noses, and Rosinante wooden limbs,-not, it must be confessed, excessively shapely or feminine, but the reverse of fragile beauty, and prepared against all disasters.

The next step is to the Pastry's-cook's, where the plain bun is still the pleasantest thing in our eyes, from it's respectability in those of childhood. The pastry, less patronized by judicious mothers, is only so much elegant indigestion: yet it is not easy to forget the pleasure of nibbling away the crust all round a raspberry or currant tart, in order to enjoy the three or four delicious semicircular bites at the fruity plenitude remaining. There is a custard with a wall of paste round it, which provokes a siege of this kind; and the cheese-cake has it's amenities of approach. The acid flavour is a relief to the mawkishness of the biffin or pressed baked apple, and an addition to the glib and quivering lightness of the jelly. Twelfth Cake, which when cut looks like the side of a rich pit of earth covered with snow, is pleasant from warmer associations. Confectionery does not seem in the same request as of old. It's paint has hurt it's reputation. Yet the schoolboy has still much to say for it's humbler suavities, such as elecampane, hardbake, bull's-eyes, comfits, the rocky chrystals of sugar-candy, the smooth twist of barley-sugar which looks like a petrified stream of tea, and the melting powderiness of peppermint. There used to be a mystery called mimpins, which as Dr. Johnson would say, made a pretty sweetmeat. Kisses are very amiable and allegorical. Eight or ten of them, judiciously wrapped up in pieces of letter paper, have saved many a loving heart the trouble of a less eloquent billet-doux. Candid citron we look upon to be the very acme and atticism of confectionary grace. Preserves are too much of a good thing, with the exception of the jams that retain their fruit-skins. "Jam satis." They qualify the cloying. Yet Marmalade must not be passed over in these times, when it has been raised to the dignity of the peerage, There is a Duke of Marmalade in Hayti, and a Count of Lemonade,—so called, we presume, from places in which those eminent relishes are manufactured. We have not yet heard of a Lord Viscount Jam.-After all, we must own that there is but one thing for which we care much at a Pastry-cook's, except our old acquaintance the bun; especially as we can take up that, and go on. It is an ice. Fancy a very hot day; the blinds down; the loungers unusually languid; the pavement burning one's feet; the sun, with a strong outline in the street, baking one whole side of it like a brick-kila; so that every body is crowding on the other, except a man going to intercept a creditor bound for the continent. Then think of a heaped-up ice, brought upon a salver with a spoon. What statesman, of any warmth of imagination, would not pardon the Neapolitans in summer, for an insurrection on account of the want of ice? Think of the first sidelong dip of the spoon in it, bringing away a well-sliced lump; then of the sweet wintery refreshment, that goes lengthening down one's throat; and lastly, of the sense of power and satisfaction resulting from having had the ice.

Not heaven itself can do away that slice;

But what has been, has been; and I have liad my ice.

We unaccountably omitted two excellent shops last week,-the fruiterer's and the sculptor's. There is great beauty as well as other agreeableness in a well-disposed fruiterer's window. Here are the round piled-up oranges, deepening almost into red, and heavy with juice; the apple with it's brown red cheek, as if it had slept in the sun; the pear, swelling downwards, and provocative of a huge bite in the side; thronging grapes, like so many tight little bags of wine; the peach, whose handsome leathern coat strips off so finely; the pearly or ruby-like currants, heaped in light long baskets; the red little mouthfuls of strawberries, ditto; the larger purple ones of plumbs; cherries, whose old comparison with lips is better than any thing new ; mulberries, dark and rich with juice, fit to grow over what Homer calls the deep black-watered fountains; the swelling pomp of melons; the rough inexorable-looking cocoa-nut, milky at heart; the elaborate elegance of walnuts; the quaint cashoo-nut; almonds, figs, raisins, tamarinds, green leaves,-in short,

Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields

In India East or West, or middle shore
In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where
Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat
Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell.

MILTON.

