IT wanted about a quarter of an hour to five o'clock in the afternoon, when I repaired to Snow-hill, London, to set out by the coach for my home at Liverpool. Mr White had been my companion all the way, and we were now walking backward and forward near the Inn gateway, when I perceived my very excellent friend, Louis Peithman, a native of Leipsic, whom I had not seen for several years, standing before me. We were both of us amazed, neither of us being aware that the other was in town. It was one of those particular events, which, though surprising, still not unfrequently happen. In the present instance, I chanced just to come up to the coach at the time that he was passing by: under similar circumstances, however, it sometimes seems as if the parties had dropped from the clouds, on a particular spot, at a particular time, to converse and to embrace. As our time was very short, in order to make the most of it, we ascended the coach, and unwittingly sat down in the guard's place, to talk over what had happened, and to conjecture, perhaps, what might take place in future. It was a fine evening in September, and that we might improve this casual interview as much as possible, Louis determined to go with me three or four miles on the road, and then to walk back again. In a few minutes all was ready-we were busy talking-the guard had mounted, and we took no notice. Enraged at our neglect, he ordered us, in a very surly manner, to get out of his seat, and to find some more proper situation. We instantly obeyed, and took no further notice of his insolent treatment, being well aware that the will of the guard is always paramount to every other consideration relating to the coach; beside which, we knew that we were in the wrong, -we ought immediately to have removed, for where can the guard sit but in his own place? When we parted, my friend gave the fellow half-a-crown, to teach him, I suppose, to behave better in future: he certainly did order coachee to draw up a little;-I grasped poor

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Peithman's hand, but in a moment he was on the ground;-we looked another adieu, and he was marching towards London. This was our last. interview, for a short time afterwards, the melancholy tidings arrived that he was dead.

All the time we had been talking, the guard had been engaged in " blowing up" the passengers. I had now leisure to listen, and he had just fallen foul on a poor barber. The little man had a terrier dog with him, which the guard swore he should pay for, as well as a box of wigs, tied on the roof of the coach. "Well, well," said the barber, "if I must pay, why, I must; all that I can say is, that you are shaving me a little too close." "Do you mean to assert that I shave?" said the enraged hornblower. "Why, you jesuitical tonsor, you scratch, you prig, you death's-head upon a mop-staff, I am no scraper of faces, I am no barber, I am a servant to his Royal Majesty King George the Fourth, of blessed memory; I am a King's Guard, by appointment!" "Yes, Sir," replied the barber," and you are something more than you have mentioned; you are also a black-guard !”

By this time we had arrived at Waltham Cross: the angry passions had been kicking up a sad dust, and had very nearly got the better of my prudence. I had twenty times been on the point of taking up cudgels against the man in scarlet, although an officer by the King's appointment; but my better genius prevailed, for when we stopped to change horses, I had so far subdued these enemies to good order, that I asked him to take a glass, and as he descended, I dropt a shilling, nodded and smiled as he picked it up, and from that moment we became good friends, and continued to be such all the time we travelled together. This, let me tell you, is not the only friendship I ever purchased, nor was it the worst bargain, in that way, I ever made.

When he returned from the house, he touched the nether brim of his

large white hat, with his broad thumb, and requested that I and iny friend Mr Whyte would go into the inside. "No," said I; "the evening is warın; I took only an outside place, and we shall do very well on the outside." "Why," rejoined he, "the coach is top-heavy; we have not one inside passenger; it already spits with rain, looks very black, and you will be more comfortable during the night. Besides, somebody must go in, and it is far better to put gentlemen inside than barbers, or such like rubbish." To prevent any farther importunities, we consented, and soon after we were safely stowed within, the rain fell in torrents; so that the poor barber, his wigs, and his dog, as well as the rest of the dead and live luggage on the top, were completely drenched, while we were comfortable enough. "It is good policy, Mr White," said I, “ always to be civil." The old man grunted out something by way of acquiescence; and nothing more was said (by us) till we arrived at Buntingford, where it was ordained that we should take supper.

