tutions. Such a half-horse half-alligator monster cannot judge, like a Puny Judge, of a case of feebleness. The broad-chested cannot allow for the narrow-breasted; the robust for the no-bust. Nevertheless, even the stalwart may sometimes fall egregiously short of their own designs—as witness a case in point.

Amongst my fellow passengers, on a late sea voyage, there was one who attracted my especial attention. A glance at his face, another at his figure, a third at his costume, and a fourth at his paraphernalia, sufficed to detect his country by his light hair, nubbly features, heavy frame, odd-colored dressing-gown, and the national meerschaum and gaudy tobacco-bag, he was undeniably a German. But, besides the everlasting pipe, he was provided with a sketching apparatus, an ample note-book, a gun, and a telescope; the whole being placed ready for immediate use. He had predetermined, no doubt, to record his German sentiments on first making acquaintance with the German Ocean; to sketch the picturesque craft he might encounter on its surface; to shoot his first sea-gull; and to catch a first glimpse of the shores of Albion, beyond the reach of the naked eye. But alas! all these intentions fell-if one may correctly say so with only sky and water-to the ground. He ate nothing-drank nothing-smoked nothing-drew nothing-wrote nothing-shot nothing-spied nothing-nay he merely stared, but replied nothing to my friendly inquiry (I am ill at the German tongue and its pronunciation), "Wie befinden sea sick?"

Now, my own case, gentle reader, has been precisely akin to that of our unfortunate Cousin German. Like him I have promised much, projected still more, and done little. Like him, too, I have been a sick man, though not at sea, but on shoreand in excuse of all that has been left undone, or delayed, with other Performers, when they do not perform, I must proffer the old theatrical plea of indisposition. As the Rambler describes, I have erected schemes which have been blown down by an ill wind; I have formed plans and been weather-beaten, like another Murphy, by a change in the weather. For instance, the Comic Annual for 1839 ought properly to have been published some forty days earlier; but was obliged, as it were, to perform quarantine, for want of a clean Bill of Health. Thus, too, the

patron of the present Work, who has taken the trouble to peruse certain chapters under the title of Literary Reminiscences, will doubtless have compared the tone of them with an Apology in Number Six, wherein, declining any attempt at an Auto-biography, a promise was made of giving such anecdotes as a bad memory and a bad hearing might have retained of my literary friends and acquaintance. Hitherto, however, the fragments in question have only presented desultory glimpses of a goose-quill still in its green-gosling-hood, instead of any recollections of "celebrated pens." The truth is that my malady forced me to temporise :—wherefore the kind reader will be pleased to consider the aforesaid chapters but as so many "false starts," and that Memory has only now got away, to make play as well as she can.

Whilst I am thus closeted in the Confessional, it may be as well, as the Pelican said, to make a clean breast of it, and at once plead guilty to all those counts-and some, from long-standing, have become very Old Baily counts-that haunt my conscience. The most numerous of these crimes relate to letters that would not, could not, or at least did not answer. Others refer to the receipt of books, and, as an example of their heinousness, it misgives me that I was favored with a little volume by W. and M. Howitt, without ever telling them how-it pleased me. A few offences concern engagements which it was impossible to fulfil, although doubly bound by principle and interest. Seriously I have perforce been guilty of many, many, and still many sins of omission; but Hope, reviving with my strength, promises, granting me life, to redeem all such pledges. In the meantime, in extenuation, I can only plead particularly that deprecation which is offered up, in behalf of all Christian defaulters every Sunday,—" We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,—And there is no HEALTH in us.”

It is pleasant after a match at Chess, particularly if we have won, to try back, and reconsider those important moves which have had a decisive influence on the result. It is still more interesting, in the game of Life, to recal the critical positions which have occurred during its progress, and review the false or judicious steps that have led to our subsequent good or ill fortune. There is, however, this difference, that chess is a matter

of pure skill and calculation, whereas the chequered board of human life is subject to the caprice of Chance-the event being sometimes determined by combinations which never entered into the mind of the player.* To such an accident it is, perhaps, attributable, that the hand now tracing these reminiscences is holding a pen instead of an etching-point: jotting down these prose pleasures of memory, in lieu of furnishing articles "plated on steel," for the pictorial periodicals.

