Chelsea, the Chelsea-secluded, rural, far-thrown, of the day when he lived in Lawrence Lane and made Matthew Bramble and Uncle Bowling living entities.

You may illustrate the London of this period from Gay's "Trivia" or the pages of the Spectator and the Tatler, but you will do so best from the still more "humorous" pages of the great satirist who lived in Leicester Fields, and with observant eye and ready pencil, perpetuated the men, and monuments of London, as few have done, in any age. In Hogarth's pictures you have the city-east and west-under all guises you are in Covent Garden or in Drury Lane with him, and with him you look through a window and see London Bridge " with houses on it," and for the moment forget that it is gone and that Rennie's structure replaced it these hundred years ago. Let me set down as a pendant to these short introductory remarks, that passage-it is rather a long one, but we shall like it all the better for that-in which Thackeray epitomises what the great Hogarth did to record the London of his day:

"To the student of history, these admirable works must be invaluable, as they give us the most complete and truthful picture of the manners, and even the thoughts, of the last century. We look, and see pass before us the England of a hundred years ago -the peer in his drawing-room, the lady of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and the chamber filled with the gew-gaws in the mode of that day; the church, with its quaint florid architecture and singing congregation; the parson with his great wig, and the beadle with his cane; all these

are represented before us, and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord Mayor drives in state; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio; how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell; how the thief divides his booty and drinks his punch in the night-cellar, and how he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange and varied portraits of the bygone generation: we see one of Walpole's Members of Parliament cheered after his election, and the lieges celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender: we see the grenadiers and train-bands of the City marching out to meet the enemy; and have before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian horse embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men who ran away with Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Culloden. The Yorkshire waggon rolls into the inn-yard; the country parson, in his jack-boots, and his bands and short cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Parson Adams, with his sermon in his pocket. The Salisbury fly sets forth from the old Angel-you see the passengers entering the great heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats tied down with handkerchiefs over their faces, and under their arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle; the landlady-apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar-is tugging at the bell; the hunch-backed postillion-he may have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker-is begging a gratuity; the miser is grumbling at the bill; Jack the Centurion lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, with a soldier by his side-it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway-it has a likeness to Lismahago. You see

.

the suburban fair and the strolling company of actors; the pretty milk-maid singing under the windows of the enraged French musician-it is such a girl as Steele charmingly described in the 'Guardian,' a few years before this date, singing under Mr. Ironside's window in Shire-lane, her pleasant carol of a May morning. You see noblemen and blacklegs bawling and betting in the cock-pit; you see Garrick as he was arrayed in King Richard; Mackheath and Polly in the dresses they wore when they charmed our ancestors, and when noblemen in blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened to their delightful music. You see the ragged French soldiery, in their white coats and cockades, at Calais Gate-they are of the regiment, very likely, which friend Roderick Random joined before he was rescued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, and with whom he fought on the famous day of Dettingen. You see the judges on the bench; the audience laughing in the pit; the student in the Oxford theatre; the citizen on his country walk; you see Broughton the boxer; Sarah Malcolm the murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the demagogue, leering at you with that squint which has become historical, and with that face which, ugly as it was, he said he could make as captivating to women as the handsomest beau in town. All these sights and people are with you. After looking in the "Rake's Progress" at Hogarth's picture of St. James's Palace-gates, you may people the street, but little altered within these hundred years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chairmen that bore the courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caroline's drawing-room more than a hundred years ago."