THE

RECESS,

OR

AUTUMNAL RELAXATION

IN THE

HIGHLANDS AND LOWLANDS,

&c. &c.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

Ir was on a beautiful morning in early Autumn, that a small party, exhausted by the fever of a London season, and anxious to escape, for a time, from the fury of politics, the terror of epidemics, and the thousand toils and turmoils by which time is frittered away and life ultimately curtailed in the metropolitan vortex, drove up Westminster bridge, and halted on its highest arch. One of the party surveyed, for a few minutes, the northern banks of the Thames, from Battersea to the Tower, with an eye of contemplation rather than of curiosity, and with a countenance in which a Lavater might have seen or fancied a series of different emotions, corresponding with the impression of various images impinged on the mental mirror. The physiognomist would probably have read in that countenance more of melancholy than of joy-more of pity than of censure-more of despondency than of hope-more of pain than of pleasure -more of disdain than of admiration-while the eye glanced rapidly from bridge to bridge, and from object to object. My own eye pursued the same track by a kind of mechanical impulse; and, pointing to a large building, high up the river, and pleasantly situated between two of its bridges, being backed and flanked with gardens and walks, through which were sauntering a number of uncouthly dressed beings, aged, maimed, and tottering on the verge of life, I asked my companion what it was?

"It is," said he, "the RENDEZVous or asylum of the 'LEGION of HONOUR '—of wooden legs, empty sleeves, and unsightly scars-of vetcrans, who have shed their blood and defeated the enemies of their country

B

on every hill and dale, mountain and valley, from the Pyramids to the Pyrenees, from the Tagus to the Texel, from the Ganges and Indus to La Plata and the Mississippi. It is the Place de Carousel,' not of drones, and sycophants, consuming the treasures of the state, but of time-worn warriors merrily rehearsing some of the most dangerous acts of their stormy lives, and

'Shouldering the crutch to show how fields were won.'"

To a similar question respecting a convent-looking structure situated in a marsh at the foot of Vauxhall bridge, my companion answered :— "That is a REFUGE for the PROFLIGATE, where PENITENCE weeps over sins, not because they are wicked, but because they are punishable-over crimes, not because they were committed, but because they were detected. It is an asylum, where the most disinterested benevolence is wasted on the most worthless objects; and where the minimum of advantage results from the maximum of expenditure."

From this mansion of repentance the eye wandered eastward till it encountered a massive pile of buildings at the foot of the bridge on which we stood. I asked my fellow traveller for a definition of this structure. "C That,' ‚” he replied, " is the famous Dock YARD from which has been launched the new-or at least, the newly-repaired, STATE GALLEY, or CONSTITUTION YACHT. You may have heard," said he, "of

'The flag that braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze.'"

I answered, "That every one heard of that flag in a celebrated speech of an illustrious senator." "It would have been wonderful," said he, " if that flag had suffered neither wear nor tear from the hand of time or the assaults of the enemy. The fact is, that it had been so patched and darned by state tailors, that many people declared they could scarcely recognize a single stripe or thread of the original bunting! But not the flag alone, the vessel which bore it, was considered, by a great majority of the crew, to be in a crazy state; and architects were ordered to examine and report on her condition. It was represented that she had the dry rot-that she was leaky-that the ballast had shifted to one side, rendering her liable to upset in sudden squalls-that the masts were too tant for the hull-that the top-gallant sails and royals were too square, in proportion to the lower and larger sails-that the rigging and stays were not well tarred-that the ship was over-officered and the crew neglected that there were too many marines on board—that the IDLERS were far too numerous, occasioning heavy duty to fall on those who kept watch-that the captain, and commissioned officers, in all councils of war, battles, or tempests, drowned or despised the voice of the petty officers and seamen-that the cabins and wardrooms of the captain and