And by came an angel, who had a bright key, And he open'd the coffins, and set them all free! Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run, And wash in a river, and shine in the sun. 'Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind; And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his Father, and never want joy. 'And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work; Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm, So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.' The pen of the Editor has' supplied the following touching little poem. 'A WORD WITH MYSELF. 'I know they scorn the Climbing-Boy, The gay, the selfish, and the proud; I know his villanous employ Is mockery with the thoughtless crowd. 'So be it ;-brand with every name Of burning infamy his art, But let his Country bear the shame, And feel the iron at her heart. 'I cannot coldly pass him by, Stript, wounded, left by thieves half-dead; Nor see an infant Lazarus lie At rich men's gates, imploring bread. 'A frame as sensitive as mine, WHO will ever have again, 'He was my equal at his birth, A naked, helpless, weeping child; Down in that cold oblivious gloom, 'My equal in the judgment day, He shall stand up before the throne, When every veil is rent away, And good and evil only known. 'And is he not mine equal now? Am I less fall'n from God and truth, Binding on man, of woman born, 'Yes, let the scorn that haunts his course, · J. Montgomery. With regard to that long neglected and injured class of infant bondsmen for whom this volume eloquently pleads, these English negroes, we were going to call them, there is no possibility of remaining neutral. But as it is not our wish to exhaust by our extracts the interest and novelty of the work, we refrain from making any other citations, but cordially recommend the volume. (Mon. Mag.) THE SINGING MARINER. From the Spanish. Ask me not her name and trade,- And the fowl came flocking fast Still he sung to wind and wave, "Guard her from the rocks that grow 'Mid the sullen deep below; From the gust and from the breeze, "From the gulf of Venice too, Forward stept Arnaldos bold, But the sailor shook his head, But to him who ploughs the main." FLEET-STREET BIOGRAPHY.* (Lon. Mag.) STERNE said, he pitied the man who could travel from Dan to Beersheba, and find all barren; he might have extended his pity a little further, and have expressed his willingness to bestow it on him who could take his place for life in any given spot" in this varsal world," and not find ample materials for history around him. Every keeper of an apple-stall might unstore his "fruits of experience," if he chose to abandon the pippins for the pen, during a brief hour or two;and each sweeper at a crossing might give a trifle to the world, if he did not generally know that the besom was more profitable than the book. That worthy walking advertisement of Warren, who stands hat in hand, at the bottom of Ludgate Hill, taking a constant toll from those who venerate clean shoes and black faces, could and should bequeath "the fruits of experience" to mankind. With his knowledge of, and intercourse with, his fellow creatures, he would manage a brace of quartos as big as Parry's Pole Books, or those of Westminster in the severest election days. The world passes on before him, and he, with his back against the obelisk, remains a calm looker on!-He angles in that thick and endless stream for any thing he can catch, and all fish are welcome to his beaver net!-Of course, angler like, the sport cannot be carried on without meditation,--and why, we earnestly ask, should the fruit of this meditation be lost? We have had our attention more particularly attracted to this flower, born to blush unseen-this gem, of purest ray serene !— because a neighbour of Mr. Waithman and this sable philosopher, with an industry highly honourable to him, has, in his 80th year, written about to the right and left of him, and given us a faithful and energetic history of Poppin's-court, Ludgate-hill, up as far as Blade's glass-shop, Whipham's a little above Bouverie-street, and the people and places within the rules of decency and St. Bride's parish. This is History in its night-gown and slippers-History near-sighted, sitting by the fire and pottering over domestic intelligence with magnifying glasses. We love this unpresuming conduct in Old Memorialists! Why should kings and countries only have their Recorders?-May not the city be allowed one, and not merely for Old Bailey purposes? There are the Gibbons, the Humes, the Robertsons, for big History in its feathers and finery; but the time is come, when, as the clergyman says, "Pride shall have a fall!"-and therefore the Brasbridges arise for little History in her deshabille moments. There is room in the world for tiny Miss Biffin as well as the Swiss giantess !--Fleetstreet, Ludgate-hill, a few doors round Bridge-street, and the forehead of Fleetmarket are now written down for ever! and we only intreat that the author will go on with his good work, and do St. Dunstan's with as little delay as possible!-Wright's Shrimp and Oystershop, and Richardson's Hotel, and the Cock, and Mr. Utterson's fishing-tackleshop, will become a cluster of Solomon's Temples under bright Mr. Brasbridge's hand. Our But to the Fleet-street volume. historian thus opens his book, and we think it is in a style which should tempt the public to follow his example. "Better late than never" is an old adage, the truth of which I hope to exemplify in the course of the following pages. It has whatsoever, would, if fairly and impartialbeen said that the life of any individual ly narrated, afford abundant materials for instruction; and I am willing to hope that mine will be found equally productive of warning to the dissipated, and of encouragement to the industrious; for whilst I honestly confess, that at one period of it I might but too justly be classed with the former, I'may likewise reasonably hope, that at another I might as fairly rank with the latter. I began business as a silversmith, towards the latter end of the year 1770, in partnership with Mr. Slade, an honest, worthy June 1771, having the good fortune to obman, whose brother-in-law I became in tain the hand of his sister, a most lovely and amiable woman, with a portion of two * The Fruits of Experience; or Memoir of Joseph Brasbridge. Written in his 80th year. 1824. thousand pounds. The strictest friendship subsisted between our two families, and my domestic happiness seemed to have no room for increase, excepting what might be brought by children, to whom we naturally looked forward as the seal of our felicity. But alas! when this blessing, for some years delayed, did at length arrive, it was in the form of the heaviest calamity. My dear wife was safely brought to bed on the 19th of May, 1776, and appeared to be recovering extremely well; but on the tenth day afterwards, whilst sitting in her chair, she leaned back her gentle head, and died in a moment. My poor infant was put out to nurse, but the woman who took him having at the same time a child of her own at the breast, most unjustly neglected him, and laid the foundation of a sickly habit, which deprived me of him in his ninth year, to my inexpressible sorrow. Thus left a widower, and childless, I unhappily sought that relief in dissipation, which would have been better found in better means. Charles Bannister was one of my associates, and it will be readily be lieved, that no deficiency of wit or hilarity was found in parties over which he presided. "You will ruin your constitution," said a friend to him, " by sitting up in this maoner at nights.". "Oh," replied he, "you do not know the nature of my constitution; I sit up at night to watch it, and keep it in repair, whilst you are sleeping carelessly in your bed." Beginning the world under the auspices of old Charles Bannister was not very likely to help a silversmith on in trade; and we are soon put upon the scent of a bankruptcy. First, however,he introduces us to Mr. Tattersall, with whom he became acquainted as a member of the Highflyer Club at the Turf Coffee-House. Mr. Brasbridge is invited to Highflyer Hall, and thither he goes in company with "Thomas Smith, of Bridge-street, brandy-merchant," and Mr. Fozzard, "the great stable-keeper!" At the club, Whitfield was a social soul, the comedian, whom Goldsmith mentioned also, and at whom, therefore, fame now may be said to shoot with a double-barrelled gun! He had an unbounded attachment for the T. B. facetiously translated "Tother Bottle," by our biographer. Colburn too, of the Treasury, was a member, and "Bob. Tetherington, as merry a fellow as ever sat in a chair," and "Dear Owen," the confectioner, who, like other wags, wrote his own songs, and sang them agreeably. The reflection of Mr. Bras bridge at the death of all these inestimable spirits takes the following pensive turn. Yet so it is! we all desire long life, yet we all know that it must be held by the tenure of seeing those whom we most love drop into the grave before us. "The loss of our friends,” said his late Majesty, on the death of one of his brothers," is the fine which nature levies upon our own lengthened days." If, then, it be in the order of nature, let us submit to her decrees without repining; and if the morning of our life be gilded with hope, let not the mild beams of resignation be wanting to cheer its evening. Lord Mansfield figures away in a page of our history. The next time I saw Lord Mansfield was on the trial of Mrs. Rudd, an enchantress whose charms, so fatal to the unfortunate Perreaus, seemed to inspire his Lordship with fresh eloquence, and the liveliest zeal in her behalf. She was, indeed, the very head of that fascinating and dangerous class of women of whom it may be said, If to her share some female errors fall, Look in her face, and you forget them all. Lord Mansfield was very desirous of long life, and, whenever he had old men to examine, he generally asked them what their habits of living had been. To this interrogatory an aged person replied, that he had never been drunk in his life. "See, gentlemen," said his Lordship, turning to the young barristers, "what temperance will do." The next, of equally venerable appearance, gave a very different account of, himself, he had not gone to bed sober one night for fifty years. "See, my Lord," said the young barristers," what a cheerful glass will do." "Well, gentlemen," replied his Lordship," it only proves, that some sorts of timber keep better when they are wet, and others when they are dry." Mr. Brasbridge was a great member of clubs. He haunted the Crown and Rolls, in Chancery-lane, and