, merely by their talk and demeanour.' I have often seen the truth of this remark, and, indeed, have seldom failed to form a conjecture of some kind; whether correct or incorrect, still sufficiently satisfactory to allay my own curiosity, as to some people's affairs and objects in this bustling world; but, sir, I'm very puzzled to make out what your calling is.

I was afraid that I'd given it him rather too strongly, for he caught hold of my arm, knocked his hat over his eyes, and seizing my portmanteau with his umbrella, said, or rather, groaned with a sigh, "Time wanes." The cstler was holding the reins, the driver importantly adjusting his rug under him, and the well known bugle fantasia was being played; so we paid our money and took our respective seats, and in a few minutes were rolling over the large round stones. My

acquaintance crammed a piece of wadding, which he pulled out from the lining of his coat, into that one of his elephantine ears, which was next to the conductor; and making some remark about his "trumpeter being dead," which I didn't quite understand, offered me a tobacco plug to keep out the noise; regretting not having any more of the article, which he himself used, to offer me.

I am a medical man and prescribe for my patients (as a rule) what I think is best for them. I publish little pamphlets, and entitle them, "Larynx on dyspepsia, gout, rheumatism, etc." I make up pills, and call them " postprandium" and "Antecœnam." I talk about practical experience for so many years, and mean it.

So you can take my advice from a medical point of view, without being afraid of it doing you much harm. If then you go to the East, for some thirty odd years, and return to England, looking as yellow as your gold, and as a matter of course, a martyr to liver complaint, just ask the way to the Saracen's Head; take an outside place on the Ipswich coach, and drive up and down Holborn Hill for five consecutive hours every day, and in a week I'll guarantee you'll be able to settle down in that little Indian colony, Cheltenham, and will be advising some other sallow Croesus not to go to Bath and sink money in the springs; but to pay Dr. Pygmalion, son of old Larynx, a visit, who'll prescribe for him. Riding on a coach down Holborn Hill, is better than postboy duty, and beats palanquin travelling, I'm sure, all to nothing; in fact, the only thing that I can think of that does at all come up to it for liver complaint, is circumnavigating the world in a washingtub. But this remedy has many objections besides being unsociable.

We had rattled on at least for a couple of hours before my companion spoke a word. I did not, however,

feel the loss of his conversation, for on the other side of me, sat a very eccentric little woman, who was continually asking questions. I don't know whether anything passed between us worthy of record; but as this is a narration of what befell me, whom I did see and whom I didn't; all that I can remember, must go down.

"Would you like a look to read, sir," she began, fishing up a yellow-covered one out of a wicker basket. I thanked her, and said, I read so much at home, that I was rather glad to get away from books, when called

into the country. However, what was the name? Anything particularly new good? "I won't answer for it being good,' replied she, "but it's quite new. for I've just brought it from the printer's." "Indeed! then I should like to see it. What is the title?" A novel in six vols. "Ah, I'm afraid this is not in my way," I said, "I've no doubt it will take with the romantic portion of the reading public; but romance has long lost its charms to me." "Well then, here's another for you. Aspasia and Pericles, it isn't so new as that; but it has taken wonderfully with the reading public, as you call them." Taking the book from her hand, and seeing that her basket was full of them, I said, "If you have one a little less sensational; not so very light and fictitious, I would prefer it to either of these." "Here you are then," said the little creature; and diving her arm down to the bottom again, fished up an old fustylooking MS. "Here you are, this has never been in print. I took it to my publisher, but he said he wouldn't have anything to do with it; and, I'll tell you why, for the very reason that you admire it. It's because it's sublime, elegant, noble. He acknowledged it, he rapped me on the head with his great snuff-box, and said, I'll tell yon what, my little mademoiselle, you're too good, you're tastes are too refined for this day; not one out of a hundred will be able to translate that page between the French count and my lady heroine; they will not be able to appreciate your grand plot. You bring about the separation too poetically; they would much rather my lady cut her throat with my count's boot-jack than pine with grief and die respectably.' Their depraved tastes! Mon Dieu 'You are too sublime,' his very words, Monsieur Soloman's very words, you are too sublime.'

The little woman rolled this out with an astonishing rapidity, and although she spoke English exceedingly well, both idiomatically and grammatically, still her accent was so strong as not to leave the slightest doubt, that she was a native of France. "My publisher," she continued, as soon as she had regained her breath, "Monsieur Soloman, said, 'Mademoiselle, Aspasia and Pericles was nearly the death of me.

