new ones; and in February new ones come-the thrush, the chaffinch, and the wood-lark. Then rooks begin to pair; and the wagtail dances in the lane. As we write this article, the sun is on our paper, and chanticleer (the same, we trust, that we heard the other day) seems to crow in a very different style, lord of the ascendant, and as willing to be with his wives abroad as at home. We think we see him, as in Chaucer's homestead:

He looketh, as it were, a grim leoùn;

And on his toes he roameth up and down;
Him deigneth not to set his foot to ground;
He clucketh when he hath a corn yfound,
And to him runnen then his wivès all.

Will the reader have the rest of the picture, as Chaucer gave it ? It is as bright and strong as the day itself, and as suited to it as a falcon to a knight's fist. Hear how the old poet throws forth his strenuous music; as fine, considered as mere music and versification, as the description is pleasant and noble.

His comb was redder than the fine corall,
Embattled as it were a castle wall;

His bill was black, and as the jet it shone ;
Like azure was his leggès and his tone;
His nailès whiter than the lily flower,
And like the burned gold was his colour,

Hardly one pause like the other throughout, and yet all flowing and sweet. The pause on the third syllable in the last line but one, and that on the sixth in the last, together with the deep variety of vowels, make a beautiful concluding couplet; and indeed the whole is a study for versification. So little were those old poets unaware of their task, as some are apt to suppose them; and so little have others dreamt, that they surpassed them in their own pretensions. The accent, it is to be observed, in those concluding words, as coral and color, is to be thrown on the last syllable, as it is in Italian. Colòr, colòre, and Chaucer's old Anglo-Gallican word, is a much nobler one than our modern one còlor. We have injured many such words, by throwing back the accent.

We should beg pardon for this digression, if it had not beer. part of our understood agreement with the reader to be as desultory as we please and as befits Companions. Our very enjoyment of the day we are describing would not let us be otherwise. It is also an old fancy of ours to associate the ideas of Chaucer with that of any early and vigorous manifestation of light and pleasure. He is not only the "morning-star" of our poetry, as Denham called him, but the morning itself, and a good bit of the noon; and we could as soon help quoting him at the beginning of the year, as we could help wishing to hear the cry of primroses, and thinking of the sweet faces that buy them,

CHAPTER IV.

Walks home by night in bad weather. Watchmen.

THE readers of these our lucubrations need not be informed that we keep no carriage. The consequence is, that being visitors of the theatre, and having some inconsiderate friends who grow pleasanter and pleasanter till one in the morning, we are great walkers home by night; and this has made us great acquaintances of watchmen, moon-light, mud-light, and other accompaniments of that interesting hour. Luckily we are fond of a walk by night. It does not always do us good; but that is not the fault of the hour, but our own, who ought to be stouter; and therefore we extract what good we can out of our necessity, with becoming temper. It is a remarkable thing in nature, and one of the good-naturedest things we know of her, that the mere fact of looking about ns, and being conscious of what is going on, is its own reward, if we do but notice it in good-humor. Nature is a great painter (and art and society are among her works), to whose minutest touches the mere fact of becoming alive is to enrich the stock of our enjoyments.

We confess there are points liable to cavil in a walk home by night in February. Old umbrellas have their weak sides; and the quantity of mud and rain may surmount the picturesque. Mistaking a soft piece of mud for hard, and so filling your shoe with it, especially at setting out, must be acknowledged to be 'aggravating.' But then you ought to have boots. There are sights, indeed, in the streets of London, which can be rendered pleasant by no philosophy; things too grave to be talked about in our present paper; but we must premise, that our walk leads us out of town, and through streets and suburbs of by no means the worst description. Even there we may be grieved if we will. The farther the walk into the country, the more

tiresome we may choose to find it; and when we take it purely to oblige others, we must allow, as in the case of a friend of ours, that generosity itself on two sick legs may find limits to the notion of virtue being its own reward, and reasonably "curse those comfortable people" who, by the lights in their windows, are getting into their warm beds, and saying to one another, "Bad thing to be out of doors to-night."

Supposing, then, that we are in a reasonable state of health and comfort in other respects, we say that a walk home at night has its merits, if you choose to meet with them. The worst part of it is the setting out; the closing of the door upon the kind faces that part with you. But their words and looks, on the other hand, may set you well off. We have known a word last us all the way home, and a look make a dream of it. To a lover for instance no walk can be bad. He sees but one face in the rain and darkness; the same that he saw by the light in the warm room. This ever accompanies him, looking in his eyes; and if the most pitiable and spoilt face in the world should come between them, startling him with the saddest mockery of love, he would treat it kindly for her sake. But this is a begging of the question. A lover does not walk. neither to the pleasures nor pains of walking. air; and in the thick of all that seems inclement, has an avenue of light and velvet spread for him, like a sovereign prince.

He is sensible
He treads on

To resume, then, like men of this world. The advantage of a late hour is, that everything is silent and the people fast in their beds. This gives the whole world a tranquil appearance. Inanimate objects are no calmer than passions and cares now seem to be, all laid asleep. The human being is motionless as the house or tree; sorrow is suspended; and you endeavor to think that love only is awake. Let not readers of true delicacy be alarmed, for we mean to touch profanely upon nothing that ought to be sacred; and as we are for thinking the best on these occasions, it is of the best love we think; love of no heartless order, and such only as ought to be awake with the stars.

As to cares and curtain-lectures, and such-like abuses of the tranquillity of night, we call to mind, for their sakes, all the say. ings of the poets and others about "balmy sleep," and the

soothing of hurt minds, and the weariness of sorrow, which drops into forgetfulness. The great majority are certainly "fast as a church" by the time we speak of; and for the rest, we are among the workers who have been sleepless for their advantage; so we take out our license to forget them for the time being. The only thing that shall remind us of them is the red lamp, shining afar over the apothecary's door; which, while it does so, reminds us also that there is help for them to be had. I see him now, the pale blinker suppressing the conscious injustice of his anger at being roused by the apprentice, and fumbling himself out of the house, in hoarseness and greatcoat, resolved to make the sweetness of the Christmas bill indemnify him for the bitterness of the moment.

But we shall be getting too much into the interior of the houses. By this time the hackney-coaches have all left the stands a good symptom of their having got their day's money. Crickets are heard, here and there, amidst the embers of some kitchen. A dog follows us. Will nothing make him "go along?" We dodge him in vain; we run; we stand and "hish!” at him, accompanying the prohibition with dehortatory gestures, and an imaginary picking up of a stone. We turn again, and there he is vexing our skirts. He even forces us into an angry doubt whether he will not starve, if we do not let him go home with us. Now if we could but lame him without being cruel; or if we were only an overseer, or a beadle, or a dealer in dogskin; or a political economist, to think dogs unnecessary. Oh! come, he has turned a corner, he is gone; we think we see him trotting off at a distance, thin and muddy; and our heart misgives us. But it was not our fault; we were not “hishing" at the time. His departure was lucky, for he had got our enjoyments into a dilemma; our "article" would not have known what to do with him. These are the perplexities to which your sympathizers are liable. We resume our way, independent and alone; for we have no companion this time, except our never-to-be-forgotten and ethereal companion, the reader. real arm within another's puts us out of the pale of walking that is to be made good. It is good already. A fellow-pedestrian is company; is the party you have left; you talk and

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