trumped the tricks of Ramsbottom, the brewer, and of Russell, who ruined himself by the lottery; he sat, too, at the Globe, in Fleet-street, where " Mr. P., the surgeon, was a constant man,” and Archibald Hamilton, the Printer, and " Thomas Carnan, the bookseller, who brought. an action against the Stationer's Company for printing almanacks, and won his cause!" And Dunstall, the comedian, famous for "I'm not such an elf," in Love in a Village: and Macklin, too, of whom we have the following charac teristic and amusing anecdote. The veteran Macklin, when the company were disputing on the mode of spelling the name of Shakespeare, was referred to by Billy Upton, a good-tempered fel. low, with a remarkably gruff voice, the loudest tones of which he put forth as he observed, "There is a gentleman present who can set us to rights :" then turning to Macklin, he said, "Pray, Sir, is it Shake speare, or Shaksper" "Sir," said Macklin, "I never give any reply to a thunderbolt." Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, and William Woodfall, the reporter, were also Globe boys! Brasbridge smartly says, in conclusion, "The Globe was kept by deputy Thorpe, and truly it might be said that he kept it, for it did not keep him." The following anecdote of Dr. Glover is not unamusing; it almost takes the romance out of Frankenstein. Another of our company, whose social qualities were his ruin, was Dr. Glover; he was surgeon to a regiment in Ireland, and rendered a man, who was hung in Dublin, the doubtful favour of restoring him to life; he found it was, at any rate, no favour to himself, for the fellow was a plague to him ever afterwards, constantly begging of him, and always telling him, when the Doctor was angry with him for it, that, as his honour had brought him into the world again, he was bound to sup port him. John Morgan too, was a Globe spirit," a man universally known and esteemed," with whom we are quite unacquainted. He was, it appears, a great wit in the neighbourhood of Shoe-lane. Morgan, was, without exception, the best companion 1 ever knew. One night in particular, he was so irresistibly droll, that Mr. Woodinason, the stock-broker, present ed the ludicrous spectacle of a man of six feet high rolling about on the floor with his arms a-kimbo, to keep himself toge ther, as he said, for that he was certain otherwise he should break a blood vessel, that fellow Morgan made him laugh so much. I was to Morgan what Sir Watkin Lewes was to Wilkes, when he complained that Wilkes made a butt of him; "True," said Wilkes," still it's only a waste butt." There was a sixpenny card club at the Queen's Arms too; at which Mr. Brasbridge and nineteen other choice spirits joked and revoked incessantly. Goodwin was one-Goodwin, the woolen-draper, who invariably exclaimed, when he came down stairs of a morning, "Good morrow, Mr. Shop. You'll take care of me, Mr. Shop, and I'll take care of you!” The Cider Cellar too, boasted of Mr. Brasbridge's company.-In truth, he seems to have diligently attended to the signs of the times. Mr. Brasbridge speaks of our Elia, as the historian of the Cider Cellar, the only fact in the volume, we believe, which is built on a sandy foundation. and was afterwards removed to the Horn Our The "Free and Easy under the Rose" was another society to which I belonged. It was founded sixty years ago at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, and tavern. It was originally kept by Bates, who was never so happy as when standing behind a chair with a napkin under his arm; but arriving at the dignity of Alderman, tucking in the calipash and calipee himself, instead of handing it round to the company, soon did his business. My excellent friend Crickett, the marshall of the High Court of Admiralty, was President of this society for many years, and I was consisted of some thousand members, and constantly in attendance as his Vice. It I never heard of any one of them that ever incurred any serious punishment. great fault was sitting too late; in this respect, according to the principle of Frankdeed most unwary spendthrifts; in other lin, that "time is money," we were in instances our conduct was orderly and cor. rect. I cannot say so much for the comthe Strand, a house famous for the resort pany that frequented the Spread Eagle, in of young men after the theatre. Shorter, the landlord, facetiously observed, that his was a very uncommon set of customers, for what with hanging, drowning, and natural deaths, he had a change every six months. One of our members, Mr. Hawkins, a spatterdash maker, of Chancery-lane, was remarkable for murdering the king's Engtish. Having staid away for some days in consequence of a fit of illness, one of his friends asked him the cause of his absence; he said he had been an individual some time, meaning an invalid. In giving an account of the troops landing from America, after long absence and perilous service, he said they were so rejoiced, that they prostituted themselves on the earth; the person, to whom he was relating it, observed, that they had been manured to hardships; "Yes, indeed they had," said Mr. Hawkins," and that was the reason they were so much affected." Mr. Hawkins was, nevertheless, a very good man, as well as a good spatterdash maker; and the name of Equity Hawkins, which we gave him on account of his