Before I entered, Mr White had made a survey of the table, and came to me, and made his report accordingly. "There is," said he, "the two extremities of a ham, which is brought out for the three hundred and sixty-fifth time at least now I abominate ham, you know, as much as any Israelite of any of the twelve tribes. There is also a goose, and a leg of mutton, but neither fish, pie, pudding, nor tart. My opinion is, that we should not sit down to such a supper." "Never mind," said I; so we went in, and sat down with the remainder of the party. There were twelve of us. I was assisted to a leg of the goose, but it was very strong, I fancied that it tasted fishy, I did not like it,-there was no gravy, and it was literally stuffed with sage and onions. Mr White cut up the leg of mutton, but it was quite raw: "I will thank ye," said he to a waiter, "to take these slices of mutton and fry them." "We have not a frying-pan," said John. "Not a frying-pan in an inn not thirty miles from London!" "No, Sir." "Then put them on the gridiron." "I will, Sir, and

they shall be done enough, I'll warrant you." "And, I say, be quick, will ye?" "Yes, Sir."

He now sat looking about him, with a countenance full of disappointment, and appeared sadly vexed; his eye-brows were curled, his lips protruded, and his eyes darted anger. "Will you taste the goose?" said I. "No, Sir; you know I hate goose; the smell is enough to make me vomit; and all this is owing to your folly.” I became silent, ate my leg of goose, and afterwards qualified it with a glass of brandy, in order, if possible, to destroy its rising qualities. Just as the horn began to blow, at the moment the coachman came in to say "ready, gentlemen," while one waiter was gathering three shillings a-head for the supper, the other waiter brought in the mutton-steaks, burned to a cinder, and placed them at my friend's elbow. He shrugged up his shoulders, cursed the waiter, and the landlord for keeping him, and railed at all inn-keepers in good round terms. However, he snatched up some slices of bread, cut off a large luncheon of cheese, and with these, and a bottle of porter, we made our escape, and placed ourselves very snugly on the back-seat of the coach, where my friend continued to munch his bread and cheese with much seeming composure. "What cheats," said I, "these publicans are!" "Aye," said he, "and what fools they are, also. I shall sup there no more, you may rest assured; nor, as I should think, will any of the present company.' "I am inclined to believe that they will not," said I; " but perhaps neither they nor you will ever travel this road again." "That," said he, "is what I suppose they must think; but I expect that I shall travel this way again, and if I do, you may rely on it that I will be even with them." In a few minutes, while I was listening to what he would do, I heard him begin to snore, so I placed myself in a corner of the vehicle, Morpheus was kind, and we neither of us awoke till about five o'clock in the morning, when the coach stopped at Aukenborough-hill. Here we got on the outside, to breathe the sweet morning air, to see the sun rise, (which is a glorious spectacle,) and to admire the hamlets and vil

lages, as they gradually opened to our view.

At Stilton, we stopped to breakfast. Here the guard and coachman left us, and here our "honours" were desired to remember the above mentioned stage-coach appendages. Every one of us gave each of them a shilling, except a very lovely, handsome young woman, a soldier's widow, who had lost her husband, and was returning home,—she gave each of them sixpence, which was all the money she had left, and for which they gave her, in return, some very rough and indecent language. The poor forlorn creature crept to the kitchen fire, for her clothes were still wet with the heavy rain which had fallen the preceding evening but she had nothing left for breakfast; her last shilling had been given to the guard and coach man. As she appeared dejected, I followed her, and sat down to chat with her. "Shall you not breakfast with the other passengers?" "No, Sir." "Are you not well ?" "Oh, yes! I am only a little low in spirits, and a little vexed at the unmerited treatment I have just now experienced." "Have you far to travel?" "No, Sir, only fifteen miles; but I leave the coach here, and shall have to travel that distance, perhaps, on foot." "You appear to be very weak." "Yes, I am weak; I have just crossed the ocean, and I was sick during the whole of the voyage." "From the circumstance of your being treated so shamefully by the coachman, I am afraid you have no money." "No, Sir, I have not; I gave him the last sixpence I had left; but I am now so near to my home, that I hope I shall be able to struggle through. When in London, I wrote to my father, begging that he would meet me here, but perhaps he has not got the letter,-or he may be dead, you know, for it is five years since I heard from any of my relations." I slipped a crown-piece into her hand, and she gave me a look which I shall never forget; it was a look of gratitude which sprung from the soul." My husband," said she, "was a soldier; he always protected me from insult, but he died of his wounds three days after the battle: I sat by him, and waited on him

