The chairmen were very absolute fellows. They crowded round the tavern-doors, waiting for shilling customers; they did not hesitate to set down their box when a convenient occasion offered for the recreation of a foaming mug. They were for the most part sturdy Milesians, revelling, if they belonged to the aristocracy, in all the finery of embroidered coats and epaulettes, and cocked hats and feathers. If they were hackney-chairmen they asserted their power of the strong arm, and were often daring enough as a body to influence the fate of Westminster and Middlesex elections, in the terror which they produced with fist and bludgeon. But they are gone. No Belinda now may be proud of

"Two pages and a chair."

They glide not amongst the chariot-wheels at levee or drawing-room. The clubs want them not. They have retired to Bath and Oxford. We believe there is one chair still lingering about May-Fair; but the chairmen must be starving. The Society of Antiquaries ought to buy the relic.

Walpole has somewhere a complaint of the increase of London, that it would soon be impossible for the chairmen to perform their functions. This sounds very like the notion that the noble and the rich could ride in nothing but chairs. These were the days when the private chair had its "crimson velvet cushions and damask curtains," ,"such as Jonathan Wild recovered for the Duchess of Marlborough, when two of his rogues, in the disguise of chairmen, carried away her chair from Lincoln's Inn Chapel, while the "true men" were drinking. The town has increased beyond Walpole's calculation, and that is, in some measure, the reason why the chairs are gone. The town did not stop in its increase to consider the chairs. But there is another reason. The rich and the high-born have wisely learned to be less exclusive than of old; and as they must now-a-days wear coats of the same fashion as humbler men, so must they ride

Hogarth's Beer Street.

in their own carriages, with no other perceptible difference between the carriage of the duke and his tailor than that of the blazonry. Pepys tells us of "my Lady Peterborough being in her glass-coach with the glass up, and seeing a lady pass by in a coach whom she would salute, the glass was so clear that she thought it had been open, and so ran her head through the glass." * This hints of the days when ladies were learning to ride in glass-coaches, having just passed through the transition state of open coaches, and curtained coaches, and coaches with tale windows. How ashamed the wife of John Gilpin would have been not to have known better! And so when everybody rode in coaches the lords and ladies set up their chairs. The times are altered. in an omnibus.

have seen a peer

We

It is very difficult to conceive a London without an omnibus or a cabriolet. Yet who amongst us does not remember the hour when they first appeared? For some two hundred years, those who rode in hired carriages had seen the hackney-coach passing through all its phases of dirt and discomfort; the springs growing weaker, the "iron ladder" by which we ascended into its rickety capaciousness more steep and more fragile, the straw filthier, the cushions more redolent of dismal smells, the glasses less air-tight. But it is of little consequence. Nobody rides in them. The gentlemen at the "office for granting licences for carriages plying for hire in the metropolis" tell us that licences are still granted to four hundred hackney-coaches. Alas, how are the horses fed? Are the drivers living men who eat beef and drink beer? We doubt if those huge capes ever descend to receive a fare. Are they not spectre-coaches-coachmen still doomed to sleep upon their boxes, as the wild huntsman was doomed to a demon chace-for propitiation ? The same authority tells us that there are fifteen hundred cabriolets to whom licences are granted. These we know are things of life. They rush about the streets as rapid as fire-flies. They lame few, they kill fewer.

*Diary, 1667.

I

They sometimes overturn us :-but their serious damage is not much. We borrowed them from the French on a fine May morning in the year 1820. It is remarkable how slow we are in the adoption of a new thing; and how we hold to it when it is once adopted. In 1813 there were eleven hundred and fifty cabriolets upon the hackney-stands of Paris-" Cabriolets de place," and we had not one. Now, we have fifteen hundred of them. Our English one-horse hackney-carriages have run through every variety of form; and have at length settled down into as comfortable vehicles as men can ride in.

