as though their works had, by the quantity of the rain, been changed into waterworks. The big flag outside the Lowther Bazaar, like the flags you are walking upon, is exceedingly wet. The playbills are so wet that you could not read them if you wished. The persons you meet inside a theatre are all wet, and the actors act as if the rain had taken all the fire out of them, and they had not had time to get a fresh supply. The chairs in the shops are wet. The seats in the cabs are wet. The seats in the omnibuses are as wet as they can be, and the change the conductor hands you is sure, every penny of it, to be wet.

Oh! what a melancholy place an omnibus is for a person to squeeze his cheerless body into on a wet day. It makes you shiver only to think of it. First of all, you get in chilly, you do not feel in the most amiable humour, your umbrella is dripping, and your feet are as wet as a bathing-woman's. Then the omnibus, of course, is full, no one makes room for you, and you are thrown on wet laps from one side to another, till at last you are shaken

church steeple, and from the three gilt balls opposite, and from the " Jolly Tar" round the corner, and from the barber's pole, and from the "Golden Fleece," which hangs over the hosier's window, exactly as if it was drowned. It is falling from the postmen's hats, which look as if they must fall in, every minute, from the excess of wet; and it is falling from the policeman's cape, that shines like patent leather boots. It is dripping from every possible ledge, angle, housetop, cave, and corner. A long stream of it pours from George the Third's pigtail in Waterloo-place, precisely as if his blackleaded majesty was afflicted with water on the brain and it was being quietly pumped out of him. It is dripping from the tarpaulin cases in which the saturated little news-boys have folded their papers (in this instance literally "wet from the Press"), and it is overflowing from the milkman's pails, to the contents of which the rain is superfluously contributing an extra degree of the real London flavour. The potboy who walks along with the cautiousness of a diver at the bottom of a river, seems to be nerv-down by the jolting of the vehicle into a ously afraid, from the care he takes of the numerous pewters he is carrying, lest the London Entire they contain should be changed before they reach their destination into Half-and-half. All the pumps, too, appear crying, for they keep snivel ling and spouting away as if they were at a Temperance meeting. As for the miserable statues, they look more miserable than ever, and it would be a positive charity to lend them a pocket-handker- The prospect before you is not of the chief. But George the Fourth and the most cheering nature. There is a long Duke of Wellington extort your greatest avenue of faces pulled out by the influshare of sympathy. There they stand, ence of the weather to a most telescopic poor fellows, exposed to the pelting piti-length, as though they were nautically less shower, and you begin to think that intent upon observing the storm that the artist who could turn them out in the was brewing in the distance. Every rain with nothing upon their heads, must human index points to wet-very wet. have had a heart harder than the material The gentlemen's whiskers are bearded he worked upon. Steaming visions of with large drops, and the ladies' "whiswater-gruel rise before your imagination kers," (in their bonnets) have the starch merely in looking at them! taken completely out of them. There is Everything is wet. The door-knock- a hazy atmosphere rising from the straw ers are wet. Every persons hand you bed of the river which runs at the take is wet. The clocks, as they toll the bottom of the omnibus; and this atwatery hours, strike you as being wet;mosphere settles on the window-panes

seat about as large as the seat of mercy at an Austrian court-martial. You find your body wedged in between two muffled people as damp as yourself, with their umbrellas sticking like wet clothes to your knees. There is an agreeable perfume of pluvial mackintoshes, which is, perhaps, not the most exhilarating restorative for a person who is labouring under a violent depression of spirits.

and the lungs of the passengers, intercepting the view of the distant cad, and making all the "insides" cough. Every umbrella is a tributary to this portable New River, which is generally about two feet deep; those two feet being your own, and it affords most pleasant angling to any gentleman who may happen to drop his gloves in, or to any lady who may happen to let fall a sixpence into it, and we were never in an omnibus yet but a lady was sure, before the journey's end, to drop something.

If there is a broken window right behind your back (and it is strange if an omnibus hasn't something of that sort), the cheerfulness, as a necessary consequence, is greatly increased. In such a case the cushion is saturated thoroughly, and you have the satisfaction of feeling as though you were sitting on a wet sponge. Altogether you enjoy a most delightful sitz-bath, cutting the miserable figure of a Chevalier Seul in La Poule (which, in this instance, should be spelt Fool), until the Gampy old lady opposite, with the wet bundle of a baby in her arms, gets out, and gives you an opportunity of crossing over, and changing partners.