with all the tender anxiety of hope; but all would not do; Heaven had ordained that he should leave me." "What will you take?" said I. “A little milk, if they have got any." I ordered a couple of pint bowls to be brought, and a couple of rolls, and we breakfasted together. "And what is to pay?" said I. "Two shillings and sixpence, Sir," was the answer. "Humph!" I exclaimed, and gave him the money. He hoped also that I would remember the waiter, so I threw down sixpence, to get rid of his importunities; he bowed, and, as I thought, appeared to be satisfied. A short time before the coach was ready to set off, an elderly man, in a light cart, drove up, and inquired if a Mrs Beaumont had come by the coach? He was told that she was in the kitchen, and he entered. "Where is she?" he cried, as the door opened. She started, at the well-remembered accents; it was, yes, it was her dear father, who clasped his long-lost darling to his breast. She wept, as she fell into his arms; he blessed, and kissed her, called her his dear Mary, and both of them were soon very happy and composed.

As the coach drove away, she waved her hand, but in a few seconds I had lost sight of her; a turn in the road hid her from my view,-for the coach rattled, and we proceeded rapidly on our journey. "Well," said Mr White, "have you been boxing Harry?" "No," said I, "I have had my breakfast in the kitchen." "With the poor woman that looked so melancholy?" "Even so; but the consequence will be, that I shall have to dine with Duke Humphrey, for my finances are getting so low, that I shall soon have pockets to let at a low rent." "Oh! never fear," said he; "I have as much as will suffice for both, till we get home: but was she in distress?" "She was without money?" "Why, being in distress, and being without money, are much the same; but I hope you gave her as much as was necessary to help her forward?" "I did." "Then thou art a friend after my own heart," said he," and shalt never want a guinea, if I have one to give thee." I now cast my eyes towards the coach-box, and observed a very fine

young gentleman, alongside of coachee, flogging away in fine style. "Who is that gentleman?" said I, to a plain-looking man who sat by my side?" "It's a farmer's son in this neighbourhood, Sir," said he; "his father was servant to my father, when I was a lad at school; but the high price of corn and cattle has lately made gentlemen of many a beggar's brat beside Master Goslin here." "It seems, then, you are acquainted with him?” "Not I, indeed his father lives in the next village to where I live, but I have no acquaintance wi' him neither; in his own opinion, he's a great man, but not in mine, as well as many other folks; however, he visits at the squire's, and talks loudly at market-dinners, and now and then rides ower a poor labourer, as he gallops home on his blood-horse, drunk wi' wine." "But the young man appears to be a genteel youth enough."

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Aye, as you say, he's genteel enough; why, he and his sister have both on 'em been seven years at boarding-school, and you see he is finishing his education by learning to drive; and the girl his sister sits, aye for hours together, in a fine carpeted parlour, wi' mahogany chairs, and a great huge looking-glass, wi' a gilt frame, plaistered up again' a papered wall, drumming on the black and white thingums of a pie-hannah, and squalling like a tom-cat to the music, as she calls it. His muther is i' th' inside the coach, as fine as a dancing horse; but at home she's as mean as muck,-she's an owd, girning owd, gripe-gutly owd creature, that wouldn't give a poor fellow a drink o' small beer, an' he were clamming wi' thirst. But she can spare money for the lad and her to go to Lincoln races wi', and thither it is they are now posting." "They have risen, then, in the world?" said I.

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Aye, aye, the goslin has become a goose, but it's all a casualty; just so, and nothing more, I assure ye; and it cannot last long: why, my farm is my own, an' it's as big as the one he rents,-but set a beggar on horseback, and away he rides to the devil."

I smiled, for at this instant the horses were galloping down a hill as hard as they could clatter, and

coachee was all in a bustle to get hold of the reins, and appeared, as my right hand friend observed, to be quite in a fluster. The passengers were all on the alert, expecting every minute to be upset, and those that could, put themselves in readiness to make a spring. As soon as we arrived at the bottom of the hill, over went the vehicle, and such leaping, and such scrambling, and such squalling ensued, as would have frighted a hero, had he been at leisure; but as every one was busy in taking care of himself, and, as soon as landed, was examining his own limbs, to ascertain if nothing was wrong,-all, for a season, was hurry and confusion. At length, as no one complained, it was concluded that no one was hurt. Every one next examined his clothes, and, except a little dirt, there was no damage done this way, save that Mr Goslin's dandy top-coat had received a rent almost the whole length of the back; it had, more over, lost one of the skirts, and a pocket, which latter article hung dangling on a bough, like a mole in a bush. The inside passengers were in a worse plight than any of us; for the os frontis of an Irish gentleman, in its way to the ground, coming in contact with Mrs Goslin's nose, had opened both sluices, and the blood ran down in copious streams; both her eyes also were black; so that what with stir, and the disaster before mentioned, she and her son were obliged to return home; he to refit for the races, and she to stop at home, which, as the adage says, is always the best place for good housewives. "Well, Sir," said I to my friend the farmer, as soon as we had got under-way again, " and how do you like to be driven by a dandy coachman ?" "Not at all," said he, scowling; " and I assure you, if I was a Justice o' Peace, I would prevent such doing in future, or I'd fine the owners;-and I should, let me tell you, ha' been upon the bench long ago, but you see they found out I was a bit on a Radical. My name is Smith; I am fond o' reading Cobbet's Register-aye, he's the boy for exposing the Borough-mongers, and the Tax-eaters, and the Drones, and all the rest that have sold themselves to the Devil, or the Ministers, which