living in Chancery-lane, might have been applied to him, with equal truth, on account of his own in The following anecdote is a warning to all lovers of monumental glory. Mr. Darwin was one of the churchwardens of St. Mildred's. A gentleman, 1 who had formerly lived in the parish, and by his club-hours!) and Brasbridge got whose wife was buried in the churchyard, into a neighbouring shop, and started afterwards went into a distant country, and his opposition gravy-spoons and punchladles. erected a superb mausoleum upon his estate; the first dedication of which, he wished to be to the remains of his wife. Accordingly he wrote to the churchwardens; and a proper deputation of gravediggers, with the sexton, and Mr. Darwin at their head, descended into the vaults to search for the coffin of the defunct. When they found it, however, it was in such a state that it could not be moved; they therefore contented themselves with transferring the plate, stating the name, age, and period of decease, to its next neighbour, a respectable old gentleman, who most likely little dreamed in his life-time, that his clay would finally rest beneath a superb mausoleum, and have all the honours paid to it that were intended by the owner for his departed wife. When the removal was completed, Darwin remarked, that they had had a very disagreeable job, and it would require a good dinner to get them over it, which they accordingly had. We have not omitted a single joke of Mr. Brasbridge's yet we believe. The following is extremely piquant. Darwin was very intimate with Mr. Figgins, a wax-chandler in the Poultry, who was also a member of the "Free and Easy." They almost always entered the room together, and, from the inseparable nature of their friendship, I gave them the names of Liver and Gizzard; and they were ever afterwards called the Liver and Gizzard of the Common Council. Miss Boydell is commemorated— and the compliment to her beauty is well-timed. I should be wanting in my habitual reverence for the fair sex, did I not take this opportunity of acknowledging the attrac tions and graces possessed by Miss Boydell at this time. Mr. Brasbridge now "returns to his shop." He is persuaded to take stock. He finds that a young man of the name of Ashforth has abused the trust reposed in him, and, in short, ruin in due time follows. He becomes bankrupt, and Mr. Blades, the glass-man, Mr. Eley, the spoon-maker, and Mr. Hoare, of Cheapside, are appointed assignees. All the assignees are his enemies; in this Mr. Brasbridge resembles the man who always met with twelve stubborn men on a jury! The house and business in Fleet-street are sold under the commission, and Mr. Smith-luckless Mr. Smith! becomes the purchaser. Mr. Smith prints up his name with "late Brasbridge," (who got the name After my name had been set up in this doubtful conjunction with Smith for about five years, his house was repainted, and I, thinking I had a right to use my own name as I pleased, begged leave to run up the painter's ladder, when he descended, and efface it with a broom. Upon this, Mr. Smith sallied forth to seize the instrument of destruction to his ingenious device. I, thinking that I had been robbed enough already, held it stoutly with one hand, and advanced the other so near Mr. Smith's face, that he ran back into his shop, and took refuge behind the counter; I conjured him by the honour of an Englishman, to come as far as the threshold; but he stuck close to his counter until he was reinforced by his journeyman and porter; and then, finding myself likely to be overpowered by numbers, I also, like a prudent general, thought fit to secure a retreat. The next day he got the name painted more conspicuously than ever, and modestly sent the painter to me with his bill for so doing. On my refusing to pay it, he summoned me to the Court of Conscience, and, in explaining the matter to the commissioners, he told them that my name stunk in the parish of St. Bride's; they remarked, that he seemed very fond of stinking fish, and advised him to go home and mend his own manners : he had accordingly the pleasure of paying the expenses attendant on the proceedings, and returned home to meditate on his impotent malice. The following is really interesting, and ought never to have been written before, Mr. Brasbridge has written it so well. Sir Thomas Halifax was a most excellent chief magistrate; one instance, in particular, of his impartiality and firmness, when he was Lord Mayor, I witnessed myself with respect to Dr. Dodd. The unfortunate delinquent was brought before with spectators, when Lord Chesterfield him, and was standing in a room crowded sent up his name to the Lord Mayor, and requested a private interview. Sir Thomas, with manly and becoming spirit, sent his compliments to his Lordship, and informed him, that, the business he was come upon being of a public nature, he could not possibly hear it in private, every person present having as much right as himself to be made acquainted with it. The sight of Doctor Dodd upon his knees, imploring the mercy of Lord Chesterfield, moved every one but the polished statue to whom he addressed himself; in vain he reminded him of the cares he had lavished upon his infancy, and entreated his forgiveness of a fault, which, at the very moment he committed it, he meant to make amends for; |