The name was rather a novel cne, but they were a little afraid of buying it for fear of finding it dry, so I took them out of my window, and put A LOVE STORY," written much larger than the title just

under it, and then didn't they sell. But you never told me that you'd made their marriage a lawful one, or I'd have had nothing to do with it. What was the consequence? As soon as they had read the first volume and come to the beginning of the second, where your sublime,' said he, his very words, your sublime nature must go and upset the Athenian law and make it lawful for natives of Miletus to marry with those of other places-what was the consequence? why, they pull and tear their hair, that depraved public, Mon Dieu! they rush into my shop and throw the bocks at me, so that I'm obliged to look for protection to the Justices of the Peace.' But, sir, it gives me much joy to meet with one who loves the beautiful, whose ideas soar up to that which is ethically sublime. You are noble, you are competent to appreciate my work, this my great work."

The poor little woman was quite overcome, and thrust the MS. into my hands, and she had strained her voice, not a very loud one, naturally, to its highest pitch. I was taken with a fit of coughing, which stopped and came on again, at intervals. "I'm sure such a work as this," I said, eyeing the closely written papers, "if regarded only in the light of an industrious production, does you much credit; but I've no doubt it is full of that sentiment and warmth which is peculiar to your nation, and which I so admire." We discussed the merits of the literature of the day, comparing it with what it used to be, and ventured speculations on what it would arrive at a century hence.

I found her to be a very intelligent person, and in the course of the first two hours heard all her pedigree. She gave me a full account of her troubles, ever since she had had any, and said that she liked middle-aged gentlemen, because their minds were settled as a rule, and you could listen to what they said, and believe a great deal of it; but as to young men, she had learnt from experience that one ought to let what they say go in at one ear and out at the other.

Mademoiselle was d'un certain age. She had an odd-looking little face, with little ferret eyes, and little mole-coloured ringlets, peeping out from her old-fashioned velvet bonnet; a naturally large mouth, which time and trouble had puckered up (if I may use the expression), into little furrows, while the down on her

had a box full of brains, and knew how to make use of them, which is the great art; also a deal of expression, and expression is everything. Before we got fairly out of London, she had asked me at least fifty questions. What was this street? That building? Did I know how long we should be going to Ipswich? and so on.

We had been silent some few minutes, when my first acquaintance said: "You asked me what my calling was in this busy world. It is evident to me, Sir, that you've never mixed in it. That you have been alienated from the order of things which pertain to all that is social and fraternal, and although your legs may have traversed many a mile in the most populous districts of this metropolis-still your head, like the ostrich's of the Saharan desert, has been buried in the sand of oblivion. Is it possible that you come across me, hear my name, and do not go into raptures at once? That you do not say, 'What! do I behold that immortal man of genius, to whose very name I am indebted for my cradle hymn? What does he do with his left-off clothes, that I cannot get a fragment to keep as a charm? Who is his barber, that I may crave the clippings of his hair, wherewith to weave a chain to ornament my bride's fair neck?'" "I have been a medical practitioner in the City of London, Sir," I said, "for fire and thirty years, and have never even heard your name, much less availed myself of your proverbial genius in the composition of lullaby songs."

“Then, I know for certain, you have just returned from Portland or the high seas, as I said before," continued Yellowhammer.

"I have never been to Portland, nor any of those places to which you allude, neither have I come from the high seas," replied I, vehemently; flaring up at his insulting insinuations.

Nor yet resemble the marmot?"

"Nor yet resemble the marmot," I said, waxing wrath, and feeling indignation in my very boots.

"Then I'll tell you what," resumed the barefaced egotist; "I'll tell you what, you're like an actor, not because he can become a Danish prince in a few minutes, by dressing in sombre black, and apostrophizing Yorick's skull, before the blazing footlights, but because when he dies another springs up to

support the character of the Danish prince, and when you assume your official garb, you possess a name that has been handed down from generation to generation. But you're unlike him in this respect. The actor strolls abroad-he goes into the park and learns his parts. You, when not entertaining my Lord Tom Noddy, visit old clothes shops, and barter the legacies which the laws of the land give you the right to claim. You are not an actor, because you would have mixed in some kind of respectable society, and must have heard of my famebut I confess the cognomen of Yellowhammer is rot familiar within the precincts of your dingy walls. No wonder that you are a lethargic being, the very lugubrious knell of St. Sepulchre's bell, would account for your dolorous nature, conversation, expression, and indeed everything. I am very sorry for you-I am truly sorry for you."