is all one. Yes, he does a world o' good; and would, if they would let him, soon set all things to right; I believe he'll be i'th' Parliament House before long." "I believe not," said 1; " and as for the good he does, or ever will do, why-" "I think," said Mr White, "that he is a great rascal." "I've heard many a rascal say so," replied Mr Smith." He is a monstrous liar also," said Mr White. "I have," said Mr Smith, "heard many a monstrous liar say so.' "Let us drop the subject, gentlemen," said I ; every political demagogue has his admirers, and so has Mr Cobbett, some of whom are as coarse in their manners as he is in his writings."

We dined at Newark, where we had almost a fresh party, our former company having fallen off one by one, till nobody was left but Mr White and myself.

A stage-coach may very properly be compared to the world at large; -we breakfast, dine, and sup together, a few times at most, and then part, to meet no more. A few slight regrets are sometimes felt at the moment of separation, but in most cases we look with indifference, and sometimes with cold neglect, at the loss of our acquaintance, and often do not suffer even a sigh to escape us.

The company here were all of them far superior, in point of dress, to those who had left us; I verily thought that some of them had been of the higher order of gentry, or, for ought I could tell, some of them might be of noble blood, or of ancient family. But I was out in my reckoning; for, when their mouths opened, oh! what a falling off! all the gentry, and all the nobility, sunk into sober citizens, and mere mechanics;-a lady desired to be helped to a "" spoonful of sauce, after that here gentleman had been sarved." By way of opening, I observed to a gentleman on my right, that it was a fine day. "Yes, Sir," said he, giving me a nod, which he intended for a bow, "it is a very fine day, very fine indeed, I never saw a more finer day in the whole course of my life." Wonderful, thought I; but I was relieved from further thought in a hurry; he on my left, having twisted and twined

VOL. XV.

his mouth and lips, and writhed till his words were almost strangled in the delivery, thus opened: "He was certain that we should, before long, have rain, for he observed that the barometric tube evidently portended that vapour was ascending into the upper regions of the atmosphere; he thought, too, that the delightful fumes arising from the effluvia exhaled from the bean-flowers by the solar beams, evidently betokened a change in the lower strata of the firmament; that a junction of these phenomena would precipitate the moisture; that the particles would coalesce, and that rain would ultimately be produced." This gentleman, I afterwards discovered, was the master of a large boarding-school in that neighbourhood. A young man, who, I was informed, was his usher, bawled out, just as we were going to the coach, "I say, does none o' ye naw nowt o' no hat o' mine no where?" To which another of the company replied, "I think beloike that's it under th' table i' th' fire nookin, with crown trodden out a' moast." "Aye, and so it is," said the other; "the crown's squeezed out, an' its nudged all to piecesI shall be forced, I'm 'feard, to ha' a new one." I had almost forgot to mention, that, at Newark, we had a good plain dinner, for which we paid three shillings and sixpence each, and eighteen-pence for a glass of port-wine-negus, which made just five shillings. At this there was no grumbling, although, I can assure you, if experience has not already told you, that, at home, I, and my wife, and eight children-in all, ten of uscan have a much better dinner for that sum. Here again coachee left us: Another shilling, "your honour," and another touch of the hat. We are always generous when from home, for fear, I suppose, we should be taken for low scrubs: why, if you do not blab, you may possibly be taken for an Esquire; at the same time that those of your own street, in your own town, who know you, only call you Mr Snip, the tailor;who is there, then, so paltry, that would not cheerfully pay a shilling, for once in his life, to be elevated to the rank of Esquire? The following recipe will be useful to persons

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