But the miseries of an omnibus on a wet day do not stop here. Every sense is put to the torture, laid under the very highest hydraulic pressure of discomfort. The hearing fares just as badly as any other. You may have your ears bored with seven different kinds of cough and colds, all running through your head at the same time. On certain occasions you can fancy the omnibus must be Shillibeer's, there being inside nothing but the coughing. There is a particular omnibus cough which, like an alarum, when once it goes off, is most difficult to stop. It has been known to start at Hammersmith, and not to halt once until it has reached the Bank. As you hear it booming behind the folds of an immense woollen handkerchief, it sounds anything but like the voice of a comforter!

These are not all. The misery of getting out is fully as great as the misery of getting in. There is the certainty of

being splashed by every revolving cab, and the chance of being run over, as you stand in the middle of the road, battling, like Napoleon, with the elements, and struggling to raise your umbrella, which flaps about in the wind like a wet sail. Altogether, an omnibus on a wet day is such a vehicle of ague, rheumatism, melancoly, and discomfort, that I wouldn't put a kitten into it, unless I wished to drown it.

What strikes a person most particularly in London on a wet day is the absence of all the dogs and birds. Where do the thousands of vagabond dogs that prowl about the metropolis when it is fine, hide themselves when it is raining? Where do the millions of sparrows fly to ? You may search every mews, and yet not find one. What feathery Refuge for the Destitute (like Leicester or Red Lion-square), I wonder, takes them in.

Another curious feature on a wet day is the independence of the cabmen. He, who is eager for a fare in dusty weather, will scarcely notice you when the dust is laid by a few drops of rain. You may "Hi! hi!" in vain; he moves unconsciously on, his whip remains as motionless as his head; he will not take the one from out of his side pocket, nor lift up the other from off his chest, on which it is reposing, borne down by the weight of the plethoric straw-band that threatens to throttle his sloppy hat. Whether he has a fare or not you cannot tell. The steam on the windows prevents your seeing inside. There you may remain, under your archway, whistling, shivering for an hourhis independent highness on the box does not condescend to look at you; or, if he does stop to take you up, he makes you clearly understand it is done as a favour, and drives a hard bargain, if nothing. else, with you, as if Lord Maidstone's Deluge had really come, and he was proprietor of a second Noah's Ark.

How different, also, are the omnibus cads on a wet day! They are as mild as possible. The heaviness of the rain seems to have beaten all the chaff out of them.

But there is a most humiliating sight

In the country a wet day is not so wretched, for no one thinks of leaving home. The people look out of window over the blinds all day, and count the drops of rain. But in London persons are driven out to seek a living. Business pushes you out into the streets, whether

on a wet day that always moves my pity. | sir, will bless you." Who could refuse It is to watch the gorgeous Johnnies such an appeal? Fancy being out on that are sent out by their unfeeling mis- such a night! tresses, when it is raining, to fetch a book from the circulating library. Poor fellows! how wretched, how terribly out of their element do they look! They are human peacocks that should never air their fine feathers but when the sun is shining. It is most cruel to send them out with their magnificent stockings-you like it or no; and so you are jostled, let them have the snowy whiteness of cotton, or the mother-o'pearl shininess of silk-and to compel them to pick their slippery way over dirty streets, that are swimming with mud on a pouring wet day, when there is'nt a single crossingsweeper to be seen. One's heart bleeds to see one of these fine, plushing specimens of humanity tiptoeing gingerly across a swollen gutter, fording the watery road by stepping from stone to stone, and all the while hiding his shame, as much as he can, under an umbrella large enough to hold over the dome of St. Paul's; and, oh! if a Hansom cab should be whirling down rapidly upon him, when he is not more than half-way across, it is almost sufficient to make you rush forward, and, snatching him up in your arms, carry him safely over to the opposite side.

These are but a few of the characteristics-only a few drops thimbled out of the immense ocean of the subject-of London on a Wet Day. In fact, the subject is so illimitable that one would require nothing less than a sheet of water to write it upon. There are the evening characteristics when the gas is lighted, and it is reflected on the thousand streams and lakes of mud that render the streets on those occasions such difficult naviga tion after dusk. Then there are the poor Beggar-girls, who run after you with their naked feet, soliciting you, in piteous tones, to buy their wet bunches of violets; and the forlorn creatures, also, with their battered bonnets, and their arms folded in the shape of a cross over their naked breasts, who sidle up to you, out of dark porticos and door ways, and beg of you, "for mercy's sake, to give them a trifle for a night's lodging, and Heaven, kind |

and brought into contact with surly people, and drenched umbrellas, and wandering outcasts of the lowest grades of society, that rumple and soil your drawing-room susceptibilities, and leave large stains of mud on the fine Frenchcambric feelings of your gentility. But, pshaw! it will never do to think in this way. There's rheumatism, almost in, in the very thought! It is best to run home, and lock the rain out of doors, and change the subject and our clothes at the same time. On my word, I feel as full of rain as a water-butt!

