admirable foil to the tricking, lazy rascality of the Cockney boy Benjamin.

But Benjamin has other foils. We beg to give a scene in the harness-room at the Dragon-just before the Newcastle-man arrives. Here we have Benjamin in the full double importance of the whipper-in to a gentleman huntsman, and the London gamin among snobs. The party is a most interesting one: first and foremost, seated on an inverted horsepail, immediately before the fire, appears Mr. Samuel Strong:

"In stature he was of the middle height, square-built, and terribly clumsy. Nor were the defects of nature at all counteracted by the advantages of dress, for Strong was clad in a rural suit of livery, consisting of a footman's morning jacket, with a standing-up collar made of darkgrey cloth, plentifully besprinkled with large brass buttons, with a raised edge, as though his master were expecting his crest from the Heralds' College. Moreover, the jacket, either from an original defect in its construction, or from that propensity to shrink which inferior cloths unfortunately have, had so contracted its dimensions that the waistbuttons were half-way up Samuel's back, and the lower ones were just where the top ones ought to be. The shrinking of the sleeves placed a pair of large serviceable-looking hands in nervously striking relief. The waistcoat, broad blue and white stripe, made up lengthwise, was new, and probably the tailor, bemoaning the scanty appearance of Sam's nether man, had determined to make some atonement to his front, for the waistcoat extended full four inches below his coat, and concealed the upper part of a very baggy pair of blue plush shorts, that were met again by very tight drab gaiters, that evidently required no little ingenuity to coax together to button. A six-shilling hat, with a narrow silver band, and binding of the same metal, and a pair of darned white Berlin gloves, completed the costume of this figure servant.

Binjimin" was the very converse of Samuel-a little puny, pale-faced, gin-drinking-looking Cockney, with a pair of roving pig eyes, peering from below his lank white hair, cut evenly round his head, as though it had been done by the edges of a barber's basin.

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On the boiler-side of the fire, away from the door-for no one has greater regard for No. 1 than himself-sat the renowned Benjamin Brady, in a groom's drab frock-coat reaching down to his heels, a skyblue waistcoat, patent cord breeches, with grey worsted stockings, and slippers, airing a pair of very small mud-stained top-boots before the fire, occasionally feeling the scratches on his face, and the bites the fox inflicted on his nose the previous day. Next him sat the "first pair boy out," a grey-headed old man of sixty, whose jacket, breeches, boots, entire person in fact, were concealed by a long brown-holland thing, that gave him the appearance of sitting booted and spurred in his night-shirt. Then came the ostler's lad, a boy of some eight or nine years old, rolling about on the flags, playing with the saddle-room cat; and the circle was made out by Bill Brown (Dick the ostler's one-eyed helper), "Tom," a return postboy, and a lad who assisted Bill Brown, the one

eyed

eyed helper of Dick the ostler, when Dick himself was acting the part of assistant-waiter in the Dragon, as was the case on this occasion..

"When will your hounds be going out again, think ye, Mr. Benjamin?" was the question put by Samuel Strong to our sporting Leviathan.

"Ang me if I knows," replied the boy, with the utmost importance, turning his top-boots before the fire. "It's precious little consequence, I thinks, ven we goes out again, if that gallows old governor of ours persists in 'unting the 'ounds himself. I've all the work to do! Bless ye, we should have lost 'ounds, fox, and all, yesterday, if I hadn't rid like the werry wengeance. See 'ow I've scratched my mug," added he, turning up a very pasty countenance, "If I'm to 'unt the 'ounds, and risk my neck at every stride, I must have the wages of a 'untsman, or blow me tight the old 'un may suit himself.'

"What 'n a chap is your old gen'leman ?" inquired the "first pair boy out."

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"Oh, hang if I knows," replied Benjamin; "precious rum 'un, I assure you. Whiles, he 's werry well-then it's Bin this, and Bin that, and you'll be a werry great man, Bin, and such like gammon; and then the next minute, perhaps, he's in a regular sky-blue, swearing he'll cut my liver and lights out, or bind me apprentice to a fiddler-but then I knows the old fool, and he knows he carnt do without me, so we just battle and jog on the best way we can together."

""You'll have good wage, I 'spose?" rejoined Samuel with a sigh, for his "governor" only gave him ten pounds a year, and no perquisites, or "stealings," as the Americans honestly call them.

"Precious little of that, I assure you," replied Benjamin-" at least the old warment never pays me. He swears he pays it to our old 'oman ; but I believe he pockets it himself, an old ram; but I'll have a reckoning with him some of these odd days. What 'n a blackguard's your

master?"

