thief. The burglar had time to finish his business, or, if not, to escape, ere the old Watchman had tottered up to where his booty lay. If, from some want of precaution on his part, the feeble old man caught him at his dirty work, was he honest, his fears would counsel him to silence: was he a rogue, he listened to reason, drew his hush-money at the time, was silent, passed on, winked, and saw nothing, but could say something, upon compulsion, or if tempted to speak by "Fifty Pounds Reward."

There is no

The old Watchmen had their enviers. rank in life, however low, but there is some one, lower still, who looks up to it, and thinks it were promotion to rise to that high station. This admiration leads imitation, and imitation, not unfrequently, to a sort of excellence.

The old Watchmen had their admirers. The little sweeps those white negroes-rising before the day, as they went chittering along the silent streets in a black, murky morning, loved to hear their reverend voices-quavering with cold, and age, and the excess which only kept them up in the unnatural conflict with nature-sleep, rest, and nursing their infirmities. Those tender younglings, having their share of vulgar superstitions, as well as their betters, dreaded the silence of the darkness, but felt assured of their poor safety when as they heard the old familiar quail-pipe of some grey Nestor of the night dwelling with an elaborate delight and drowsy charm upon "Past six o'clock and a cloudy morning!"-an hour dear to him in winter, for it dismissed him to his bed. How those younkers reverenced him, and called him Father, and looked up to him as a man, a warm man, when they compared his large white watchcoat with their black tatters-as one high in authority, and yet not proud, nor stern, but full of humble condescensions to those small inferiors!

"The child was father of the man,"

-the Watch-man-as Mr. Wordsworth says; for, Dryden says,

C*

(or clergyman, those white-blacks which

"Men callen sweeps in our towne"

being classed with the members of "the cloth" clerical, and irreverently set apart and segregated as a sort of uncatholic black-friars of the order of the Minorites)

"The priest continued what the child began,"

and the boy-sweep, growing too big for the chimney, came at last to be considered a man-sweep; and when, in the course of time, he got too old for that, rather than he should be a burden on the parish, the overseers thereof bade him wash himself as white as he could, and he became a Watchman !-his "being's end and aim!"

The early labourer, lit his three inches of pipe per favour of his lantern, as he thought him no mean man. The houseless wretches with which this wealty City abounds-greatly to this wealthy City's disgrace-when he was merciful to them, and drove them not about from pillar to post, from door to door, but let them huddle in a corner, if out of the way, and broke not their death-like sleep; or if, as he sometimes did, he shared with the starving creatures the cold orts given him by some good-hearted servantgirl, who pitied the poor Watchman-as the hungry outcasts ravened over the dry morsels, they wept, fcebly wept, that some one felt for them, though only a poor Watchman!-That poor little devil-the printer's devil-that white sweep-(why not? as we have such nice distinctions as black smith and white smith?) that indispensable imp-small go-between great printer and great poet-running indifferently from Davison to Byron, from Byron back again to Davison-first carrier of those immortal works consigned in parcels to the care of that best critic, Time, for the use of that young master, Posterity, now thumbing his small-horn book, who, when he has got through his letters, and can read, is to say whether he likes or likes them not- -That wee devil, too

soon for the late warehouseman by a good hour, crept up to the old Watchman's box as to a sanctuary, and felt a poor comfort and a warmth in looking at the light that shone through the lantern;-perhaps held his cold hands, which knew no comfortable gloves, over its top, from whose vent-holes the heat would radiate, and there would warm his chapped and frozen fingers-an indulgence which the good fatherly man allowed. The late lodger—a single man, given to clubs-when he was locked out, or had forget his key-walked round his beat with him, and found him sociable, and one who knew the world— by night. The 'prentice-boy, or hobbledehoy, just beginning to grow rakish and disorderly, returning late from private theatre or spouting-club, clung to his box, neighbouring his master's house, and, while he went his round, took forty winks, snugly shut up in it, as that good man advised; and when "Our maid" got up, as was her wont, at six, a gentle tap of the Watchman's staff against the area-railings brought Betty to the door; Master Dick's delinquency was apologized for, and looked over by the good-natured girl as no business of her'n;" and all being now made right, and the coast clear, Dick stepped out from the portico next door, thanked her for her kindness, begged her silence, and slipping his shoes off, slid softly up stairs to his bed-room, past "the governor's door," just in time to hear his wakening bell ring him up to work, and, yawning, answer it. And so he 'scaped the Chamberlain, that severe Censor of your City 'prentice.

66

The Watchman's box was eminently social like a snuff-box; for all honest men and boys might "beard the lion in his den," an' they were known and of good repute, or were well-favoured. His box was political, too, for the Morning-paper compositor, if any extraordinary news was stirring, left the heads of it there, for further circulation, ere he went, tired of it himself, to bed. Next came the newsman, with his wet, cold quires under his rheumatic arm, who, if he had time, read out the brief particulars, while he,

good Watchman, now thoroughly waked up, with mouth wide open, swallowed the alarming news, trembled to hear it, but held his lantern steadily while his indifferent reader now fluently went on, and now boggled at, and sometimes spelt or skipped, a villanous hard word. It was a picture to see thema pieture of the past.

THE TRUCK AND THE TREACLE-A RECENT TOWN INCIDENT.

(Scene-Regent Street.)

THERE are "moving accidents by flood and field" --and very interesting they are to narrate-(hear the old soldier and old sailor tell them, and you will find they are so, to them at least)-and interesting to hear. It is pleasant-no doubt of it-to sit on shore in safety, and listlessly give ear to the reported "perils of the deep;" and, comfortably cozy in good winter-quarters, it is pleasant to hear of battles on the tented ground, and not "long to follow to the field some warlike lord." It is, indeed, one of the primest

luxuries of the highly-civilized condition of, at least, English mankind, to sit at ease in their own

and have the glorious wholesale butcheries of War "full, truly, and particularly accounted," printed and published, and brought damp from the press to their doors in first and second editions, which, aired by John or Betty, are "ordered to lie" upon the breakfast-table till "my Lord" Some-one, or plain John Somebody-else, Esq., waking in the afternoon, inquires "What news is there this morning?" and is answered "Great news!" It is then a luxury for my lord to rise, hurry to his breakfast and his Times, and at his "inglorious ease" read of the glorious strife and struggle of another St. Sebastian, or the inglorious flight of another Irun. If he is one of her Majesty's Ministers' Opposition, and requires more minute particulars than the Gazette affords, or, private accounts, to give another colour to the affair, the general postman raps at his door, and furnishes them. The Ancients-poor old fellows!-and the early Moderns, half and ill-informed-had no such dear domestic luxury. They, unfortunate, paperless newsmongers, caught only the flying intelligence of rascal runaways-scamps not duly entered at the Stamp Office-and had nothing to read the worst in, save their " whey faces" and " goose looks," white as a sheet of paper with their fear, but not so readable. If great Macbeth had had a " Morning Chronicle" to turn to in his day, he would not perhaps so grossly have abused as he did the poor penny-a-line: who brought him such bad news-calling him liar and what not! He would have read for himself, ir the fashionable corner, among the arrivals and de partures, that Birnam Wood was about to pay Dunsinane the honour of a visit; and, if he doubted the Chronicle, would have stepped over the way to the Duncan's Head, where they took in the Times, and have seen whether that journal confirmed the dire intelligence. It would have been time enough then to