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 hiswhom I need not mention to those who have heard him,

and whom I will not tantalize by mentioning to those who have not. And if the fine things of the former were not delivered in that ore rotundo manner which is so characteristic of the latter, but came trippingly off the tongue, as if they didn't know their own value, they were perhaps more effective on that very account. There is one quality in particular, in which the brilliant Bristolian so much resembled the distinguished talker to whom I have alluded above, and so much excelled all others, that I cannot refrain from referring to it. I mean the extraordinary manner in which he contrived to aggrandize any favourite object that might happen to be the theme of his discourse, by clustering round it a host of associations which no other person would think of connecting with it-exhausting the whole force of his imagination, and bringing to bear the whole store of his knowledge upon some (till then) comparatively insignificant object, and thus lifting it into an adventitious importance that it could gain by no other means, but that it could never again be divested of in the minds of those who had once seen it apparelled in this manner. From the eventful morning of which I speak, I have never been able to think of a Tea-kettle without respect for on that morning did Sam Porch, in the exuberance of his impatient eloquence, call for one twenty times in the space of five minutes, and each time by a different title-and each title connecting with it some fanciful or figurative association that had never belonged to it before, and has never left it since!

Let me add, it is only in his absence that I dare to designate this vivacious vintner*, by the diminutive of his name; for I well remember that, on one of his own company doing so on the above morning, he flung the

* I believe Mr. Porch keeps a public-house at Bristol.