tion of your hostess, and wondering what on earth could have induced you to accept such an invitation. But the retirement of the ladies, by allowing a removal, prevents your utter carbonization; and cooled into better humour by brisk conversation and the circulating glass, you endeavour to forget these troubles, and resolve to be comfortable for the rest of the evening. The summons to tea arrives, and, full of delightful anticipation, you enter the drawing room. Here, at least, you are determined the heat shall not incommode you; and, dropping into the first vacant seat that offers, you hope, by exerting your very best colloquial talents, to efface the remembrance of former taciturnity. Ah! luckless enterprise in the midst of a pathetic relation by your fair neighbour, to which there seems no end, you discover the seat you have taken to be in a direct line between the blazing fireplace and the ever-opening door, so that every time an exit or an entrance takes place, which appears to be at the rate of every fifty times in a minute, a strong current of air, temperature 25 Farenheit, rushes impetuously against you, penetrating every corner of your system, and working its way into you at every distended pore. It is in vain you twist and fidget-in vain you dart angry looks at the unconscious causers of your suffering: all are too much engrossed with their own important cares, to perceive your uncomfortable situation. Chained to the stake, from which you are ashamed to withdraw, relief at last arrives; but the mischief is done. Cold has seized you, rheumatism is attacking you, corporeal pain, producing mental dissatisfaction, is shedding its jaundiced hues over every thing you feel and see. Sick, wearied, fevered, you at length reach home, where, cowering over the embers of the parlour fire the servant has neglected to replenish, you stand, endeavouring to gain resolution to ascend to your yet more comfortless chamber, and feelingly ask yourself, from the day's experience, "What are the boasted comforts of a fire-side?” AN ADIEU. An aideu should in utterance die ; THE NEWSMAN. I, that do bring the news.-Shakspeare. Our calling, however the vulgar may deem, Hence with wings to his cap, and his staff, and his heels, The newsman is a "lone person." His business and he e distinct from all other occupations and people. "" All the year round, and every day in the year, the newsan must rise soon after four o'clock, and be at the newsper offices to procure a few of the first morning papers otted to him, at extra charges, for particular orders, and spatch them by the " early coaches." Afterwards he has wait for his share of the regular publication of each paper, d he allots these as well as he can among some of the most gent of his town orders. The next publication at a later ur is devoted to his remaining customers; and he sends off boys with different portions according to the supply he ccessively receives. Notices frequently and necessarily nted in different papers, of the hour of final publication the eceding day, guard the interests of the newspaper proprietors om the sluggishness of the indolent, and quicken the dilint, newsman. Yet, however skilful his arrangements may , they are subject to unlooked-for accidents. The late rival of foreign journals, a parliamentary debate unexpectly protracted, or an article of importance in one paper exusively, retard the printing, and defer the newsman. tience, well-worn before he gets his "last papers," must continued during the whole period he is occupied in deliring them. The sheet is sometimes half snatched before he n draw it from his wrapper; he is often chid for delay when should have been praised for speed; his excuse, "All the pers were late this morning," is better heard than admitted, - neither giver nor receiver has time to parley; and before gets home to dinner, he hears at one house that "Master His has waited for the paper these two hours;" at another,— "Master's gone out, and says if you can't bring the paper earlier, he won't have it at all;" and some ill-conditioned master," perchance, leaves positive orders, "Don't take it in, but tell the man to bring the bill, and I'll pay it, and have done with him." Besides buyers, every newsman has readers at so much each paper per hour. One class stipulates for a journal always at breakfast; another, that it is to be delivered exactly at such a time; a third, at any time, so that it is left the full hour; and among all of these there are malecontents, who permit nothing of "time or circumstance" to interfere with their personal convenience. Though the newsman delivers, and allows the use of his paper, and fetches it, for a stipend not half equal to the lowest paid porter's price for letter-carrying in London, yet he finds some, with whom he covenanted, objecting, when it is called for,-"I've not had my breakfast, "The paper did not come at the proper time," I've not had leisure to look at it yet,"-" It has not been left an hour,” -or any other pretence equally futile or untrue, which, were he to allow, would prevent him serving his readers in rotation, or at all. If he can get all his morning papers from these customers by four o'clock, he is a happy man. Soon after three in the afternoon, the newsman and some of his boys must be at the offices of the evening papers; but before he can obtain his requisite numbers, he must wait till the newsmen of the Royal Exchange have received theirs, for the use of the merchants on 'change. Some of the first he gets are hurried off to coffee-house and tavern-keepers. When he has procured his full quantity, he supplies the remainder of his town customers. These disposed of, then comes the hasty folding and directing of his reserves for the country, and the forwarding of them to the post-office, or in parcels for the mails, and to other coach-offices. The Ga zette nights, every Tuesday and Friday, add to his labors.— the publication of second and third editions of the evening papers is a super-addition. On what he calls a "regular day," he is fortunate if he find himself settled within his own door by seven o'clock, after fifteen hours of running to and fro. It is now only that he can review the business of the day, enter his fresh orders, ascertain how many of each paper he will require on the morrow, arrange his accounts, provide for the money he may have occasion for, eat the only quiet meal he could reckon upon since that of the evening before, and "steal a few hours from the night" for needful rest, before he rises the next morning to a day of the like incessant occupation and thus, from Monday to Saturday, he labors every day. The newsman desires no work but his own to prove "Sunday no Sabbath;" for on him and his brethren devolves the circulation of upwards of fifty thousand Sunday papers in the course of the forenoon. His Sunday dinner is the only meal he can ensure with his family, and the short remainder of the day the only time he can enjoy in their society with certainty, or extract something from, for more serious duties, or social converse. The newsman's is an out-of-doors business at all seasons, and his life is measured out to unceasing toil. In all weathers, hail, rain, wind, and snow, he is daily constrained to the way and the fare of a way-faring man. He walks, or rather runs, to distribute information concerning all sorts of circumstances and persons, except his own. He is unable to allow himself, or others, time for intimacy, and therefore, unless he had formed friendships before he took to his servitude, he has not the chance of cultivating them, save with persons of the same calling. He may be said to have been divorced, and to live" separate and apart" from society in general; for, though he mixes with every body, it is only for a few hurried moments, and as strangers do in a crowd. Cowper's familiar description of a newspaper, with its multiform intelligence, and the pleasure of reading it in the country, never tires, and in this place is to the purpose. 29. This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not ev'n critics criticise; that holds Fast bound in chains of silence which the fair, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? The grand debate, The popular harangue, the tart reply, Cat'racts of declamation thunder here; At his own wonders, wand'ring for his bread. This is an agreeable and true picture; and, with like felicity, the poet paints the bearer of the newspaper. Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks |