DIALOGUE THE FOURTH.

MISERIES OF LONDON.

TESTY, SENIOR AND JUNIOR.-SENSITIVE.

(AT A COFFEE HOUSE.)

Testy.

WELCOME to London, friend Sensitive! and still more welcome to this quiet room-can you hear me?

Sen. If I cannot, this constant and cheerful noise of carts and coaches, which is said by some to favour conversation, will help me out, I suppose.

Tes. Nay, if a man must be stunned before he can hear, the deaf should lose no time in coming up to London!-But how long have you been in this elysium of brick and mortar? and what have you seen?

Sen. Seen!-I am so full of what I have heard, that I hardly know; for, of all my organs, my ear, I think, torments me most;-and yet I beg pardon of my nose, which, in London, seems still more earnestly bent on my destruction.

Tes. I give you joy, however, of having found out that; there is some comfort in knowing which of your five servants is least busy in plotting against its

master. As to me, the conspiracy is so nicely balanced among them, that I shall never be able to detect the ring leader. All I know is, that whenever they may finish me, there will be some of my blood at each of their doors.But you seemed, just now, as if you were going to be very eloquent upon noises, in particular:-any thing much worse than usual in

that line?

Sen. O, yes, if possible: in an evil hour, I lately changed my lodgings, to escape from a brazier at the next door, who counted his profits so very distinctly upon the drums of my ears, that, not thinking myself indemnified by the value of the intelligence for the loss of my hearing, I took wing at a moment's warning; the only consequence, however, has been that of exchanging one old enemy for a thousand new What is a single brazier to a legion of brazen throats? But I anticipate-it is time to go to business, and I will lead the way, if you please, with a "Misery" which will too fully answer your last ques tion. (Sen. produces his memoranda, and reads)

ones.

GROAN 1. (S.)

While you are harmlessly reading, or writing, in a room which fronts the street, being compelled, during the whole morning, to undergo that savage jargon of yells, brays, and screams, familiarly, but feebly, termed, "the Cries of London" -dustmen, beggars, muffin mongers, knife grinders, and news carriers included :

"Bombalio, clangor, stridor, tarantantara, murmur !”---you having, all the while, no interest whatever in the uproar, except in the simple character of a sufferer: or, should you

chance to have a wish for what is in the baskets, or barrows, of these sharkmouthed bawlers, being necessitated to let them pass unstopped, from your utter incapability of ever arriving at the slightest smattering in any of the infernal dialects in which their goods are uttered, and which they have palpably invented for the sole purpose of guarding against the smallest risk of being, by any accident understood;—and thus is a new Misery struck out for you, from your own indignation at their distorted ingenuity in devising stratagems for their own ruin -which must obviously be the direct consequence of their unintelligibility.

2. (T.)

After walking in a great hurry to a place, on very urgent business, by what you think a shorter cut, and supposing that you are just arriving at the door you want-"No Thorough fare."

Sen. Not to mention the Misery of turning back, splashing along at full speed, and fighting your way through the crowd; and all this in order to go the longest way round, and be too late at last!-so that your whole account stands thus :

"Negatâ tentat iter via

Coetusque vulgares, et udam

Spernit humum fugiente" plenta.

3. (S.)

Hor.

Stopping in the street, to address a person whom you know rather too well to pass him without speaking, and yet not quite well enough to have a word to say to him he feeling himself in the same dilemma ;-so that, after each has asked, and answered the question "How do you do, Sir?" you stand silently face to face, apropos to nothing, during a minute; and then part in a transport of awkwardness.

4. (T.)

Stumbling through London streets, in pumps, over hills of filthy snow, in the beginning of a great thaw, and occasionally passing over a wide, floated crossing, on a tottering plank, closely accompanied by a hopping sweeper, who vociferously begs at you all the way, and keeps thrusting his greasy hat against your cloths :-no halfpenny.

5. (T.)

As you are hastening down the Strand, on a matter of life and death, encountering, at an archway, the head of the first of twelve or fourteen horses, who, you know, must successively strain up with an overloaded coal waggon, before you can hope to stir an inch-unless you prefer bedevilling your white stockings,and clean shoes,by scampering and crawling, among, and under, coaches, scavengers, carts, &c. &c. in the middle of the street.

Walking, side by side, half over London, with a cart containing a million of iron bars, which you must outbray, if you can, in order to make your companion hear a word you have further to say upon the subject you were earnestly discussing, before you were joined by this infernal article of commerce.

................

Tes. Nay, I have a case of intrusion within doors, (and one to which we are every moment in danger of suffering where we now sit,) still worse than yours

8. (T.)

While you are peaceably reading your paper at a coffeehouse-two friends perfect strangers to you, squatting themselves down at your right and left hand, and talking across you, for an hour, over their private concerns.

9.. (S.)

While on a short visit to London-the hurry and fermentthe crossing and jostling-the missing and marring-which incessantly happen among all your engagements, purposes, and promises, both of business and pleasure-at home and abroad-from morning till midnight;-obstacles equally perverse, unexpected, unaccountable, innumerable, and intolerable, springing up like mushrooms through every step of your progress. Then, (when you are at last leaving London,) on asking yourself the question whether any thing has been neglected, or forgotten, receiving for answer-" Almost every thing!"

10. (S.)

As you are walking with your charmer-meeting a drunken sailor, who, as he staggers by you, ejects his reserve of tobacco against the lady's drapery.

................

Now is not this too much, Sir?

Ned Tes. Yes, that's exactly what it is; therefore you should have cried out, in time,

"Ne QUID nigh miss!"

11. (T.)

Walking briskly forwards, while you are looking backwards, and so advancing towards another passenger, (a scavenger,) who is doing the same; then meeting with the shock of two battering rams, which drives your whole stock of breath out of your body, with the groan of a paviour :

" ruinam

Dant sonitu ingentem, perfractaque.........

Pectora pectoribus rumpunt."*

At length after a mutual burst of execrations, you each

"Breast against breast, with ruinous assault,

And deaf'ning shock, they come."