mutual friend, Bob Transit (see plate), in closing my account of which I have only to say, we were not disappointed in our search after variety, and came away high in spirits, and perfectly satisfied with the good-humour and social intercourse of our eccentric associates.

[ [!-- IMG --] [ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE]

The sad, the sober, and the sentimental were all gone to roost, before our merry trio sallied forth from the Castle Tavern, ripe for any sport or spree. Of all the bucks in this buckish age, your London buck is the only true fellow of spirit; with him life never begins too early, or finishes too late; how many of the west-end roués ride twenty miles out, in a cold morning, to meet the hounds, and after a hard day's run mount their hack and ride twenty miles home to have the pleasure of enjoying their own fire-side, or of relating the hair-breadth perils and escapes they have encountered, to their less active associates at Long's or Stevens's, the Cider Cellar, or the Coal-hole! The general introduction of gas throws too clear a light upon many dark transactions and midnight frolics to allow the repetition of the scenes of former times: here and there to be sure an odd nook, or a dark cranny, is yet left unenlightened; but the leading streets of the metropolis are, for the most part, too well illuminated to allow the spreeish or the sprightly to carry on their jokes in security, or bolt away with safety when a charley thinks proper to set his child a crying.{3} We had crossed the road, in the direction of Chancery-lane, expecting to have met with a hackney rattler, but not one was to be found upon the stand, when Bob espied the broad tilt of a jarvey perched upon his shop-board, and impelling along, with no little labour of the whip, a pair of anatomies, whose external appearance showed they

3 Springing his rattle.

had benefited very little by the opening of the ports for oats, or the digestive operation of the new corn-bill. "Hired, old Jarvey?" said Echo, fixing himself in the road before the fiery charioteer. "No, but tired, young Davey," replied the dragsman. "Take a fare to Covent Garden?" "Not if I knows it," was the knowing reply; "so stir your stumps, my tight one, or I shall drive over you." "You had better take us," said Transit. "I tell you I won't; I am a day man, going home, and I don't take night jobs." "But I tell you, you must," said Echo; "so round with your drag, and we'll make your last day a long day, and give you the benefit of resurrection into the bargain." "Why, look ye, my jolly masters, if you're up to a lark of that 'ere sort, take care you don't get a floorer; I've got a rum customer inside what I'm giving a lift to for love—only Josh Hudson, the miller; and if he should chance to wake, I think he'll be for dusting some of your jackets." "What, my friend Josh inside?" vociferated Echo, "then it's all right: go it, my hearties; mount the box one on each hand, and make him drive us to the Finish—while I settle the matter with the inside passenger." Josh, who had all this time been taking forty winks, while on his road to his crony Belcher's, soon recognised his patron, Echo; and jarvey, finding that all remonstrance was useless, thought it better to make a "virtue of necessity;" so turning his machine to the right about, he, in due time, deposited us in the purlieus of Covent Garden. The hoarse note of the drowsy night-guard reverberated through the long aisle of the now-forsaken piazzas, as the trembling flame of the parish lamp, flittering in its half-exhausted jet, proclaimed the approach of day; the heavy rumbling of the gardeners' carts, laden with vegetables for the ensuing market, alone disturbed the quiet of the adjoining streets. In a dark angle might be seen the houseless wanderer, or the abandoned profligate, gathered up like a lump of rags in a corner, and shivering with the nipping air. The gloom which surrounded us had, for a moment, chilled the wild exuberance of my companions' mirth; and it is more than probable we should have suspended our visit to the Finish, at least for that night, had not the jocund note of some uproarious Bacchanalian assailed our ears with the well-known college chant of old Walter de Mapes, "Mihi est propositum in tabernâ mori," which being given in G major, was re-echoed from one end to the other of the arched piazza: at a little distance we perceived the jovial singer reeling forwards, or rather working his way, from right to left, in sinuosities, along, or according to nautical phrase, upon __tack and half tack, bearing up to windward, in habiliments black as a crow, with the exception of his neckcloth and under vest; but judge our surprise and delight, when, upon nearer approach, we discovered the bon vivant to be no other than our old friend Crony, who had been sacrificing to the jolly god with those choice spirits the members of the Beefsteak Club,{4} who meet in a room built expressly

4 This Club, which may boast among its members some of the
most distinguished names of the age, including royalty
itself, owed its origin to the talents of those celebrated
artists Richards and Loutherbourg, whose scenic performances
were in those days often exhibited to a select number of the
nobility and gentry, patrons of the drama and the arts, in
the painting-room of the theatre, previous to their being
displayed to the public. It was on one of those occasions
that some noblemen surprised the artist cooking his beef-
steak for luncheon in his painting-room, and kindly
partaking of the déjeuné à la fourchette, with him,
suggested and established the Beef-steak Club, which was
originally, and up to the time of the fire, held in an
apart-ment over the old Theatre Royal, Covent Garden; but
since that period the members have been accommodated by Mr.
Arnold, who built the present room expressly for their use.
In page 216 of this work, allusion will be found by name to
some of the brilliant wits who graced this festive board,
and gave a lustre to the feast. In the old place of
meeting the identical gridiron on which Richards and
Loutherbourg operated was to be seen attached to the
ceiling, emblematical of the origin of the society, which
may now be considered as the only relic left of that social
intercourse which formerly existed in so many shapes between
those who were distinguished for their noble birth and
wealth, and the poorer, but equally illustrious, of the
children of Genius. It would be an act of injustice to the
present race of scenic artists to close this note without
acknowledging their more than equal merits to their
predecessors: the Grieves (father and sons), Phillips,
Marinari, Wilson, Tomkins, and Stanfield, are all names of
high talent; but the novelty of their art has, from its
general cultivation, lost much of this peculiar attraction.

for them over the audience part of the English Opera House. The ruby glow of the old boy's countenance shone like an omen of the merry humour of his mind. "What, out for a spree, boys, or just bailed from the watch-house, which is it? the alpha or omega, for they generally follow one another?" "Then you are in time for the equivoque, Crony," said Echo; "so enlist him, Transit;" and without more ceremony, Crony was marched off, __vi et armis, to the _Finish_, a coffee-house in James-street, Covent Garden, where the peep-o'-day boys and family men meet to conclude the night's debauch (see plate); "Video meliora proboque, Détériora sequoi;" you will exclaim, and 'tis granted; but

"Lusus animo debent aliquando dari,
Ad cogitandum melior ut red eat sibi,"

says Phodrus, and be the poet's apology mine, for I am neither afraid or ashamed to confess myself an admirer of life in all its variegated lights and shadows, deriving my amusement from the great source of knowledge, the study of that eccentric volume—man. The new police act has, in some measure, abated the extent of these nuisances, the low coffee-shops of the metropolis, which were, for the greater part, little better than a rendezvous for thieves of every description, depots both for the plunder and the plunderer; where, if an unthinking or profligate victim once entered, he seldom came out without experiencing treatment which operated like a severe lesson, that would leave its moral upon his mind as long as he continued an inhabitant of the terrestrial world.