head or heart, to lift him above the common level of mankind. All this is strange: but what is there in our earthly existence, that is not a riddle, a mystery, or a farce?" "Oh really, Urbanus," said the Major interrupting him, “we had enough of your sentimental philosophy in Bond-street; spare us the repetition, and bring us into Piccadilly with all convenient speed."

"Let us be supposed in Piccadilly at once," replied Urbanus. "Here there were more people; and among other noises, were three or four engines hastening along, with that horrible and peculiar rumble which can hardly be mistaken. Among things of familiar occurrence, there are few more awful, or more striking, than the progress of an engine through the streets at midnight. The hurry, but at the same time the heaviness, with which it proceeds; the firemen crowded upon it with their torches, and the dark red light which is cast upon their eager but determined countenances; the anxiety with which a free way is yielded to it as it passes, by a kind of instinctive feeling; and the dreadful associations which it raises in the mind-all awaken within us that half-fearful, half-pleasing excitement by which the forms of danger and horror are invariably accompanied, when they are neither brought home too nearly to our view, nor bring our own persons into jeopardy. The fire engine seemed to have this effect, in the first instance, on all who were upon the spot; but when they beheld the sparks and flames of light which perpetually burst through and illuminated the thick volumes of smoke, and threw a tint of vivid orange over a portion of the sky; and perceived that the scene of ruin could not be very near; they passed on heedlessly to their homes, regardless of the probable loss of lives, and the certain destruction of property, when the fire was at too great a distance for their curiosity to be gratified. Such is the disposition of man!

"The number of persons, whom we met, continued to increase as we approached the Hay-market. Here, as the Opera was open, the street was full of life and motion: the clamour for carriages and servants, and the continued rattling of the former, caused a bustle and agitation very

inconsistent with our usual notions of the silent and solemn midnight."" London," said the Traveller, "is the latest city in Europe." In Paris, at this hour, the streets are quiet. However the devil may be at work within doors; however vice and dissipation may be holding their unhallowed orgies in the houses consecrated to their service; the city is externally in repose. But here not only the temples, dedicated to gambling, or carousing, or licentious pleasures, like the gates of Hell, described by the poets, are ever open: the very streets confound all the ideas, which we acquired in the days of infancy and innocence. When we think of the descriptions of nature sleeping at this holy and awful hour; of misery subsiding to rest; of ambition forgetting its mighty projects; avarice untroubled by fear; and crime tortured by remorse, only in some confused and horrid dream; when we read of all created beings being mute and motionless, or at least of nothing roaming abroad, but owls, ghosts, and house-breakers; and turn from such meditations to the scenes before us, how must we smile at the picture, which is drawn by the imagination of those, who have seen but one side of parti-coloured life.” These remarks reminded me of a song, which I had often heard shouted in chorus, and boisterously applauded, in my younger and wilder days. It was written by a poor friend of mine, who, by coming to an unhappy and untimely end, has long since paid the penalty of a giddy and dissipated career. Yet we may praise the good qualities of the dead without justifying or sanctioning their faults:-he was one of those thoughtless, generous, warm-hearted fellows, who are no man's enemies but their own. I promised to repeat the words to the Traveller, as soon as we arrived here; and if the sentiments, which they express, are somewhat loose and incorrect, the concomitant circumstances, which I have already mentioned, must prevent any mischievous tendency, and are more than an antidote to the allurements of that mode of life which they exhibit; as they prove but too well that ruin will result from heedlessness, although without crime; and a course of idle indulgence, although free from profligacy. The song itself was a mere extempore effusion, in a moment of intemperate gaiety.

I.

My jolly boys, my jolly boys,
This midnight is the merriest hour,
With fullest life, and keenest joys,
Of all the twenty-four.

II.

Elsewhere let doleful tales go round
Of ghosts and hags the air that rid
And silence dread, and gloom profound,
And Heaven knows what beside.

III.

We laugh at bards of bumpkin themes,
At ten to rest who laid them down;
Nor ever guess'd, in all their dreams,
What midnight is in Town.
IV.

Choice spirits here are most awake,

While sleepier souls are snoring fast:
The dying day they ne'er forsake,

But live it to the last.

V.