""Hush!" replied Samuel, astonished at Ben's freedom of speech, a thing not altogether understood in the country. "A bad 'un, I'll be bound," continued the little rascal, "or he wouldn't see you mooning about in such a rumbustical apology for a coat, with laps that scarce cover you decently;" reaching behind the aged postboy, and taking up Mr. Samuel's fan-tail as he spoke. "I never sees a servant in a cutty coat without swearing his master's a screw. Now these droll things, such as you have on, are just vot the great folks in London give their flunkies to carry coals and make up fires in, but never to go staring from home with. Then your country folks get hold of them, and think, by clapping such clowns as you in them, to make people believe that they have other coats at home. Tell the truth now, old baggy-breeches, have you another coat of any sort?"

"Yee'as," replied Samuel Strong, "I've a fustian one."

"Vot, you a fustian coat!" repeated Benjamin in astonishment; "vy, I thought you were a flunky!

""So I am," replied Samuel, "but I looks arter a hus and shay as well."

"Crikey!"

"Crikey!" cried Benjamin; "here's a figure futman wot looks arter an 'oss and chay! Vy, you'll be vot they call a man of 'all vork,' a vite nigger in fact! Dear me!" added he, eyeing him in a way that drew a peal of laughter from the party; "vot a curious beast you must be! I shouldn't wonder now if you could mow?"

"With any man," replied Samuel, thinking to astonish Benjamin with his talent.

"And sow?"

"Yee'as, and sow."

"" And ploo ?"

"Never tried-dare say I could though."

"And do ye feed the pigs?" inquired Benjamin.

"Yee'as, when Martha 's away."

"And who's Martha?"

"Whoy, she's a widder woman, that lives a' back o' the church.— She's a son aboard a steamer, and she goes to see him whiles."

"Your governor's an apothecary, I suppose, by that queer button," observed Benjamin, eyeing Sam's coat-"wot we call a chemist and druggist in London. Do you look arter the red and green winder-bottles now? Crikey! he don't look as though he lived on physic altogether, does he?" added Benjamin, turning to Bill Brown, the helper, amid the general laughter of the company.

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My master's a better man than ever you 'll be, you little ugly sinner," replied Samuel Strong, breaking into a glow, and doubling a most serviceable-looking fist on his knee.

""We've only your word for that," replied Benjamin; "he don't look like a werry good 'un by the way he rigs you out. 'Ow many slaveys does he keep?"

"Slaveys?" repeated Samuel; "slaveys? what be they?"

"Vy, cookmaids and such-like h'animals-women in general."

""Ow, two-one to clean the house and dress the dinner, t'other to milk the cows and dress the childer."

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"Oh, you 'ave childer, 'ave you, in your 'ouse?" exclaimed Benjamin in disgust. Well, come, ours is bad, but we 've nothing to ekle that. I wouldn't live where there are brats for no manner of consideration."

56 "You've a young missis, though, havn't you?" inquired the aged postboy: "there was a young lady came down in the chay along with the old folk."

"That's the niece," replied Benjamin-" a jolly nice gal she is too -her home's in Vitechapel-often get a tissey out of her-that's to say, the young men as follows her, so it comes to the same thing. Green-that's him of Tooley Street-gives shillings because he has plenty; then Stubbs, wot lives near Boroughbridge-the place the rabbits come from-gives half-crowns, because he hasn't much. Then Stubbs is such a feller for kissing of the gals.- Be'have yourself, or I'll scream,' I hears our young lady say, as I'm a listening at the door. 'Don't,' says he, kissing of her again, you'll hurt your throat,-let me do it for you.' Then to hear our old cove and he talk about 'unting of

6

an

an evening over their drink, you'd swear they were as mad as hatters.* They jump, and shout, and sing, and talliho! till they bring the streetkeeper to make them quiet."

"You had a fine run t'other day, I hear," observed Joe, the deputyhelper, in a deferential tone to Mr. Brady.-" Uncommon!" replied Benjamin, shrugging up his shoulders at the recollection of it, and clearing the low bars of the grate out with his toe.-"They tell me your old governor tumbled off," continued Joe, "and lost his hoss."-" Werry like," replied Benjamin with a grin. "A great fat beast! he's only fit for vater carriage!"'-vol. i. pp. 224–232.

After the Newcastle-man's installation the affairs of the Hunt assume a much more agreeable appearance-and we are entertained with a variety of field-scenes, exhibiting the noblest of our sports in a style of description not inferior, we think, even to Mr. Apperley's. But, spirited as these are, and highly as they are set off by the picturesque peculiarities of the illustrious grocer, we must not be tempted to quote them. We are, in fact, still more pleased with the hero in his evening uniform- a sky-blue coat lined with pink silk, canary waistcoat and shorts, pink gauzesilk stockings, and French-polished pumps,'-than when arrayed in the scarlet of the morning. His jolly countenance, free and easy manners, unconquerable good humour, and delightfully open vanity, cannot but recommend him to the hospitable attentions of the neighbouring gentry whose covers are included in Mr. Jorrocks's country.' We have him dining with the young Earl of Ongar amidst a most distinguished company, where he gets 'werry drunk'-is soused into a cold bath at night, and finds his face painted like a zebra in the morning-all without the least disturbance of his equanimity; for sport is sport'-'pleasure as we like it'—are of old the maxims of Coram Street. Indeed, we might go over a dozen different dinners, from the lordly castle to the honest farmer's homestead, without finding him once put out. Jorrocks is, in fact, bore-proof. Scarcely a symptom of flinching even when he is planted right opposite to a celebrated ex-president of the Geological Society, who (unlike the learned and gallant President) has never had any familiarity with the chances of the field. This philosopher was spunging on some great Duke or Marquess not far off: but Jorrocks and he are accidentally thrown together at the festive board of a certain ultra-liberal squire, who, after a fashion, patronises both the whip and the hammer, but whose chief glory is having been put on the commission under the late, and we trust last, administration of the Whigs:

"Been in this part of the country before, sir?" inquired Professor Gobelow, cornering his chair towards Mr. Jorrocks.

We fancy this proverbial similitude has no reference to the makers of hats; but originated during the early phrenzy of the Quakers.

• "In

"In course," replied Mr. Jorrocks; "I 'unts the country, and am in all parts of it at times-ven I goes out of a mornin' I doesn't know where I may be afore night."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the professor. "Delightful occupation!" continued he: "what opportunities you have of surveying Nature in all her moods, and admiring her hidden charms! Did you ever observe the extraordinary formation of the hanging rocks about a mile and a half to the east of this? The

33

"I run a fox into them werry rocks, I do believe," interrupted Mr. Jorrocks, brightening up. "We found at Haddington Steep, and ran through Nosterley Firs, Crampton Haws, and Fitchin Park, where we had a short check, owin' to the stain o' deer, but I hit off the scent outside, and we ran straight down to them rocks, when all of a sudden th' 'ounds threw up, and I was certain he had got among 'em. Vell, I got a spade and a tarrier, and I digs, and digs, and works on, till, near night, th' 'ounds got starved, th' osses got cold, and I got the rheumatis, but, howsomever, we could make nothin' of him; but I——”

"Then you would see the formation of the whole thing," interposed the professor. "The carboniferous series is extraordinarily developed. Indeed, I know of nothing to compare with it, except the Bristol coalfield, on the banks of the Avon. There the dolomitic conglomerate, a rock of an age intermediate between the carboniferous series and the lias, rests on the truncated edges of the coal and mountain limestone, and contains rolled and angular fragments of the latter, in which are seen the characteristic mountain limestone fossils. The geological form

ation"

Here the Professor is unfortunately interrupted :—

"Letter from the Secretary of State for the HOME Department," exclaimed the stiff-necked boy, re-entering and presenting Mr. Muleygrubs with a long official letter on a large silver tray.

"Confound the Secretary of State for the Home Department!" muttered Mr. Muleygrubs, pretending to break a seal as he hurried out of the room.

""That's a rouse !" (ruse,) exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, putting his forefinger to his nose, and winking at Mr. De Green-"gone to the cellar." "Queer fellow, Muleygrubs," observed Mr. De Green. "What a dinner it was!" exclaimed Mr. Slowman. 66 'Ungry as when I sat down," remarked Mr. Jorrocks. "All flash!" rejoined Professor

Gobelow.

The footboy now appeared, bringing the replenished decanter.' Jorrocks of course proposes the squire's health, with three times three, and one cheer more. He returns a speech again-more

cheers :

―

"And 'ow's the Secretary o' State for the 'Ome Department?" inquired Mr. Jorrocks, with a malicious grin, after Mr. Muleygrubs had subsided into his seat.

"Oh, it was merely a business letter-official! S. M. Phillipps, in fact-don't do business at the Home Office as they used when Russell

Was