hat-glazed, slow-walking policemenPeel's terriers-this is your proper region-you are revolting impertinences in Pall-Pall! Here comes a better man!-that jolly brewer, trudging along the road by the side of his team, or carolling as he sits on the shaft, with a pair of immense gastrocnemii cased in white stockings, and a two-inch bit of pipe-clay in his mouth-him whom sundry turnpike tickets adorn as to the band of his slouched hat.-Oh! when shall I taste porter again, or see a bright pewter mug of anybody's "entire?" Secondhand book-stalls-which have so often afforded me a motive for a walk on the Surrey side-ye are already far behind! Bird shops, whose slender wires are all alive with twitter and chirrup, are seen no more; and as we approach the fields, where money is not wanted, or where there is less improvidence and fewer artificial wants, the last pawnbroker-the primum vivens and ultimum moriens of all traffickers beyond the Bridges-no longer suspends the temptation of his three balls to the thirsty and the thoughtless! "Arms" of departed warriors, with your "long rooms," that hold out no delusive promises of a hundred table-spoons and napkins (cent couverts), I see you still; and strangers though ye be to " nosces et festius," may no sour Dissenter abridge your number, or disappoint your well-conducted visitors of their London Sunday! And, ye still more multiplied Victoria tea-gardens, although your shadeless bowers have been untried by me, they are meant for most harmless enjoyment, and so may your cockle-shell and periwinkle grottos continue to overflow, in sæcula sæculorum, with sober-minded young linen-drapers sipping bohea, with pretty sempstresses to put in the sugar for them! But we are now, I see, ascending Greenwich Hill, and are at last fairly out of London, and in for ten hours' fatigue, and no want of ten grains of Dover's powder to make us sleep to-night. DOVER. THE REVEILLEE. No pleasant thing, I ween, after dreaming Clarence's dream with variations all night, to hear the approaching tramp of thick-soled shoes, which suddenly cease before your particular cell, followed anon by three premonitory thumps, duly delivered on the sounding pannels-to perceive the first coruscation of ante-matinal lanthorn, and be certified that the yawning commissioner is bodily beside you to see him light your sputtering and ill-smelling candle at five on a November morning-to hear the sea-gulls screaming in their flight, with a basso accompaniment of baggage carts, proceeding in all the mystery of darkness from their different hotels to the place of departure but to endure all this, and all that is to follow, for nothing! Well, it was your own fault. You must have heard the angry gust getting wilder and wilder as the night waxed on, and rising to a climax as the hour for being called drew near. Shrill pipings of the winds were also heard along the corridor, of which suitable portions were blown through your key-hole, like so many hisses from the head of Megæra. And were such intimations VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXXIII, to be disregarded? Had not the convulsed window-frame been agitated in all its loose compages? Had not the external shutter slapped against the casement, and banged back again upon the crumbling brick-work, fifty times before the London mail came in? Did not out-of-door bells, hung in the yard below, ring unbidden? And was not your chimney full of Eolian music, sent to warn you that there could be no leaving the pier on that inauspicious morning? What a fool, then, you were to expose yourself to the condolence of the fellow that called you, and be obliged to hear, into the bargain, of the fine passages of all the last week! Nay, in the very act of routing you out, the caitiff muttered a something about wind, as he placed the greasy brass candlestick, with its two inches of tallow, on your dingy toilet, and went along the passage croaking the same raven-like notes at each of the condemned cells. Ah, the smell of morning candle! Out upon the fringe and festooning of the white dimity hearse of your English bed! Ha! what ghastly vision is that in the glass, with a razor in its hand? 2 x Why, your very wife would be afraid of you! What accident may not befall the shaver who contends with beard in such a penury of light as the blustering morning with out, and the unsnuffed dip within, contribute to afford? Shaving at Dover, at best, is only trying to shave, for futile is the attempt to coax hard white soap by help of harder water into a proper crasis. And now, dressed in Guy Faux fashion, and gone forth to explore, behold all your misgivings of the weather confirmed! Two incorruptible weathercocks give you your doom, SW. or SSW. to the letter. Think not, O, Cockney! to sap the judgment of some veteran pilot (who laughs at your ignorance), into the faintest expectation of better things; nor set yourself to bawl, holding your hat with both hands, to the imperturbable skipper on board, whose reply, if he vouchsafe any to such a pale-looking miserable devil, cannot possibly reach you, but is borne away to Deal and the Downs. No, no; you are in for it for at least twentyfour hours, during nine or ten of which you may stare through the hazy horizon along the denuded country, or make