We have ridden in one of the hundred omnibuses that run from Paddington to the Bank with an elderly gentleman who told us that in his day there was only one stage from that then suburban neighbourhood to the commercial centre, and that was never filled. There are now above seven hundred omnibuses and short stages-for the most part omnibuses-in the Metropolitan District—that is, licensed to run within ten miles of the General Post Office. They carry some sixty thousand people daily, and receive annually in fares about three-quarters of a million sterling. The omnibus was tried about 1800, with four horses and six wheels; but we refused to accept it in any shape till we imported the fashion from Paris in 1830.

[1840.]

THE SMUGGLERS.

A TALE.

On the coast of Sussex there is a little village which is almost secluded from the observation of the world, and which is at a sufficient distance from the sea to bear the ordinary character of inland scenery. It consists of a few scattered houses, and one or two little farms;—its inhabitants are principally agricultural labourers ;—it has

its small parish-church and its green and leafy burial place;—and a very humble cottage, with an uncouth and half-obliterated sign, affords sufficient refreshment to the contented peasants. On a neighbouring hill stands an old-fashioned windmill; - and from this spot, which serves as a beacon to the mariner, there is one of those magnificent prospects which are so attractive to the reflecting mind. Here, during an occasional visit to the coast, have I often been riveted for hours, delighted to sit and watch the receding vessel diminishing to a speck, and follow the crew, in imagination, through their perilous course over the trackless ocean.

Some few years back, I one day encountered the proprietor of the ancient windmill. He was a very young man, full of health and animation. That dispenser of every blessing, Content, sat upon his brow. His occupation afforded him an honest maintenance ;-and as his wishes were limited his fears were few. He was besides just married. Earth has no greater happiness to bestow than the early days of domestic intercourse;-when a young pair have realized their fondest anticipationswhen, undisturbed by the growing cares of the world, their most anxious wishes are to appear pleasing in each other's' eyes-when their lives show like a beauteous morning of spring, which is to lead them to a genial summer, and a rich autumn. The winter of their years is then too far removed to be regarded with apprehension.

The young miller invited me to his cottage;-I loved the sight of human happiness too much to decline his civility. I found there a modest and agreeable woman, devoted to the duty of promoting the welfare and comfort of the man to whom she had given her heart. I lifted up my thoughts to heaven in thankfulness for the blessings which God bestows upon his creatures;—and I prayed that a day of sorrow might not come across the simple and innocent course of this happy couple.

In two years I again visited this part of the country ;and my first steps were almost involuntarily directed to the windmill. As I climbed the hill my steps had all the alacrity of one who expects a pleasure; and a slight

exertion brought me to the door of the once happy cottage. It was closed. The little garden was covered

with weeds;-the honeysuckle that was so neatly trailed round the porch almost choked the entrance it was meant to adorn ;-the windows were broken ;—there was no sound of life about the habitation. I hurried to the windmill. Its sails were idle ;-the crazy fabric shivered in the gale. I felt a foreboding of evil, and I descended the hill with steps infinitely slower than those which had carried me to its summit.

I could not pass through the village without making an anxious inquiry about the fortunes of John Anderson, the miller. I rested at the small public-house. The landlord was of a communicative temper; and I therefore lost little time in leading him to the subject of my curiosity. Immediately that I mentioned the name of the young man, the kind host exclaimed, with an unaffected sigh, "Ah, sir, that 's a very sad story." At the instant a female, in decent mourning, carrying a little child, passed the window. I looked in her face-it was pale and shrivelled-not a feature called up an old recollection. The landlord shrunk back;-and drawing me towards him in a hurried whisper, said, "That is John Anderson's widow-she lives only for her child-and will soon join him in the churchyard yonder."

I saw in the tone and manner with which these words were pronounced that there was something extraordinary in the circumstances of the young miller's death. The master of the public-house perceived that I was interested, and proposed to inform me of the unhappy occasion that had consigned the healthful and industrious John Anderson to a premature grave. His narrative was long and rambling;-but the following is the substance of the unhappy story :

The miller had been married about six months, when a seafaring stranger came to lodge at the village. He was a man above the ordinary appearance of sailors; and spoke as one used to command. He was of very strong passions, which he occasionally excited by intoxication; but he mixed little with the villagers, and appeared to