there stood a hay-stack. On the shady side of this I sat down to read. The book was so different from anything that I had read before, it was something so new to my mind, that, though I could not at all understand some of it, it delighted me beyond description; and it produced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect; I read on till it was dark, without any thought about supper or bed. When I could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket, and tumbled down by the side of the stack, where I slept till the birds in Kew-gardens awakened me in the morning; when off I started to Kew, reading my little book. The singularity of my dress, the simplicity of my manner, my confident and lively air, and, doubtless, his own compassion besides, induced the gardener, who was a Scotsman, to give me victuals, find me lodging, and set me to work. And it was during the period that I was at Kew, that the present King (William IV.) and two of his brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress, while I was sweeping the grass-plot round the foot of the Pagoda. The gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me some gardening books to read; but these I could not relish after my 'Tale of a Tub,' which I carried about with me wherever I went, and when I, at about twenty years old, lost it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me greater pain than I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds. This circumstance, trifling as it was, and childish as it may seem to relate it, has always endeared the recollection of Kew to me.

Equally touching are the following Recollections by Cobbett, at a late period of his life:

"After living within a hundred yards of Westminster Hall, and the Abbey Church, and the Bridge, and looking from my own window into St. James's Park, all other buildings and spots appeared mean and insignificant. I went to-day to see the house I formerly occupied. How small! It is always thus: the words large and small are carried about with us in our minds, and we forget real dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, remains during our absence from the object. When I returned to England in 1800, after an absence from the country parts of it for sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump over, called rivers. The Thames was but a creek.' But when, in

about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross in my postchaise the long and dreary heath of Bagshot; then, at the end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learned, before, the death of my father and mother. There is a hill not far from the town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. 'As high as Crooksbury Hill,' meant with us the utmost degree of height. Therefore the first object my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes! Literally speaking, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed, and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen in New Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as big, and four or five times as high! The postboy, going down hill, and not a bad road, whisked me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden of which I could see the prodigious sand hill where I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing! But now came rushing into my mind, all at once, my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle, and tender-hearted, and affectionate mother. I hastened back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer, I should have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a change! What scenes I had gone through! How altered my state! I had dined the day before at a secretary of state's, in company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy liveries. I had had nobody to assist me in the world; no teachers of any sort; nobody to shelter me from the consequence of bad, and nobody to counsel me to good, behaviour. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth, all became nothing in my eyes; and from that moment (less than a month after my arrival in England), I resolved never to bend before them."

COBBETT UPON BACON.

A certain utilitarian inductive philosopher had gravely propounded the view, how greatly to be hoped it was that the time might come when the poor man, after the labour of the day, might refresh himself by reading Bacon. "Much more

to the purpose," said Mr. Cobbett, "if the time could come when the poor man, after the labour of the day, might refresh himself by eating bacon."

Cobbett had great contempt for those enthusiasts who gravely proposed "useful knowledge" as a panacea for the poor man's evils. Riding one day, in the country, Cobbett was passing a flour-mill which had just been converted into a paper-mill; he remarked, "they seem to think the people can eat books."

LATE HOURS.

The Rev. Mr. Barham, (Ingoldsby,) when a student at Oxford, was taken to task by Mr. Hodson, afterwards Principal of Brazenose, for his continued absence from morning chapel. "The fact is, sir," urged his pupil, "you are too late for me." "Too late," repeated the tutor, in astonishment. "Yes, sir, I cannot sit up till seven o'clock in the morning: I am a man of regular habits and unless I get to bed by four or five, at latest, I am really fit for nothing next day."

:

GOOD ADVICE.

"What do you mean to do with K?" said a friend of Theodore Hook, alluding to a man who had grossly vilified him. "Do with him?" replied Hook; "why, I mean to let him alone most severely."

VERY LIKE.

Two silly brothers about town, being twins, were nearly alike, and dressed similarly, to deceive their friends as to their identity. Tom Hill was expatiating on these modern Dromios, when Hook "pooh-pooh'd" them. "Well," said Hill, "you will admit that they resemble each other wonderfully. They are as like as two peas." "They are," rejoined Hook, "and quite as green."

FAMILY FAILINGS.

Hood has sketched a sea-toper, who never saw a flask, or pewter measure, that he did not seize it, and, gauger-like, try the depth of it. He had a son equally fond of potations; on which a neighbour remarked, that he took after his father. Whereupon the would-be Trinculo retorted, "Father never leaves none to take."

BROKEN ENGLISH.

The editor of a new morning newspaper inquired of Alderman B one day, what he thought of his journal. "I like it all," said the Alderman, "but its broken English." The editor stared, and asked for an explanation. "Why the List of Bankrupts, to be sure.”—T. Hood.

PUNS AND FANCIES BY THOMAS HOOD.

Enjoyable as ever (says a reviewer in the Athenæum journal,) are his old perfectest of puns, whether in picture or verse. Hood's puns flash every time they go off,-being for all, not one, time. As, for example,

His death, which happened in his berth,

At forty-odd befell;

They went and told the sexton,

And the sexton tolled the bell.

Or, speaking of Orient nations,

Where woman goes to mart the same as Mangoes.

Who ever tires of that scene where the heads of two Quakers are visible just above the ice on a bitter winter's day, and there they hang surveying each other in what he would call an ice fix, or state of suspended animation? This he entitles a "coolness between Friends." Or the view of a bald old gentleman who has just upset a beehive, and how doth the little busy bee improve each shining second on the bald head; This Hood calls an 66 Unfortunate Bee-ing."

Then, who can forget, "last in bed to put out the light," where the worthy couple, in all haste, dash at the bed-clothes, making ends meet and heads clash at the same moment.

Hood's early punning propensity was shown in the "Lion's Head" of the London Magazine, wherein one writer is

informed that his "Night" is too long, for the moon rises twice in it. The "Essay on Agricultural Distress would only increase it." The "Tears of Sensibility had better be dropped." "B is surely humming." The "Echo will not answer." Whilst it is suggested the "Sonnet to the Rising Sun must have been written for a Lark."

What fine antithetical passages are there in Hood's serious poems. In the "Song of the Shirt' the singer sat

Sewing at once with a double thread

A shroud as well as a shirt.

And she exclaims

Oh, God, that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap.

In the Dream of Eugene Aram, he makes the murderer say of himself, and his victim—

A dozen times I groaned; the dead
Had never groaned but twice.

What exquisite fancy and feeling are there in this apology to one whose birthday was in November:

:

I have brought no roses, sweetest,
I could find no flowers, dear;
It was when all sweets were over
Thou wert born to bless the year.

Hood is said to have written an entertainment for Mathews at Home: the bill upon the wall was "Two Faces under a Hood."

The publisher's ledger shows that, for many years, Hood received large sums for the sales of his Comic Annual; and, as he was both author and artist, the profits must have been very considerable.

ORIGIN OF "THE PICKWICK PAPERS."

The Sketches by Boz having attracted the attention of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers, in the Strand, led to an interview between Mr. Dickens and the late Mr. Hall, the circumstances of which are best related in the author's own words, extracted from the preface to the cheap edition of Pickwick, published in 1847