a desperate sortie in the interval of squalls to yonder cliffs, to the west, and listen to the noisy seabird working up against the gale, or pore upon the uplifted and prone descending mass of turbid waters; but it is too early for these out-of-door pleasures. The first meal of the day and the newspapers (which, however, you read yesterday in London), would at present be more acceptable, and help to cheat you of at least one of the hours before you; in obedience to which instinctive feeling you make the best of your way back to your inn, and find-a clean fire and a hissing kettle? No, an empty, fireless coffee-room, every element of discomfort and incentive to ill-humour. To the still silent streets, therefore, you must necessarily betake yourself, and there, amidst the sadness of unclosing shops, abide the resuscitation of hotel life. Yonder (let me be your cicerone) is the gaunt figure of Mr Mummery, at the door of his slop-shop, in Snargate Street; those sly harbingers of the day (like the Hours in Guido's Rospiglion), are Messrs Levi and Moses, of whom the one is arranging his " museum," and the other getting his "temple of fancy" ready for the stray visitor of Cocaigne. Still more certain signals of commencing day are soon afforded in the mopping and slopping of door-steps, the friction of brass-plates and knockers, and the war of the scrubbing brush and sand upon much-enduring door-steps. I think that we may now venture back to the hotel, and call at least for breakfast-not that it will come, for the water does not boil, the rolls are not arrived, the bread has to be toasted, and the milk-pail is late. The coffee - room, however, which was empty, is now occupied, and the occupants are of a class of individuals whom the waiters and chambermaids designate by the name of " gents.' With these companions, then-fellow-creatures, no doubt, but not interesting, natural, or informed oneswe are to pass this blessed 10th of November, amidst fresh arrivals of wet umbrellas and drenched coats from mud-bespattered coaches. the heaviest day wends on! waiter's proposal of one of three eter But The A gent is an individual of that genus for whose particular eyes cheap stocks and flash garments, at alarmingly low prices, are ticketed all round Charing Crossas shooting-jackets for parties who don't know one end of a gun from the other, pilotcoats for street-going swells, who would, indeed, be pleasant people in a gale of wind, &c. A gent is he to whom the assiduous Boots proffers a pair of dirty slippers, and in which, nothing revolted, the party sits at ease at his tea, or brandy and water, exchanging facetiousness with, or extracting conversation from the waiter. A gent is the person whom the coachman does not even turn to look at, as he says, "Chuck down that gent's carpet-bag, Bill!-Come now, be alive!"—imparting an added dose of the principle of vitality to the galvanized William in a very surprising manner-the person, whose offered cigar the discerning conductor of the four bag probably declines, while he accepts the pinch from a gentleman's civility. There is a tournure about a gent which there is no mistaking-the superior ease of a gentleman is not the criterion, for a gent is consummately at his ease in all positions, though some of them are not happily chosen. nal and loathed alternatives, veal cutlets, beef steaks, or mutton chops, with relays of bad potatoes between them, is to be listened to; and then for the brass candlestick once more, amidst the hopes and fears of the morrow, and a last attempt to extort comfortable assurances from the subordi nates, who know and care nothing about it. Mean-while, the mate of the Britannia, it is certain, does not make his entrée, to beat up for passengers, nor is he seen lounging about the door-and this looks ill. O, Dover! Dover! DOVER. THE DETENU. Eight o'clock, A. M.-And here, accordingly, we are for a second day, the weather fine enough to go out, but not fine enough to go over. Let us cut the coffee-room, walk till we can walk no longer, and think a little where we are, and why. What unnumbered thousands, their hearts overcharged with various fortune and emotion, have, since the peace, approached that inconsiderable jetty, or seen that shingly beach disappear beneath the lofty cliff and the batteries on high! To what innumerable feet, and sped on what a variety of errands, have those sea-washed pebbles yielded a noisy pathway! Under what strangely altered views and unanticipated changes do many of our countrymen gaze once more on those "marine terraces"-those manywindowed rows! Surely no spot on earth has drunk so many tears, or heard so many sighs commingling with the sea-spray, and whirled on in the passing gust. Verily, if but a few specimens of the last twenty years' suffering enacted on this small arena could be in evidence, soon would the gay fancies of youth, and the smiling uncertainties of a first trip, be quelled! Figure to yourself whole thousands of already hectic forms (never so dear as when that cruel cast of expatriation befell them) sent from this tiny port to occupy some far-off tomb, or received into it the shadows of the shades they were, and to die in the arms of friends and kinsfolk;-the only son of his mother, and she a widow the cherished daughter, and the last!