I looked at the hideous man while he spoke in this idiotic manner, and immediately put him down "in my mind's eye" as a lunatic. Knowing from experience that it is never a wise plan to contradict any argument such an individual may choose to uphold, I let him have his fling, and he talked on until he was tired, which was exactly for one hour and a half, at the end of which time we saw the first stage in the distance, and very glad I was, to answer for my own feelings, to roll myself off the coach, like the other outsiders, and get a snack of refreshment. I offered to help the little French authoress down, but she had brought some sandwiches in her basket, and would sit up there and eat them, as she didn't like climbing up oftener than was necessary. Although I knew it would be an utter impossibility for the gamboge-headed egotist to devour anything so soon after the liver and bacon, I saw him making look so foolish at the Saracen's Head," still I paid him the compliment by asking if he would like to share some lunch with me.

to sleep, perchance to dream; to eat, perchance to live; two more of your objects in this life. No, Sir, my name is not familiar in the chop-house. Go along, you happy fellow, and take your appetite.',

I could not be surprised at any anything he might say, and thought I had better reason to be truly sorry for him, than vice versa. So I got off the wheel where I had been standing, without making any remark, and made the best of the short time which is allowed for recruiting the monitor within.

PUTNEY.

ITS INDIGENOUS PLANTS AND CURIOSITIES. NATURAL AND UNNATURAL.

THE too long neglected town of Putney has been especially favoured by Fortune in its being dowered with a larger number of extraordinary natural productions than any other of its size in the known world; and we purpose, in a series of cursory remarks upon them, to enlighten the inhabitants of other places less bountifully treated by Nature, and to rescue them from the slough of ignorance in which they have so long been engulfed. Did they know the curiosities, that would repay the exertions of reaching this favourite and salubrious spot; no dangers of road, rail, or river would deter them from forthwith putting on their armour and sallying forth.

It has long been a subject of deep and poignant regret to the residents, especially the proprietors of those useful and hospitable establishments the hotels and inns, that the world at large should be so entirely ignorant of the pleasure and instruction to be derived from a sojourn in their midst; and if we are not misinformed, this magazine was partly projected for the purpose of removing the veil and exposing the town in all its glories to their delighted gaze. We, though unworthy of the honour, and slightly unfitted by nature for, not to say utterly incapable of, adequately performing this pleasing duty, have been selected to proclaim to the multitude that they will be received with open arms by the courteous residents, all eager to do them honour, and will be given to taste their hospitality ungrudgingly, the only proviso being (this from the various tradesmen) that they have a passably well-filled purse, and have no insurmountable objections to leave, on their departure, tokens of their good will in the

shape of part of its contents. After all, people must live, whatever Richelieu may think to the contrary, and even Putneyans must have something more solid and nutritious to exist upon, than their proverbial overflowing good nature. We urged our extreme bashfulness, as an obstacle to our undertaking the office, and hinted that any one of the talented staff connected with the S. B. was better calculated to express these sentiments, but after some strong language, to which, it grieves us to say, our editor descended, we were induced to comply with his request; not before, however, the before-mentioned gentleman delicately hinted that unless the business were immediately put in hand, there would probably be an immediate vacancy on the staff as that sounded unpleasantly like a threat of being ignominously kicked out, we thought it preferable to agree, chiefly for the reason that we are ambitious of making ourself a name in the world of letters, and were afraid that if his insinuated menace were carried into execution the promises of our being of use to the world would be nipped in the bud, and thus it would lose the benefit of our future efforts. But to our subject.

Putney, as some few persons may be, aware, is situated on the Thames, and as when the tide is low, its silvery surface is distant some one hundred feet from the banks, a spectator may view a long stretch of particularly dark, unctuous looking mud, the exhalations from which continually delight the olfactory organs of the inhabitants, thus accounting, it is said, for the long life and rude health of the dwellers on its margins. Rude in health they appear to be; in manners they certainly are, as any of our few visitors will testify; but, after all, it may be only their exuberant good temper that prompts them to make those certainly rather personal remarks upon any peculiarity of dress or appearance that may catch their eye; sides they are thoroughly consistent, and favour their co-residents equally with strangers. The unfortunate object of their attention is usually a sucking oarsman, and this last, though not peculiar to our town, is one of its most celebrated productions; and in accordance with our promise we will give him our first attention. Place aux rowing men, then, and my Neptune, though not a literary god, as far as we may judge by the vague accounts that have reached us of his deityship, smile upon our endeavours, and

be