There is something of more refined service in waiting upon a lady in a fruit-shop, then in a pastry-cook's. The eating of tarts, as Sir Walter Scott handsomely saith in his Life of Dryden (who used to enjoy them, it seems, in company with "Madam Reeves") is no inelegant pleasure," but there is something still more graceful and suitable in the choosing of the natural fruit, with it's rosy lips and red cheeks. A white hand looks better on a basket of plums, than in the doubtful touching of syrupy and sophisticated pastry. There is less of the kitchen about the fair visitor. She is more Pomona-like, native, and to the purpose. We help her, as we would a local deity.

Here be grapes whose lusty blood

Is the learned poets good,

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus ;-Nuts more brown

Than the squirrels teeth that crack them;

Deign, O fairest fair, to take them.

For these black ey'd Driope

Hath often times commanded me,

With my clasped knee to clime;

See how well the lusty time

Hath deckt their rising cheeks in red,
Such as on your lips is spread.

Here be berries for a Queen,

Some be red, some be green,

These are of that luscious meat,

The great God Pan himself doth eat.

All these, and what the woods can yield,

The hanging mountain or the field,

I freely offer, and ere long

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong,

Till when humbly leave I take,
Lest the great Pan do awake,
That sleeping lies in a deep glade,
Under a broad beech's shade.

FLETCHER'S Faithful Shepherdess.

How the poets double every delight for us, with their imagination and their music!

be seen.

In the windows of some of the sculptors' shops, artificial fruit may It is a better thing to put upon a mantle-piece, than many articles of greater fashion; but it gives an abominable sensation to one's imaginary teeth. The incautious epicure who plunges his teeth into a painted snow-ball" in Italy (see Brydone's Tour in Sicily and Malta), can hardly receive so jarring a balk to his gums, as the bare apprehension of a bite at a stone peach. But the farther you go in a sculptor's shop the better. Many persons are not aware that there are show-rooms in these places, which are well worth getting a sight of by some small purchase. For the best artistical casts, the Italian shops, such as Papera's in Marylebone-street, Golden-square, are, we be lieve, the best. We can safely speak as to the pleasant attendance in that shop. Shont in Holborn seems to deal chiefly in modern things; but he has a room up stairs, full of casts from the antique, large and small, that amounts to an exhibition. Of all the shop pleasures, that are not inelegant," an hour or two passed in a place of this kind is surely one of the most polite. Here are the gods and heroes of old, and the more beneficent philosophers ancient and modern. You are looked upon, as you walk among them, by the paternal majesty of Jupiter, the force and decision of Minerva, the still more arresting gentleness of Venus, the budding compactness of Hebe, the breathing inspiration of Apollo. Here the Celestial Venus, naked in heart and body, ties up her locks, her drapery hanging upon her lower limbs. Here the Belvidere Apollo, breathing forth his triumphant disdain, follows with an earnest eye the shaft that has killed the serpent. Here the Graces, linked in an affectionate group, meet you in the naked sincerity of their innocence and generosity, their hands 66 open as day," and two advancing for one receding. Here Hercules, like the building of a man, looks down from his propping club as if half disdaining even that repose. There Mercury, with his light limbs, seems just to touch the ground, ready to give a start with his foot and be off again. Bacchus, with his riper cheek, and his lazier hanging locks, appears to be eyeing one of his nymphs. The Vatican Apollo near him, leans upon the stump of a tree, the hand which hangs upon it holding a bit of his lyre, the other arm thrown up over his head, as if he felt the air upon his body and heard it singing through the strings. In a corner on another side, is the Couching Venus of John of Bologna, shrinking just before she steps into the bath. The Dancing Faun is not far off, with his mere animal spirits; and the Piping Faun, sedater because he possesses an art more accomplished. Among the other divinities, we look up with veneration to old Homer's head, resembling an earthly Jupiter. Plato beholds us with a bland dig

