virtuous leave off making prostitutes and drinking old port. In the mean time, we give up to any body's dislike the butcher's and fishmonger's, with their blood-dropping sheep and their crimped cod. And yet see how things go by comparison. We remember in our boyhood, when a lady from the West Indies, of a very delicate and highbred nature, could find nothing about our streets that more excited her admiration, than the butchers' shops. She had no notion, from what she had seen in her own country, that so ugly a business could be carried on with so much neatness, and become actually passable. An open potato-shop is a dull, bleak-looking place, except in the height of summer. A cheesemonger's is then at it's height of annoyance, unless you see a paviour or bricklayer coming out with his three-penn'orth on his bread ;-a better sight than the glutton's waddling away from the fishmonger's. A poulterer's is a dead-bodied business, with it's birds and their lax necks. We dislike to see a bird any where but in the open air, alive, and quick. Of all creatures, restraint and death become it's winged vivacity the least. For the same reason we hate aviaries. Dog-shops are tolerable. A cookshop does not mingle the agreeable with the useful. We hate it's panes with Ham and Beef scratched upon them in white letters. An ivory-turner's is pleasant, with it's red and white chessmen, and little big-headed Indians on elephants. So is a toy-shop, with it's endless delights for children. A coach-maker's is not disagreeable if you can see the painting and pannels. An umbrella-shop only reminds one of a rainy day, unless it is a shop for sticks also, which, as we showed last week, are meritorious articles. The curiosity-shop is sometimes very amusing, with it's mandarins, stuffed birds, odd old carved faces, and a variety of things as indescribable as bits of dreams. The greengrocer carries his recommendation in his epithet. The hair-dressers are also interesting, as far as their hair goes, but not as their heads; always bearing in mind that we mean the heads in their windows. One of the shops we like least is an angling repository, with it's rod for a sign, and a fish dancing in the agonies of death at the end of it. We really cannot see what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of water by the jaws, merely because it has not the power of making a noise for we presume that the most philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in catching shrieking fish. An optician's is not very amusing, unless it has those reflecting glasses in which you see your face run off on each side into attenuated width, or upwards and downwards in the same manner in dreary longitude. A sadler's is good, because it reminds one of horses. A Christian sword-maker's or gun-maker's is edifying. A glass-shop is a beautiful spectacle. It reminds one of the splendours of a fairy palace. We like a blacksmith's for the sturdy looks and thumpings of the men, the swarthy colour, the fiery sparkles, and the thunder-breathing throat of the furnace. Of other houses of traffic, not common in the streets, there is something striking to us in the large well-conditioned horses of the brewers, and the rich smoke rolling from out their chimnies. We also greatly admire a wharf, with it's boats, barrels, and packages, and the fresh air from the water; not to mention the smell of pitch. It carries us at once a hundred miles over the water. For similar reasons, the crabbedest old lane has it's merits in our eyes, if there is a sail-maker's in it, or a boat-builder's and water at the end. How used old Roberts of Lambeth to gratify the aspiring modesty of our school-coats, when he welcomed us down to his wherries and captains on a holiday, and said "Blue against Black at any time,” meaning the Westminster boys. And the colleges will ratify his praise, taking into consideration the difference of the numbers that go there from either cloisters. But of all shops in the streets, a print-seller's pleases us most. We would rather pay a shilling to Mr. Colnaghi of Cockspur-street, or Mr. Molteno of Pall-mall, to look at his windows on one of their best furnished days, than we would for many an exhibition. We can see fine engravings there,-translations from Raphael and Titian, which are newer than hundreds of originals. We do not despise a pastry-cook's, though we would rather not eat tarts and puffs before the half-averted face of the prettiest of accountants; especially with a beggar watching and praying all the while at the door. We need not expatiate on the beauties of a florist's, where you see unwithering leaves, and roses made immortal. We think they would do their trade more good if they hung their windows with a greater number of flowers, ticketing some of them with their names and prices, and announcing crowns and wreaths for hanging up in rooms as well as wearing on the head. A dress warehouse is sometimes really worth stopping at, for it's flowered draperies and richly coloured shawls. But one's pleasure is apt to be disturbed (ye powers of gallantry! bear witness to the unwilling pen that writes it) by the fair faces that come forth, and the half-polite half-execrating expression of the tradesman that bows them out:-for here takes place the chief enjoyment of the mystery yclept Shopping; and here while some ladies give the smallest trouble unwillingly, others have an infinity of things turned over, for the mere satisfaction of wasting their own time and the shopman's. We have read of a choice of a wife by cheese. It is difficult to speak of preference in such matters, and all such single modes of trial must be something equivocal: but we must say, that of all modes of the kind, we should desire no better way of seeing what ladies we admired most and whom least, than by witnessing this trial of them at a linen-draper's counter. It is on such occasions, we presume, that snuff-takers delight to solace themselves with a pinch of Thirty-seven; and we accordingly do so in imagination at our friend Gliddon's in Tavistock-street, who is a higher kind of Lilly to the INDICATOR,- -our papers lying among the piquant snuffs, as those of our illustrious predecessor The Tatler did among Mr. Lilly's perfumes at the corner of Beaufort-buildings. Since the peace with France, the shops