It will be remembered that my mental constitution, however weak my physical one, was proof against that type-us fever which parches most scribblers till they are set up, done up, and may be, cut up, in print and boards. Perhaps I had read, and trembled at the melancholy annals of those unfortunates, who, rashly undertaking to write for bread, had poisoned themselves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked themselves, like Otway, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to think humbly of myself there is nothing like early sickness and sorrow for " taking the conceit" out of one-my vanity did not presume to think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I “had a call" to hold forth in print for the edification of mankind. Perchance, the very deep reverence my reading had led me to entertain for our Bards and Sages, deterred me from thrusting myself into the fellowship of Beings that seemed only a little lower than the angels. However, in spite of that very common excuse for publication, "the advice of a friend," who seriously recommended the submitting of my MSS. to a literary authority, with a view to his imprimatur, my slight acquaintance with the press was pushed no farther. On the contrary, I had selected a branch of the Fine Arts for my serious pursuit. Prudence, the daughter of Wisdom, whispering, perhaps, that the engraver, Pye, had a better chance of beef-steak inside, than Pye the Laureate; not that the verse-spinning was quite given up.

* To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of circumstances, Oliver Twist. There are few authors whom one would care to see running two heats with the same horse. It is intended, therefore, as a compliment, that I wish Boz would re-write the history in question from page 122, supposing his hero NOT to have met with the Artful Dodger on his road to seek his fortune.

Though working in aqua fortis, I still played with Castaly, now writing all monkeys are imitators, and all young authors are monkeys-now writing a Bandit, to match the Corsair, and anon, hatching a Lalla Crow, by way of companion to Lalla Rookh. Moreover, about this time, I became a member of a private select Literary Society that "waited on Ladies and Gentlemen at their own houses." Our Minerva, allegorically speaking, was a motley personage, in blue stockings, a flounced gown, quaker cap and kerchief, French flowers, and a man's hat. She held a fan in one hand and a blowpipe in the other. Her votaries were of both sexes, old and young, married and single, assenters, dissenters, High Church, Low Church, No Church; Doctors in Physics, and Apothecaries in Metaphysics; dabblers in Logic, Chemistry, Casuistry, Sophistry, natural and unnatural History, Phrenology, Geology, Conchology, Demonology; in short, all kinds of Colledgy-Knowledgy-Ology, including “Cakeology," and tea and coffee. Like other Societies, we had our President-a sort of Speaker who never spoke; at least within my experience he never unbosomed himself of anything but a portentous shirt frill. According to the usual order of the entertainment, there was, first-Tea and Small Talk; secondly, an original essay, which should have been followed, thirdly, by a Discussion, or Great Talk; but nine times in ten, it chanced, or rather mumchanced, that, between those who did not know what to think, and others, who did not know how to deliver what they thought, there ensued a dead silence, so "very dead indeed," as Apollo Belvi says, that it seemed buried into the bargain. To make this awkward pause more awkward, some misgiving voice, between a whisper and a croak, would stammer out some allusion to a Quaker's Meeting, answered from right to left by a running titter, the speaker having innocently, or perhaps wilfully forgotten, that one or two friends in drab coats, and as many in slate-colored gowns, were sitting, thumb-twiddling, in the circle. Not that the Friends contented themselves with playing dumby at our discussions. They often spoke, and very characteristically, to the matter in hand. For instance, their favorite doctrine of non-resistance was once pushed-if Quakers ever push-a little "beyond be

yond." By way of clencher, one fair, meek, sleek Quakeress, in dove color, gravely told a melo-dramatic story of a conscientious Friend, who, rather than lift even his finger against a Foe, passively, yea, lamb-like, suffered himself to be butchered in bed by an assassin, and died consistently, as he thought, with Fox principles, very like a Goose. As regards my own share in the Essays and Arguments, it misgives me, that they no more satisfied our decidedly serious members, than they now propitiate Mr. Rae Wilson. At least, one Society night, in escorting a female Fellow towards her home, she suddenly stopped me, taking advantage, perhaps, of the awful locality, and its associations, just in front of our chief criminal prison, and looking earnestly in my face, by the light of a Newgate lamp, inquired somewhat abruptly, “Mr. Hood! are you not an Infidel ?''*

In the meantime, whilst thus playing at Literature, an event was ripening which was to introduce me to Authorship in earnest, and make the Muse, with whom I had only flirted, my companion for life. It had often occurred to me, that a striking, romantical, necromantical, metaphysical, melo-dramatical, Germanish story, might be composed, the interest of which should turn on the mysterious influences of the fate of A over the destiny of B, the said parties having no more natural or apparent connection with each other than Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin Sands. An instance of this occult contingency occurred in my own case; for I did not even know by sight the unfortunate gentleman on whose untimely exit depended my entrance on the literary stage. In the beginning of the year 1821, a memorable duel, originating in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place at Chalk Farm, and terminated in the death of Mr. John Scott, the able Editor of the London Magazine. The melancholy result excited great interest, in which I fully participated, little dreaming that his catastrophe involved any consequences of importance to myself. But, on the loss of its conductor, the Periodical passed into other hands. The new Proprietors were my friends; they sent for me, and after some preliminaries,

* In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two of its members have since distinguished themselves in print: the authoress of "London in the Olden Time," and the author of a "History of Moral Science."