such a cold-muttonish expression in his round unmeaning face as assured you that the creature had no harm in him, that he was little likely to murder sleep or anything else. However, about midnight, when number one was dozing, number two dreaming, number three snoring, and number four, perhaps, panting under the nightmare of a heavy hot supper, the populous establishment was suddenly startled broad awake by two violent explosions that frightened the whole neighborhood from its propriety. In the first confusion of the senses, I really fancied, for the moment, that the Belgians were attempting to carry the city by a coup-de-main. In fact, Nimeguen being in a state of war, the alarm turned out the guard, and by the time I had donned my nether garment, some dozen soldiers were battering and clamoring for admittance at the door. On sallying from my room, I found the stairs and passages thronged with figures, male and female, in various degrees of nudity, amongst whom, our maid Martha was eminently conspicuous, having, for reasons of her own, exchanged her plain bonnet-de-nuit for her day-cap, with flaming geranium ribbons, the only article of full-dress on her person, or indeed amongst the whole party. As her mouth was wide open, she was probably either screaming or scolding, but her individual noise was lost and smothered in the confusion of tongues, that turned the lately quiet hotel into a second Babel. Some shouted "Fire!" others cried "Murder!" and one shrill feminine voice kept screaming, "The French! the French!" In the mean time, the patrol gained admittance, and with little ceremony forced their way up stairs towards the chamber to which we had traced the two reports. The door was locked and bolted, but was speedily burst open with the but-end of a musket, the company entered, en masse, and lo! there was our Cockney, in a brightcolored silk handkerchief for a turban, sitting bolt upright in his bed, and wondering with all his might at our intrusion, and that he could not quietly and comfortably let off his fire-arms at Nimeguen, as he had done ever since Marr's murder, out of his own little back window at Paddington or Dalston. It was not an easy matter to explain to him the nature of his misdemeanor, or to convince him afterwards that there was any harm in it. The landlady scolded in Dutch, the garçon jabbered in French, the sergeant of the guard threatened and

swore in all the languages he could muster, whilst the Cockney bounced and blustered in bad English, that he was a free-born Briton, and so forth, and had a right to let off pistols all over the world. The squabble ran so high, that our countryman stood a fair chance, I was told, of a night's lodging in the guard-house; but at length the matter was adjusted by his being mulcted, ostensibly in default of having a license to carry arms, in a sum which, of course, was spent in schnaps at the canteen. Moreover, he had an intimation that the damaged door would certainly appear amongst the items of his bill, and in Holland travellers' bills are anything but "easy beakers.” * Finally, he had to endure from his fellowtourists all the maledictions and reproaches to be expected from persons subjected to that severest of trials of temper, the being waked out of a first sleep, especially when having to start by an early steamer allows no time for a second one. As thunder turns small beer, the untimely explosions had soured the whole mass of the milk of human kindness, every word that fell was like an acidulated drop, and having literally clothed the devoted Cockney with curses, as with a garment, the mob of nightcaps retired to their pillows, and

"We left him alone in his glory."

I was rather curious to observe what sort of countenance the author of the disturbance would wear the next morning; but when he made his appearance amongst us on board the steamer, instead of looking chopfallen or abashed, there was such an appearance of complacent self-satisfaction in his face, as convinced me, that on his return to London he would brag of his noisy exploit at Nimeguen, to his comrades of Walbrook or Lothbury, as "a famous rumpus." I am afraid such exhibitions are but too common with Cockney travellers, who persist in perverting the end of the old adage, “When you are at Rome," &c., into "Do as you do at home." But remember I am far from intending to apply the term Cockney exclusively to the native of our own metropolis, who, if the whole horizon were canvas, would turn it into a panorama of London. Perhaps there are no more finished badauds extant than your French ones, of whatever rank, who fancy

*In the "Orbis Pictus," a Dutch-built polyglot school-book, birds of the soft-billed kind are rendered into English as easy beakers."

that the whole world is in France, and that all France is in Paris.

On reviewing the motley company on board, I was sorry to note the absence of the red and yellow faced men, the mustard and pepper that had hitherto served me for condiments. But, for the present, the amusement was to be furnished by a member of our own party. My aunt, as you ought to know, is a simple, gentle creature, timid and helpless even for a woman, but as strong in her affections as weak in her nerves. In a word, she resembles Chaucer's Prioress, who was "all conscience and tender heart." To this character she owes most of her travelling adventures, .one of which I must now describe, but under the seal of secrecy, for it is as sore a subject, with her, as the victorious phoca to Hector M'Intyre in the "Antiquary." Next to her. standing regret for " poor George," it is one of her stock troubles that she is not a mother, and, like some hens in the same predicament, she is sure to cluck and cover the first chick that comes in her way. To her great delight, therefore, she discovered amongst the company a smart, dapper, brisk, well-favored little fellow, with long flaxen ringlets curling down his back,- a boy apparently about eight years old,