nity, a beauty unimpairable by years. How different from the brute impulse of Mars, the bloated self-will of Nero, or the dull and literal effeminacy of some of the other Emperors? We have before observed, that there is a sort of presence in sculpture, more than in any other representations of art. It is curious to see how instinctively people will fall into this sentiment when they come into a place with busts and statues in it, however common. They hush, as if the images could hear them. When we were in our boyhood, some of our most delightful holidays were spent in the gallery of the late Mr. West, in Newman-street. It runs a good way back from the street, crossing a small garden, and opening into loftier rooms on the other side of it. We remember how the world used to seem shut out from us, the moment the street door was closed, and we began stepping down those long carpeted aisles of pictures, with statues in the angles where they turned. We had observed every body walk down them in this way, like the mild possessor of the mansion; and we went so likewise. We have walked down them with him at night to his painting room, as he went in his white flannel gown with a lamp în his hand, which shot a lustrous twilight upon the pictured walls in passing and every thing looked so quiet and graceful, that we should have thought it sacrilege to hear a sound beyond the light tread of his footsteps. But it was the statues that impressed us, still more than the pictures. It seemed as if Venus and Apollo waited our turning at the corners; and there they were, always the same, placid and intuitive, more human and bodily than the paintings, yet too divine to be over-real. It is to that house, with the gallery in question, and the little green plot of ground surrounded with an arcade and busts, that we owe the greatest part of our love for what is Italian and belongs to the fine arts: and if this is a piece of private history with which the readers have little to do, they will excuse it for the sake of the greatest of all excuses; which is Love.

A WORD OR TWO MORE ON STICKS.

We have received the following just remonstrance from a Correspondent:

TO THE INDICATOR.

SIR,-I was this morning seeking the indulgence of a fresh supply of snuff at Gliddon's, and inquiring what the last number of the INDICATOR said. I confess I was agreeably surprised to find the principal article was "Of (and concerning) Sticks."-In my day, Sir, I have indulged an extravagant fancy for canes and sticks-but, like the children of the fashionable world, I have, in running the round, grown tired of all my favourites except one of a plain and useful sort. Conceive my mortification in finding this, my last prop,

not included in your catalogue of sticks most in use; especially since it is become, among us men of sticks, the description most approved. The present day, which is one of mimicry, boasts scarcely any protection except in the very stick I allude to; and yet, because it is so unpresuming in its appearance, and so cheap, the gentlemen of a day" will not condescend to use it. We, Sir, who make a stick our constant companion (notwithstanding our motives may be misunderstood), value the tough, the useful, the highly picturesque "Ash Plant." Its still and gentlemanly colour; its peculiar property of bending round the shoulders of a man without breaking, (in the event of our using it that way); the economy of the thing, as economy is the order of the day (at least in minor concerns); its being the best substitute for the old-fashioned horse-whip in a morning ride, and now so generally used in lieu of the long hunting whip in the sports of the chace; answering every purpose, for gates, &c. without offering any temptation to do the work of a whipper-in-all this, and much more, might be said of the neglected Ground Ash, especially if your mind, Sir, were directed to the Tree whose roots give birth to this, the last and only decorative prop of,

Wednesday, 24th May, 1820.

Your humble servant,

AN ODD STICK.

We must cry mercy on the estimable stick here complaining, and indeed on several other sorts of wood, unjustly omitted the other day. We also neglected to notice those ingenious and pregnant walkingsticks, which contain swords, inkstands, garden-seats, &c. and sometimes surprize us even with playing a tune. As the ancient poets wrote stories of gods visiting people in human shapes, in order to teach a considerate behaviour to strangers; so an abstract regard ought to be shewn to all sticks, inasmuch as the irreverent spectator may not know what sort of staff he is encountering. If he does not take care, a man may beat him and "write him down an ass,' " with the same accomplished implement; or sit down upon it before his face, where there is no chair to be had; or follow up his chastisement with a victorious tune on the flute. As to the ash, to which we would do especial honour, for the sake of our injured, yet at the same time polite and forgiving Correspondent, we have the satisfaction of stating that it hath been reputed the very next wood, in point of utility, to the oak; and hath been famous, time immemorial, for it's staffian qualities. Infinite are the spears with which it has supplied the warlike, the sticks it has put into the hands of a less sanguinary courage, the poles it has furnished for hops, vines, &c. and the arbours which it has run up over lovers. The Greek name for it was Melia, or the Honied; from a juice or manna which it drops, and which has been much used in medicine and dying. There are, or were about forty years back, when Count Ginanni wrote his History of the Ravenna Pine Forest, large ash woods in Tuscany, which used to be tapped for those purposes. Virgil calls it the handsomest tree in the forest; Chaucer the hardie ashe ;" and Spenser, with an eulogy exclusively