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"That last chapter of yours, Blackmantle, on John Long and John Long's customers, will long remain a memorial of your scrutinizing qualifications, and, as I think, will prevent your taking your port, punch, pines, or soda-water in Bond-street for some time to come, lest 'suspicion, which ever haunts the guilty mind,' should in the course of conversation convict you; and then, my dear fellow, you would certainly go off pop like the last-mentioned article in the above reference to the luxuries of Long's hotel." "Bravo, Bob Transit!" said I; "this comes mighty well from you, sir, my fidus achates.—'A bon chat bon rat'—the fidus and audax satirists of the present times. And who, sir, dares to doubt our joint authority? are we not the very spies o' the age?

'Joint monarchs of all we survey;
Our right there is none to dispute.'

From the throne to, the thatched cottage, wherever there is character, 'there fly we,' and, on the wings of merry humour, draw with pen and pencil a faithful portraiture of things as they are; not tearing aside the hallowed veil of private life, but seizing as of public right on public character, and with a playful vein of satire proving that we are of the poet's school;

'Form'd to delight at once and lash the age.'
At this season of the year fashion cries out of
Town; so, pack up, Master Robert, and
Let us to Chelt's retiring banks,
Where beaux and beauties throng,
To drink at Spas and play rum pranks,
That here will live in song.

What Cheltenham was, is no business of ours; what it is, as regards its buildings, salubrious air, and saline springs, its walks, views, libraries, theatre, and varieties, my friend Williams, whose shop at the corner of the assembly rooms is the grand lounge of the literati, will put the visitor into possession of for the very moderate sum of five shillings. But, reader, if you would search deeper into society, and know something of the whim and character of the frequenters and residents of this fashionable place of public resort, you must consult the English Spy, and trace in his pages and the accompanying plates of his friend Bob Transit the faithful likenesses of the scenes and persons who figure in the maze of fashion, or attract attention by the notoriety of their amours, the eccentricity of their manners, or the publicity of their attachments to the ball or the billiard-room, the card or the hazard-table, the turf or the chase; for in all of these does Cheltenham abound. From the cercle de la basse to the cercle de la haute, from the nadir to the zenith, 'I know ye, and have at ye all'—ye busy, buzzing, merry, amorous groups of laughter-loving, ogling, ambling, gambling Cheltenham folk.

'A chiel's among ye taking notes,
And faith, he'll print them.'

To spy out your characteristic follies, ye sons and daughters of pleasure, have we, Bernard Blackmantle and Robert Transit, esquires, travelled down to Cheltenham to collect materials for an odd chapter of a very odd book, but one which has already established its fame by continued success, and, as I hope owes much of its increasing prosperity to its characteristic good-humour; so, without more preface, imagine a little dapper-looking fellow of about five feet something in altitude, attended by a tall sharp-visaged gentleman in very spruce costume, parading up and down the High-street, Cheltenham—lounging for a few minutes in Williams's library—making very inquisitive remarks upon the passing singularities—and then the little man most impertinently whispering to his friend with the Quixotic visage, book him, Bob—when out comes the note book of both parties, and down goes somebody. Afterwards see them popping into this shop, and then into the other, spying and prying about—occasionally nodding perhaps to a London actor, who shines forth here a star of the first magnitude; John Liston, for instance, or Tyrone Power—then posting off to the well walks, or disturbing the peaceful dead by ambling over their graves in search of humorous epitaphs—making their way down to the Berkeley kennel in North-street (See Plate), or paying a visit to the Paphian divinities at the Oakland cottages under the Cleigh Hills—trotting here and there—making notes and sketches until all Cheltenham is in a state of high excitement, and the rival editors of the Chronicle and Journal, Messrs. Halpine and Judge, are so much alarmed that they are almost prepared to become friends, and unite their forces for the time against the common enemy.

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