-the lately blooming wife, the lustre of whose bridal garment is scarcely tarnished,-or, sadder yet, if sadder can be, she that but for this parting was to have become such. These are familiar things to the hotels of Dover, both great and small. All, however, who hurry down to the packet do not die consumptive; nor is health the only object for which men go abroad. Science and curiosity, listlessness and debt, a reputation that requires nursing and will be the better for repose, economy and education, politics and pleasure, urge their respective votaries. The Bourse, the Boulevard, the Institute, the Balletare not all these at Paris? "Please, sir, are you for Boulogne?" "Why?" "Because the captain says he intends to try it, as the wind is falling." Will he ?-then I'm at his service;"-back in a twinkling-portmanteau in the passage-bill called for-waiter assiduous-the last English shillings disbursed,-in an hour we were on our backs in sight of Shakspeare's Cliff, with an assurance that the passage would be tedious, and a painful experience that its quality was to be of a piece with its duration. CONCERNING PARROTS-AND OUR PARROT. "Quis expedivit psittaco suum xaigs ?"-PERS. Although, on some extraordinary oc casions, genius, whether in man or psittacus, will make its way even in the sorriest coat; and though the bird of humbler plumage sometimes rises from the ranks by merit alone, yet you may take it as a general rule that a handsome Amazon swears, sings, and whistles more cleverly, and with more variety of emphasis than any bird of her inches, and consequently brings the highest price in the parrot market. Your grey parrot comes next; "ornatur lauro collega secundo"-and don't despise him-he always attends to his lesson, and a really good oath is seldom thrown away upon him. The real Amazon is rather smaller than the full-sized grey parrot, and brings, on an average, when yet under tuition, about 90 francs; but when her voice has attained its full volume, and she is understood to be wellgrounded in the use of her tongue, she asks 200 francs for a permanent engagement, and won't go out for less. The grey parrot, if you buy him in his childhood, fetches 70 francs; but you should always take counsel of phrenology, or, which is better, take a connoisseur in parrots with you, who, amidst the discordant din of a hundred cages (and nothing out of bedlam can equal it) will put his finger on the right bird—the bird of promise for companionship-for of course there is, as in matrimony, a lottery in these affairs. In the Lorry or false Amazon, you have a bird of 60 francs, who rounds her periods cleverly enough-but she screams so on the approach of rain. Then there is the common green parrot, who, though the subject of the "Vert, Vert," as if unconscious of all the pretty things of Gresset in that charming little poem, is content with an humble position in the tradesman's shop, and is constituted the playmate of the children and the garçon cordonnier in every sunless back street of many-parrotted Havre. There are, besides these, two kinds of the light-green perruche, one of which comes from Senegal, and whistles, as parrots whistle, now and then; the other does not whistle, far less talk, at all, but screeches perpetually. These are the kinds chiefly found in the shops, and the object of purchase to the parrot-fancier. Now, all parrots, be it known, are instructed on the Bell and Lancaster system; in these ecoles primaires the same word is proposed to the whole community, who repeat it much as we used to do the names of places in our geographical lessons at Yverdun; only rewards and punishments, which are against our system, are meted out to the birds, and an emulation excited which is completely anti-Pestalozzian. A short treatise on the art of instructing parrots faithfully (though the great hint is in our motto from Persius), must be considered as still wanting to our literature; their education, poor things, is deplorably defective, and no wonder if they sometimes turn out mauvais sujets! They begin European life in bad society, among sailors, who demoralize and teach them bad language, and are then put to a French school on their arrival, without any reference to their various talents or capabities. Suppose you ask the instructor (who is the dealer) what this or that of his elevés can do? He will tell you, perhaps, that as yet he only whistles Qu'il commence à siffler ;* buy him, and the whistle turns out a portentous scream. "There is nothing but roguery in villainous man." Of that very silent bird he will tell you that great things may be expected, but he is but just beginning his orthoepy; the next cage to him, however, can already say, "Toutes sortes de choses." Now, as you cannot want a parrot who can say "all sorts of things," I recommend you to bargain for his neighbour there, who has merely learnt "Son petit dejeuner ; hear him-" As-tu dejeuné, mon petit Cocot? Rot-rot-rot-rot de mouton?" and, accordingly," Petit Cocot, rot de mouton," responds the bird. "Chantez donc, quand je bois du vin claire-tout tourne, tout tourne au cabaret;" and "Tout tourne, tout tourne, au cabaret," Cocot. " N'ayez pas peur, Monsieur, says the accomplished il parle à volonté celui la ;"—his volonté at present plainly being to mew like a cat while you are speaking about his price. The parrot is, generally speaking, (for a prisoner) a happy bird, though mine has eloped twice-I'll tell you about that afterwards he has reason to be happy, for he is fed, cleansed, caressed, and much made of, and scolds and swears, ad libitum, not only with impunity, but even with applause. Let grain be scarce, what is MarkLane to him? He is hung in the sunny window, and sits before a wellreplenished drawer and a cistern of pure water: not that he is always happy-watch him for a week, and you will soon discover that he has his cares —(le Doge a ses chagrins; les gondoliers ont les leurs)-as if he were an eagle. Moments of heaviness, of sulki. ness, and ennui like your own, has he. Bad weather he detests. would be to him a penal settlement; mope for hours, one leg tucked up even at Paris, on a rainy day, he will under his belly, dreamily opening, and Glasgow for a moment only, the eye next the light, the membrane nictitans lying collapsed over the other, now and then lolling out his black tongue, or snatching a side sip from his fountain, or, haply, giving himself a good secousse to put his feathers to rights, or in resistance to some physiological torpor not yet investigated; but, be his spirits good or bad, he never fails to return your "bon jour" whenever you salute him, and often assumes, like larger people, an air of easy indifference, at the very time that he is jealous of your divided attention, and would gladly keep one all day long at his side. Like some specimens of the genus homo, he will scratch his head after long abstraction, perhaps to intimate that he has been thinking to little purpose; and, surely, that unprovoked and unpremeditated scream should show that there are fitful and uneasy fancies in his encephalon that we wot not of. Whole mornings there are when he sulks, decidedly sulks ; others when he not only refuses his provender, but scatters and kicks it about like a naughty child quarrelling with his bread and butter; and, though you must allow him a polyglot vocabulary, alas! when he takes to scold in imitation of human infirmity, he is also very apt to do it in imitation of human organization, and in all the cacophony of Billingsgate. What vituperative shrillness! What determination to have the last word! Now, Cocot, if I should part with thee, who wouldst thou get to understand thee half so well, or talk to thee half so long, or appreciate thy little coaxing ways, or let thy horny bill approach his lips with such entire security?— Bite? Thou hast not the least idea of the outrage. I would trust my baby's finger, if I had one, to thy discretion. Sugar? There it is. Where didst thou learn to bend thy neck in that winning sidelong fashion, or throw up thy head, and exhibit the eider down of thy breast, all purring and tremu lous with satisfaction? Shall I let thee out? There-but don't tear my gloves, or throw about my papers. Yet blameless, Cocot, art thou not. Hadst thou been born in those Bastile days of 1798, at the other end of the Boulevard, thy prison-breaking propensities might have been en regle; but, to take leave of thy confiding master, and, blind to the advantages of thine own window by the Madeleine, fall in love with liberty under Louis Philippe, and, after the most ambitious style of scissar-clipt Psittacus, exhibit thyself to the whole Rue de la Paix, far above the Place Vendome and its matchless columns; to give me, who am short of breath, a run of a mile or two in the month of May; and make me, who am short of money, a perfect contemner of coin-for well thou knowest that I threw away half a pocket full of francs to quicken and multiply auxiliaries for thy recovery-was neither virtuous nor wise. Nor may I quite spare thee the reproachful reminiscence of that second escapade, when in revenge, I suppose, for not being taken with us to Baden, thou didst take thyself to Passy; and, having found agreeable quarters within a certain bower, in a bachelor's garden, didst wail like an exposed baby for two whole summer nights, to the unspeakable scandal of his household, especially of his handmaiden, who obtested loudly, and would not have been believed innocent but for thy seasonable detection. All this, Cocot, requires a long period of penitence and good behaviour. We are all friends now, but beware lest a third act of infidelity tempt me seriously to look out for something in petticoats, and take refuge in a wife. Oh! tunes and tympanums, what a screech!-for music's sake let us make it up, and without a moment's delay-" nec tecum possumus vivere" when in the screaming vein; "nec sine te" when in the ca ressing. CHEAP FRENCH DINNERS. Ungrateful that we are, and uninformed too, when we take upon us to abuse English, and celebrate French repasts indiscriminately; to convey tacit reproach at the tables of kind and hospitable friends at home, by even naming unknown dishes, in which, after all, our own science is no great matter; for we never master even the syntax, let alone the prosody and the ulterior refinements of French cookery. Let those who still think a dinner cooked in France is therefore excellent, unfold their serviette, and sit down with me in imagination to three francs a-head worth of all that is abo |