The dance, or revel, jest or song,

And pleasure's goblet mantling o'er ;-
While these to midnight all belong,

Ah! who would wish for more?

VI.

Here with true friends, and generous wine,
And beauteous woman kindly free;
Midnight, thou art indeed divine!
Great midnight-health to thee!
VII.

My jolly boys, my jolly boys,

This midnight is the happiest hour,
With fullest life, and keenest joys,
Of all the twenty-four.

"But to continue our promenade, as we strolled along the Hay-Market, we remarked a group of five young men conversing in the most approved slang of the present season. Three had just come from the Opera, and now hurried off

in the hope, that the House of Commons had not adjourned; but that they should be in time to vote for Ministers in the division. The other two sauntered arm-in-arm to PallMall: they had mustachios on their upper lips, and segars in their mouths, and began to talk execrable German, that all men passing might know, that they had travelled. In the middle of the street was a female singing in a voice, neither inharmonious nor unpractised, "Oh say not woman's heart is bought," to the dull ears of drunkenness and riot. Her face was nearly concealed; and she appeared almost in the last stage of a consumption. From the little, too, which we could discern of the countenance, it was not difficult to perceive, that disease had been long busy in making ravages upon the lines which originally might not have been destitute of regular beauty. It is probable, that she was an actress of a low order, whom sickness or misconduct had driven from the stage; and forced upon this miserable method of procuring a scanty and precarious subsistence. We gave her what we could afford; and turned with a sickening chill from the wreck of womanhood.

66

Without considering, which way we were going, we walked back along the Hay-Market, and found ourselves in the passages, which lead to Leicester-square. Assuredly, these are not the places which we would recommend at midnight for the contemplation of an optimist. He must relinquish his opinions in despair, amid such a scene of guilt, distress and infamy. If we conceive a circle, of which Leicester-square is the centre, with a radius of half a mile, what a mass of depravity and hopelessness, corruption and agony, reckless degradation and callous profligacy, shall we enclose in that little compass! We met few human beings, except women who had forgotten their sex, and men who were sunk in utter bestiality. The former tripped towards us, with that air and expression of wanton familiarity, which misery and hunger ean but ill assume; the latter staggered on with broken oaths, and muttered sounds of blasphemy. One was lying on some steps in the worst stage of nausea, groaning, and cursing the passers-by and himself, in the intervals of vomiting.-Yet it was one of those calm, clear,

and beautiful summer-nights, when it is impossible to gaze for a moment upon the heavens, without feeling a sense of deep, pure, and exquisite delight glide into the imagination, and diffuse itself over the soul, until it drives for a while from our memory the base intrigues, the low vexations, and the disgusting vices of mortality: without losing ourselves in serene and exalted meditation, or recurring to the happiest and most blameless periods of our existence. Thus at least it must have been in any tranquil and sequestered spot: but here-revolting truth !—we could not gaze upwards without the danger of stumbling over the body of a prostrate drunkard.

as

"I must here say, that I could not envy the Major his additional sources of pleasure, when he could find amusement in such a scene; and told us, that it was of no use to lament and moralize over dismal matters when we could not mend them. I, too, perhaps, might have smiled at the half-ludicrous, half-pitiable, objects, which were offered to our view in the persons of our own sex ; but who could look without shuddering upon female wretchedness and disgrace. What is there on the face of the globe so unlike itself, woman?-Ever in the extremes of good or evil, ever better or worse than man—the truest or the most faithless-the mildest or the most infuriated; the most energetic or the most languid; the loveliest or the most debased; the most stainless or most abandoned-things that seem almost above humanity-on whom the air of impurity has never breathed-in whose presence one licentious word were sacrilege and pollution-whose faces the winds of heaven must not visit too roughly-guarded by the tenderest attachment and the most boundless devotion: or the houseless, hopeless, abject and impious beings, lost to every feeling of decency-every sense of shame-every thought of religion-exposed in unsheltered penury to the inclemency of midnight—and reproached by the taunts and contumely of the lowest and most villanous of mankind. Look there, Philanthropy-trace the melancholy contrast in the spirit of compassionate and active benevolence—and thy labours will never rest!

"By following a straight line we came to Covent Garden.