nel in Sackville-street, and rising "in impassioned rage" to return the assault, perceived that the innocent executioner was his father's porter bearing a heavy load of Cannemara stockings. His embarrassment may give you some idea how I felt, upon receiving the tacit rebuke of my city friend. So it is in commercial England, where wealth is estimated highly, and integrity still more, but where the character of meanness is never affixed to that which is not intrinsically mean. But something too much of this.

An Irishman travelling in England meets at every footstep, with appearances which feelingly remind him that he is only a visitor. The extensive cultivation of the lands-the air of neatness and comfort which reigns in the dwellings of the peasantry; the absence of the unseemly dunghill with "the brisk herald of the morning," industriously scraping at its summit, whilst the matron-like parent of ten or twelve young pigs, with her musical family, reposes in calm dignity at its odoriferous baseabove all, the complacent countenance and sturdy demeanour of the peasant himself, impress the Irish traveller with the conviction, that he now breathes the air of a land, where indigence has not stamped the peasant's brow with the deep furrows of care, nor centuries of misrule strangled the tender feelings of humanity, and subdued to fawning and servility,-souls, which nature formed manly and independent.

Nothing can be more erroneous than an opinion which prevails pretty generally in Ireland, that the lower classes in England, are sulky and wanting in civility. An Englishman in his intercourse with strangers, does not display the obsequious and studied complaisance of a Frenchmanneither does he betray that considerate and sometimes obtrusive desire to please which is observed in Ire land and yet he is by no means disobliging. Demand any commonplace courtesy from an Englishman, it is not performed with genuflections and grimaces-it is not accompanied by epithets of respect and expressions indicative of the donor's satisfactionbut it is bestowed without effort or refused without any affectation of regret. Entering Westminster-hall for the first time yesterday, I recollected that a professional gentleman

with whom I desired to communicate, was engaged in the Exchequer-court, and observing a number of workmen employed executing some repairs, I accosted one, inquiring the way towards the Exchequer-court? "Don't know I'm sure," was the reply. I passed on, and meeting another workman at a distant end of the building, repeated my interrogatory-"Can't tell," was the laconic answer. Thus disappointed, I had just resolved to repair to an adjoining coffee-house and apply for information, when a person who was standing near and had overheard my inquiries, approachedand his manner and appearance joined with a rich racy accent, left little doubt that the land of potheen and potatoes "claimed him for her own. "Is it the Exchequer-coort your honor would be after knowing?” said Pat; I replied in the affirmative. "Then," said he resolutely, but after a moment's hesitation, "I'll find that out for you-Holloa! Larry Murphy," beckoning to a fellow labourer who was occupied at some distance-" come here and show the jontleman the Exchequer-coort." Larry Murphy

lost no time in advancing towards us, and hearing my inquiry reiterated, stood for a few minutes dangling one of the uncombed jetty locks which hung like festoons over his ears, and throwing a most comical expression of inquisitive sagacity into his countenance, replied to my query, by "May be its the Coort of CommonPlays (Pleas) your honor wants, for that's over yonder," pointing to the opposite side of the hall. Fortunately at this moment I espied the individual whom I desired to see, and sans ceremonic concluded a tête-à-tête, in which my communicative countrymen would probably have consumed much time, and whilst they burthened me with information altogether uninteresting, have left me in primitive ignorance of that particular point upon which I was anxious to be enlightened.

I know of nothing that so soon impresses a stranger with an idea of the superabundant wealth-the pecuniary plethora which afflicts the people of England as those fantastic buildings, whether denominated cottages, villas, mansions, castles, or abbeys, that meet the traveller's eye at every turning of the road, as he is rolled along in the

C. BLOOMFIeld.

SUCH are the words of the relative of him who was Robert Bloomfield; of him whose memory must be cherished as long as genius is dear to our English feelings, and its misfortunes regretted by British sympathies. I have chosen them for the motto of a few thoughts upon this season of Christmas; first, for their appropriateness to the theme, and then a little with the hope that they may be condocive to the keeping alive of that interest, already largely excited, for those of the poet's family who are left unblessed with the "world's goods," and arouse those, who estimate talent, not from splendour of birth, but nobility of soul, to visit "the fatherless in their affliction," and out of their wealth and munificence, prescribe a "medicine to heal their sickness." The author of the "Farmer's Boy" has gone to his long home in poverty, be it ours to say that a mite of relief to his disconsolate family has been one of the first of our "Christmas offerings."

It is not for the "jolly wassailbowl," the "smoking sirloin," the "brown October," nor for its minced pies, its burned brandy, or its turkies, those insignia of the time, that I have ever looked upon "merry, merry, Christmas tide," as the most delightful season in the year's calendar. I love all these it is true-I do my best to play a welcome part in the happy comedy of which they are the iucidents and properties, but the twentyfifth of December is my delight, for that it is, truly and indeed, the magnet that attracts kindred and kind together, that cements old friendships and creates new, that allays differences, and foments love, that brings the parent and the child, the brother and the sister, though miles divide them at other periods, under one roof, and

about one hearth, and teaches every one (inspiring them with the sacred character of the hour) to be for one day" in charity with all mankind."