a great deal too young, in her opinion, to be sent travelling, and especially by water, under nobody's care but his own. Such a shameful neglect, as she called it, appealed directly to her pity, and made her resolve to be quite a parent to the forlorn little foreigner. Accordingly, she lavished on him a thousand motherly attentions, which at first seemed to amuse and gratify her protégé, though he afterwards received them with an ill-grace enough. Still she persevered, womanlike, in bestowing her tenderness on its object, however ungrateful the return, indulging, from time to time, in strictures on Dutch fathers and mothers, and their management of children, in a language which, fortunately, was not the current one of the place. At last, to raise her indignation to the climax, she saw her adopted urchin betake himself to practices which she scarcely tolerated in children of a larger growth. "It was quite folly enough," she said, "to have dresssd up a boy like a man, without teaching him, or at least allowing him, to imitate grown-up habits: for instance, smoking tobacco, and, as I live," she almost screamed, "the little wretch is going

Such a sight upset all her

to drink a glass of Dutch gin!" patience,—

"To be precocious

In schnapps she reckoned was a sin atrocious."

But as a temperance exhortation in an unknown tongue could be of no possible use, she appealed at once, like some of our chartists, to physical force, and made a determined snatch at the devoted dram. This was a mortal affront to the longhaired manikin, who resisted with all his might and mane, and being wonderfully strong for his age, there ensued a protracted struggle, that afforded infinite amusement to the company on deck. My aunt tugged, and hauled, and scolded in hissing English; the little fellow scuffled, and kicked, and spluttered abundance of guttural German, proving, amongst his other accomplishments, that he was not at all backward in his swearing. Temperance, however, gained her point, by spilling the obnoxious liquor; and in revenge, the manikin vented his spleen by throwing the empty glass into the Rhine. So far, all was well. My aunt had fought triumphantly for what she considered her duty and a great principle; but her satisfaction was doomed to be short-lived. My uncle, who had watched the fray with unequivocal signs and sounds of amazement, could not help congratulating the victorious party on such an unusual exertion of spirit, and its signal success, for the defeated urchin had rushed off to digest his discomfiture in the fore-cabin. 66 Not," said my uncle, "that I'm one of your wishy-washy teetotallers; but a colt's a colt, and what is fit drink for a strong man may be a bad draught for a boy." "I ax pardon, sare," interposed our conducteur, who had been one of the heartiest laughers at the skirmish, "bot de leetle gentleman is not von boy, he is ein zwerg, vat you call von kleines mannchen." "I suppose,” cried my uncle, “you mean a dwarf?" “Ja! ja! von dwarf," answered the conducteur ; "he have nine-und-zwanzig jahrs of old." Imagine, dear Gerard, the effect of such an announcement on a shrinking, delicate female, with sensitive feelings, nearly akin to prudishness, like my poor aunt! I confess I felt some anxiety as to the direction of her first impulse. Providentially, however, instead of urging her to jump overboard, it only impelled her to rush down below, where we found her in the pavilion, struggling, by Martha's help, with the hysterics, and fervently wish

ing, between her sobs, that she had never

left Woodlands. She had not only let herself down, she considered, but all her sex; and especially her own countrywomen. "What could the foreigners think," she asked, "of an English lady, and, above all, a widow, scuffling like a great masculine romp or hoyden with a strange man, no matter for his littleness, what can they say of me, oh! what can they say?" Why, as for that matter, Kate," answered my uncle, playing the comforter, "whatever they say of you will be said in a foreign lingo; so you are sure to hear nothing disagreeable." "But it's what they will think," persisted the afflicted fair one. "Phoo! phoo!" said my uncle; “ they will only think that you fought very like a woman, or you would have chosen a fairer match.” But the mourner was not to be soothed with words; nor, indeed, by anything short of engaging the pavilion for her, as a locus penitentia, where she could bewail her error and her shame under lock and key. "I'll tell you what it is, Frank," said my uncle, after we had enjoyed a hearty laugh together, out of my aunt's hearing, "it must never be named to poor Kate; but from this time forward I shall think that little Gulliver and his nurse Glumdalstitch was not such an out-of-the-way story after all!”

I subsequently learned that the little manikin in the steamer was a great man at Elberfield in the cotton line; and our conducteur forewarned me that I should probably meet with several copies of this pocket-edition of the human species in the Rhenish provinces, and particularly two brothers born at Coblentz. It is singular that the empire has been equally prolific in natural and supernatural dwarfs. To Germany our show caravans and Lilliputian exhibitions have been indebted for many of their most remarkable pigmies; whilst imps, elfins, little gray men, "and such small deer," literally swarm in its romantic mythology, - a coincidence I humbly submit to the speculations of our philosophers.

At Lobith we reached the frontier, and passed from the guardianship of the Triton, or John Dory, or Stock-fish, or whatever else is the Dutch tutelary emblem, under the protecting wings of the Black Eagle, which we soon saw displayed, in the attitude of a bird of prey, on a barn-door. Our passports were consequently in requisition at Emmerich, the first Prussian town, and led to a scene on the part of our hyp