strain, "Milk," almost at as high an octave as could have been reached by the last starring Italian cantatrice; and she doubtless professes that her shining cans were this very morning plenished in the cool dairies of Hendon, or at one of the scattered farms in the green meads of Surrey, when, in real and indisputable fact, the thin, white liquid had its fons et origo partly from the stalled udders in the sunless, subterranean cowsheds, and partly from the pure and undefiling blue pump!

A straggling, diagonal line of sweepers are clearing away the refuse from the thoroughfare, then the clatter of shutters-opening of shop-doors! The pale mechanic, with stealing step, is wending his way to the resumption of diurnal toil, with one hand in his pocket, the other raised to his pipe, which he puffs as complacently as would have done Christopher North, or our own old and good friend Tom Browning, when eyeing the world below from the snowy scalp of Ben Cruachan. A file of the fire brigade are wheeling away that escape-ladder which is only visible

at nights; and-and-yes! look wellbehold, with eye of pity, that taterdemallion, slip-shod, and half nudated, in her patchwork of rags, picking up the cinders and bits of coal from the deposited ash heaps; notice how eagerly she places the morsels of fuel in her apron; poor, friendless, wretched creature, her condition is verily deplorable, her appearance the acmè of misery. Then that unharmonious cry of water-cresses, painfully elongated by the nasal drawler; the tinkling bell of the hot roll and crumpet vendor; these and divers other primo mane realities, are the metropolitan associations of the opening day.

It is an hour later, what a marvellous increase of vehicles, horses, bustle, men! The punctual postman, with his plethorically distended satchel of letters and newspapers is, with authoritative knock and ring, diffusing joy-sorrow-intelligence! The noise is more general, and more and more audible in the distance the great arteries are flowing fuller and fuller with accumulative currents, and all the strange characteristics of this mighty city are about to be resumed!

Just ascend these wide and easy steps, and peep into the magnificent entrance hall of this noble pile, so palatial and lofty, and finely architectural, which is the luxurious rendezvous of several hundred members, the immense majority of whom are easy-circumstanced, worldly-minded, fashionable men, who here eat good dinners and drink old wine, while freed from scolding wives and importunate duns. The spaciousness, the fittings-up, the furniture, the everything connected with it make one halt for a moment and reflect how unlike that little parlour where old Johnson, Sir Joshua, little Goldy, the sattellitic Bozzy and others, held their club or how unlike the club at Tarboltonor the Beef-steak Club-or the weekly gatherings dignified by that appellation, at the "Cat and Fiddle," or the "Three Jolly Dogs," where the members swear and smoke, guzzle foaming pots, swallow gin-sling, or the neat blue-ruin, talk politics and treason, and call such enjoyments!

The club we have just passed into is in close proximity with St. James's; it vaunts

of its high name; professes political importance, and boasts that there is no chance of getting in under five years, at the minimum. It (or they composing it) pretends to having a mighty and mysterious influence with close boroughs, even in remote parts of the empire, wherein its name, by the vulgar throng, has never been articulated, and sometimes an idler on its steps has been picked up, dispatched as my lord's man, and returned within fourteen days an M.P., as a duly elected burgess, to represent unfetteredly their interests in the Common's House of Parliament! It pretends to the first and foremost knowledge of all matters carried on at St. Stephen's-to be an institution constituting one of the fresh phases of social advancement, and is a kind of genteel growth out of the better class of hotels in a previous age.

Those pale-faced, nimble-tripping, ministers to the wants of others, who, even at this hour look sleepy, and are unwashed and in dishabille, having, most likely, not gone

to bed before the small hours, how much less neat and comely they seem, and how much less clerical in their aspect when in jean jackets, with turned up sleeves, than they did yestreen, when attired in sombre black, cap a pie. That full-sized, pasty-faced mortal who is polishing the table, whose surface is so reflective that he can discern his negligently-knotted kerchief, must be soliloquising as his lips are moving, and he smiles at his mirrored physiognomy. He is not soliloquising, he is discoursing with a colleague. But to list to their tete à tete, as there may be some clubbistic wisdom in what they say; and remember John Locke affirmed that something was to be gained from the conversation of every man.

"I do think, Mr. Deputy Dick, you are somewhat remiss in your duties this mornin'," said the pasty to his co-employé.

"You think so, do ye?" dryly returned Dick.

"Do, indeed," answered pasty.

"Then I'll just make this 'ere triflin' obserwation, that I shall be werry much obleeged