Although I have too much of giddiness and gaiety in my composition to assume the character of a mentor, I may still be permitted to observe, that however moderns may have surpassed former days in the march of discovery, and the advance of spe culation, they have lost, without at taining an adequate equivalent, much of that beautiful simplicity, and many of those innocent delights, which some twenty years ago, the holiday of my childhood marked our joyous commemorations, and our jovial anniversaries. In the "halls of my fathers" were ever assembled on our Christmas days, the old and the young of all relationships every young leaf and strong branch that were dependent upon the parent trunks, there was not one link permitted to be absent from the chain of affection and alliance, one shaft to be away from the pillar of our house's order; death, death alone could derange or detract from the completeness of the whole! The "seven ages of man" have been nobly commented upon, it was for us to personify them all. Now "pride and pomp and circumstance" usurp the unsophisticated orgies of my ancestors the " infant" is left to whine his "childish treble" in his "nurse's lap," and not at grandfather's feast board; the "schoolboy" is, at best, but permitted to have his companion at home, but dares not enter the presence chamber, where dandy uncles and lisping cousins float in stately and feathered pomp adown the over furnished drawing-room. The old fashioned silver tipped brown jug, foaming with spiced and home brewed wine, is superseded by "green

eyed" champaigne glasses and hock tumblers. The "shepherd's hymn,” and the "cradle song," with which we were wont to do service to the evening, give place to dainty serenades, and equivocal “melodies;” the winter's tale, or the instructive recitation, yield to guinea whist, three card loo, or more fashionable ecarte. In fact, every thing is expensive; it may be every thing is elegant, but whether every thing is as delightful

as in

66 those golden days of yore
When Christmas was a high day,"

I think not quite so susceptible of proof.

But however I may deem this change incompatible with the reminiscences which I shall retain of the olden time, till "blighted memory seeks its tomb," I am still thankful that enough remains to make us merry and grateful when" old father Christmas," with his robe of mistletoe, and his crown of holly, comes amongst us; enough to dissipate all spleen and ill humour, those hobgoblins engendered of envy, and which ill assort with the airy spirit, and bright coruscations of hospitality's jovialities. We have still those characteristic and yet unmodernized relics of other ages-the Christmas carols, and which the "piety and poetry," as has been somewhere observed, "of our progenitors have immortalised." What though their madrigals do not "take the senses prisoner," though their music be not "most excellent," yet the cause hallows the attempt, and when some village choir, stationing themselves beneath my lattice, raise their chorus of thanks to the "star of Bethany," I am too much weaned, for the moment, from earth, to consider "too nicely," the discordance of the measure, or the perfectibility of their metres. Not to recur to the age of Tertullian, and other classical authorities, I would here refer my readers, who are imbued with a predilection for such love, to the Popular Antiquities" of Mr. Brand, for much that is curious on the subject of the Christmas carol, and for some outre specimens of that song of thanksgiving; perhaps, however, I may here be permitted to offer a single example of more modern days, and one which I deem some

what better in thought and expression, to the generality of such compositions. I heard it sung by the choir of my parish church.

"Rise, Christian, rise! the star of love
Smiles in its throne of sky,
And tells, commissioned from above
Of life and victory!

Up, up the word o'er worlds hath ran,
Peace, peace on earth! good will to man.

The Saviour, God! he comes for all,
He comes, and all are free!
(His robe the heav'ns-his couch a
stall-)

Bend, bend the lowly knee,
Haste, humbly, meekly, presents bring
And join the "wise men's" offering!

Rise, Christian, rise! hark, angels raise!
Their adoration song,

And one glad shout of herald praise
Springs from the sacred throng;
Rise, ye have won the victory
For Christ is born in Bethany!"

And we have those creatures of mi-
micry, the mummers too; those who
come upon us like brief chronicles of
by-gone times, tattered representatives
of buried centuries, who compel us
to retrace our reading that we may
converse with the "lords of misrule,"
or "Christmas princes," when such
were, for a short hour, great people
at Whitehall. These we still have,
and I should feel that I was parting
with old acquaintance, were they also
to "depart hence," and give place
to newer, but less characteristic, ac-
companiments of our annual holiday.
"Saint George, that man of courage
bold," the Turkish knight, come
from a foreign land to fight," and
even "little Johnny Jack, with his
wife and family on his back," are to
me to the full as entertaining, as the
harlequins, clowns, and pantaloons of
Robert Elliston or Charles Kemble's
glittering pantomimes; and although
we may in vain look for a Grimaldi,
an Ellar, or a Blanchard, in the ranks
of my tatterdemalions, we shall find,
if we come to consider it nicely, a
great deal more "method" in the
"madness" of their designs. Well,
a continuance to their triumph! may
we still meet with them as forming
"part and parcel" of our Christmas
orgies; and long and late may it be
ere they get pushed from their stools
of supremacy, or
"famine and the
ague eat them up!""

These, and a hundred other de