of our tobacconists have become as amusing as print-shops; though not always, it must be confessed, in a style of delicacy becoming their enamoured boxes. At our friend's in Tavistock-street every thing is managed in a way equally delicate and cordial; and while the leisurely man of taste buys his Paris or his Indicator, the busier one may learn how to set up his gas-light in good classical style, and both see how completely even a woman, of true feelings, can retain the easiest and pleasantest good-breeding in the midst of observant eyes and an humble occupation. TO CORRESPONDENTS. An Odd Stick next week, with a few additional words on the subject of Sticks. An Index will be prepared for the volume of the Indicator, as well as a Titlepage. Printed and published by JOSEPH Appleyard, No. 19, Catherine-street, Strand. Price 2d. And sold also by A. GLIDDON, Importer of Snuffs, No. 31, Tavistockstreet, Covent-garden. Orders received at the above places, and by all Booksellers and Newsmen. THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, SPENSER. No. XXXV.—WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7th, 1820. A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF THE SHOPS. In the general glance we took last week at shops, we found ourselves unwillingly compelled to pass some of them too quickly. It is the object therefore of the present article to enter into those more attractive thresholds, and look a little about us. We imagine a fine day; time, about noon; scene, any good brilliant street. The ladies are abroad in white and green; the beaux lounging, conscious of their waists and neckcloths; the busy pushing onward, conscious of their bills; the dogs and coaches-but we must reserve this out-of-door view of the streets for a separate article. To begin then, where our shopping experience began, with the toy shop. Visions of glory, spare our aching sight! We still seem to have a lively sense of the smell of that gorgeous red paint, which was on the handle of our first wooden sword! The pewter guard also,-how beautifully fretted and like silver did it look! How did we hang it round our shoulder by the proud belt of an old ribbon ;—then feel it well suspended;-then draw it out of the sheath, eager to cut down four savage men for ill-using ditto of damsels! An old muff made an excellent grenadier's cap; or one's hat and feather, with the assistance of three surreptitious large pins, became fiercely modern and military. There it is, in that corner of the window, the same identical sword, to all appearance, which kept us awake the first night behind our pillow. We still feel ourselves little boys, while standing in this shop; and for that matter, so we do on other occasions. A field has as much merit in our eyes, and gingerbread almost as much in our mouths, as at that daisy-plucking and lemon-cake-munching period of life. There is the trigger-rattling gun,-fine of it's kind, but not so complete a thing as the sword. It's memories are not so ancient: for Alexander or St. George did not fight with a musket. Neither is it so true a thing; it is not "like life." The trigger is too much like that of a cross-bow; and the pea which it shoots, however hard, produces even in the imaginative faculties of boyhood a humiliating flash of the mock-heroic. It is difficult to fancy a dragon killed with a pea: but the shape and appurtenances of the sword being genuine, the whole sentiment of massacre is as much in it's wooden blade, as if it were steel of Damascus. The drum is still more real, though not so heroic. In the corner opposite are battle-doors and shuttle-cocks, which have their maturer beauties;-balls, which have the additional zest of the danger of breaking people's windows ;ropes, good for swinging and skipping, especially the long ones which others turn for you, while you run in a masterly manner up and down, or skip in one spot with an easy and endless exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their conscious faces;-blood-allies, with which the possessor of a crisp finger and thumb-knuckle causes the smitten marbles to vanish out of the ring; kites, which must appear to more vital birds a very ghastly kind of fowl, with their grim long white faces, no bodies, and endless tails;-cricket-bats, manly to handle ;trap-bats, a genteel inferiority;-swimming-corks, despicable;-horses on wheels, an imposition on the infant public;-rocking horses, too much like Pegasus, ardent yet never getting on;-Dutch toys, so like life, that they ought to be better;-Jacob's ladders, flapping down one over another their tintinnabulary shutters;-dissected maps, from which the infant statesmen may learn how to dovetail provinces and kingdoms;-paper posture-makers, who hitch up their knees against their shoulder-blades, and dangle their legs like an opera dancer;Lilliputian plates, dishes, and other household utensils, in which a grand dinner is served up out of half an apple ;-boxes of paints, to colour engravings with, always beyond the outline ;-ditto of bricks, a very sensible and lasting toy, which we except from a grudge we have against the gravity of infant geometricks;-whips, very useful for cutting people's eyes unawares ;-hoops, one of the most ancient as well as excellent of toys ;-sheets of pictures, from A apple-pie up to farming, military, and zoological exhibitions, always taking care that the Fly is as large as the Elephant, and the letter X exclusively appropriated to Xerxes;-musical deal-boxes, rather complaining than sweet, and more like a péal of bodkins than bells;-penny-trumpets, awful at Bartlemy-tide ;-jew's harps, that thrill and breathe between the lips like a metal tongue;-carts,-carriages,-hobbyhorses, upon which the infant equestrian prances about proudly on his own feet;-in short, not to go through the whole representative body of existence,-dolls, which are so dear to the maternal instincts of little girls. We protest however against that abuse of them, which makes them full-dressed young ladies in body, while they remain infant in face; especially when they are of frail wax. It is cultivating finery instead of affection. We like good honest plump limbs of cotton and saw-dust, dressed in baby-linen; or even our ancient young friends, with their staring dotted eyes, red varnished faces, triangular |