THE EMIGRANT'S FAMILY.

ONE of the strongest peculiarities-indeed, I may say passions of the Irish, is their devoted fondness for their offspring.

A curious illnstration of this occurred to me on my recent journey through the Northern lakes. It happened to be what sailors call very dirty weather, finished up by a tremendous gale, which obliged us to seek shelter at a lump of aboriginal barrenness, called Manitou Island, where we were obliged to remain for five days. There were a few deck passengers,-between five and six hundred; and inasmuch as they had only provided themselves with barely sufficient for the average time, provisions became alarmingly scarce, and no possibi lity of a supply. To be sure there was one venerable ox,—a sort of semi-petrification, an organic remnant-a poor, attenuated, hornless, sightless, bovine patriarch, who obligingly yielded up his small residue of existence for our benefit. Indeed, it was quite a mercy that we arrived to relieve him from his painful state of suspense; for so old and powerless was he, that if his

"I don't know," said. I; suppose we matther." make the inquiry."

The man was sent for, and the delicate business thus opened:

other's ways; but here's a little Biddy,-
she's purtier far, if she'll do as well."
"It's all the same," said I; "let Biddy
remain."

66

THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL,
THE FATHER OF THE GREAT
STATESMAN.

SIR ROBERT PEEL, the first baronet and the second manufacturer of the name, inherited all his father's enterprise, ability, and industry. His position, at starting in life, was little above that of an ordinary working man; for his father, though laying the foundations of future prosperity, was still struggling with the difficulties arising from insufficient capital. When Robert was only twenty

"May heaven he her guardian!" cried he, snatching her up in his arms, and giving her one long, hearty kiss. "Go, be kind to them that's kind to you, and thim that offers you hurt or harm may their soul niver see Saint Pether!"-So the bereaved father rushed away, and all that night the child remained with us; but] early next morning my friend Pat reappeared, and this time he had his yougest child, a mere babe, snugly cud-years of age he determined to begin the dled up in his arms.

66

business of cotton printing, which he had by this time learnt with his father, on his own account. His uncle, James Haworth, and William Yates of Blackburn, joined him in his enterprise; the whole capital which they could raise amongst them amounting to only about £500, the prin cipal part of which was supplied by William Yates. His father kept a small inn in Blackburn, where he was well known as "Yates o' th' Bull;" and having saved money by his business, he was willing to advance sufficient to give his son a start in the lucrative trade of cotton printing, then in its infancy. Robert Peel, though comparatively a mere youth, supplied the "Just as you like," said I, having a practical knowledge of the business; but pretty good guess how matters would it was said of him, and proved true, that eventuate. So he took away his pet he "carried an old head on young shouldBiddy, and handed me the little toddling ers." A ruined corn mill, with its adjoinurchin. This chirping little vagabonding fields, was purchased for a comparawill not be long with us, thought I. Nor was he. Ten minutes had scarcely elapsed ere Pat rushed into the cabin, and seizing little Paudeen up in his arms, he turned to me, and with large tears bubbling in his eyes, cried out

Why then, sir," said he, with an expression of the most comic anxiety, "axin' yer honor's pardon for bein' so wake-hearted, but whin I began to think of Biddy's eyes,-look at thim, they're the image of her mother's, bedad,-I couldn't let her go; but here's little Paudeen; he won't be much trouble to any one, for if he takes afcher his mother, he'll have the brightest eye and the softest heart on the top of creation,-and if he takes afther his father, he'll have a purty hard fist on a broad pair of shoulders, to push his way through the wurld. Take him, sir, and gi' me Biddy."

"Look at him, sir,-jist look at him!it's the youngest. You wouldn't have the heart to keep him from uz. The long and the short of it is, I've bin spakin' to Mary. Ye see she couldn't part wid Norah, and I didn't like to let Biddy gö; but, be me sowl, naither of uz could live a half day without little Paudeen. No, sir, no; we can bear the bitterness of poverty, but we can't part from our childer, nuless it be the will of Heaven to take them from uz !"

tively small sum, near the then insignifi cant town of Bury, where the works long after continued to be known as "The Ground;" and, a few wooden sheds having been run up, the firm commenced their cotton-printing business in a very humble way in the year 1770, adding to it that of cotton-spinning a few years later. The frugal style in which the partners lived may be inferred from the following inci dent in their early career. William Yates, being a married man with a family. commenced housekeeping on a small scale, and to oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The sum which the latter first paid for board and lodging was only 8s. a week; but Yates, considering this too little, insisted