authorities at New York. His agent was at once frankly told that there was a fatal objection to the working of the machine in that city-viz. it had no votes, and it interfered with the patronage, not of the master scavengers as in England, but of the journeymen scavengers who had votes. With an excessive expenditure of rates, New York is described as being often ankle deep in mud, and as filthy as the worst parts of Londonall the filth being traceable to patronage. A former political member of the American Government told the writer that he found the votes and the patronage of the great numbers serving as the scavengers of New York the most difficult to deal with of any matter he had met with in the agitation in which he had been engaged for the election of a president.

THE BIRMINGHAM TRADES UNIONISTS.

When the great Reform Meeting of the Trades Union took place at Newhall Hill, near Birmingham, it occurred to Haydon that the moment the vast concourse joined in the sudden prayer offered up by Hugh Hutton would make a fine subject for a picture. The Birmingham leaders were pleased with the idea. Haydon wrote to Lord Grey to ask his patronage for the picture. This, of course, was at once refused, but the refusal (which approved itself, on reflection, to the painter's better judgment,) was softened by a profession of Earl Grey's readiness to give any assistance in his power to a painting of any subject connected with the Reform Bill to which the same objection would not apply. Haydon's visit to Birmingham brought him in contact with the leaders of the movement there, and his account of it contains some curious disclosures, showing how near, in the opinion of those leaders, matters then were to revolution.

Haydon now saw Mr. Parkes, who consented to be one of the trustees to take charge of subscriptions for the picture. The painter notes: "He (Mr. Parkes) was not up, and sent for me, and begged me to come in. I went in, and there was this Birmingham man, half dozing, and telling me all about the energy of the Union, and what they meant to do.

"He said warrants were made out against the whole of them, and that if Wellington had succeeded, they would all have been taken up, and then the people would have fought it out. I went on talking to him of the sublimity of the

scene at Newhall Hill. He said, 'You are the same man in prison as out. I'll be your trustee.' So having a pivot to go on, I advertised directly."

Attwood, while Haydon was sketching him, told the whole history of the Union. "In one of his speeches, he said to the people: 'Suppose, my friends, we had two millions of threads; suppose we wound these two millions of threads into a good strong cord; suppose we twisted that cord into a good strong rope; suppose we twisted that rope into a mighty cable, with a hook at the end of it, and put it into the nose of the boroughmongers, d'ye think we would not drag the Leviathan to shore?' (Immense shouts.)"

"Attwood said some other strong things. After poverty, sir, there is nothing so much hated as independence. We are become a nation of petty, paltry corporations, and love of wealth. The five-pounder adores the ten; and the ten the twenty.' He told Lord Melbourne, 'If the people do not get their belly full after this, I shall be torn to pieces.' 'And so much the better. You deserve it,' said Lord Melbourne. 'Yes, my Lord,' said Attwood, but they will begin with you. I do not despond of seeing you all tried for your conduct, Commons and all.'

"At one time," said Attwood, "I used to question whether it was best for us or the United States to sink. I thought it would be better for us. But now I do not think so. We have redeemed ourselves."

He said Lord Grey asked him what he thought would be the end of the Unions. He replied, as people get prosperous and satisfied, they would die away. "I am much inclined to be of your opinion," said Lord Grey.

He said one of the Ministers, (Lord Durham,) told him they owed their places to the Birmingham Union.

"Attwood," (says Haydon,) "is an extraordinary man, and really a leader. The other members seem to have an awe of him. In conversation I found the influence of the leaders of this Union was not from temporary causes, but connected with their predictions on finance-that they had predicted all the ruin which had taken place to Ministers, and thus gained the confidence of the people, and led the way to the establishment of a body which should take the lead."

Hatton is described as a highly powerful and intellectual young man, "The more I see of these Birmingham gentle

men, (says Haydon,) the less am I astonished at their late energy. Hutton had in his study portraits of the great Reformers. Hutton is a high-principled person, ripe to do all he has done. He told me he paved his garden, and made up his mind to fight. His dinner was simple, and showed narrow circumstances.

"They had been so excited lately they are absolutely languid in conversation. But they are high in feeling-Roman quite -and will be immortal in their great struggle. I shall be

proud to commemorate it."

Jones, a leader, told Haydon that when the tax-gatherer called during the three days, he said to him, "If you dare, sir, to call again, I will have you nailed by the ear to my door, with a placard on your breast, saying who you are."

The cause of the strong republican feeling at Birmingham is their connexion with America.

The Newhall Hill picture was begun, and several subscriptions to it obtained, both in London and Birmingham. "But," added Haydon, "the hardy hammer-men had no real heart in the matter, and without minutely recording the ups and downs of the work, I may dismiss the subject by saying that it came to nothing."

HONEST LORD ALTHORP.

Haydon relates some characteristic traits of Lord Althorp -"not so conversational as Lord Melbourne, but the essence of good nature." The painter continues: "I said, 'My Lord, for the first time in my life I scarcely slept, when Lord Grey was out during the Bill-were you not deeply, anxious?' 'I don't know,' said Lord Althorp, I am never very anxious.' Lord Althorp seems heavy. I tried to excite him into conversation. He said Sir Joshua painted him when a boy. He said nothing remarkable."

Haydon tells this droll incident, upon another sitting. "Lord Althorp had made an appointment with an engraver at the same hour, and had not had time to tell me : so, in walked his Lordship, half laughing, saying he had done so, and begging to know if it would interrupt me. I said 'No.' By his side stood his secretary with papers. The door opened, and in toddled, with his clump foot, and a large portfolio. Lord Althorp roared with laughter, and so did I. The whole thing was dramatic. All this so disturbed me-so perplexed

my thoughts-was so unlike the solitude of my own study, where I can indulge in visions, that I only thought how to get out of it in peace. Lord Althorp, who is a heavy man, stood up for the head, that the engraver might touch it. The graceless way in which he stood was irresistible. I could paint a picture of such humour as would ruin me.

"The fact is [continues Haydon], one should never forget what is due to one's self. The moment I found Lord Althorp made no gentlemanly appeal to me, as the whole rencontre was his fault, I should very quietly have daubed out the whole head, and merely made generalities. The truth was, he seemed to think it a devilish good joke-not knowing I have no intercourse with artists; and that though I could not help laughing, it was little better than an insult. What had I in common with an engraver, let him be ever so eminent? I was there by Lord Grey's desire, and as his representative, and I ought to have been treated with marked distinction."

When Haydon was painting the great picture of the Reform Banquet, the Whigs had been cursing Attwood for a radical and a fool, and begging the painter not to put him in. Lord Althorp said: Oh yes, he was prominent in the cause. ought to be in." "This," says the painter, "was noble; all party feelings vanished in Lord Althorp's honest heart.”

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MR. COKE'S REMINISCENCES.

He

When Mr. Coke was sitting to Haydon for his portrait, he told some amusing anecdotes of Fox. He said, the first time he came into power he dined with him. He went on talking before the servants. After they were gone some one said, "Fox, how can you go on so before the servants?" "Why the devil," said Fox, "should they not know as much as myself?"

One night, at Brookes's, Fox made some remark on Government powder, in allusion to something that had happened. Adams considered it a reflection, and sent Fox a challenge. Fox went out, and took his station, giving a full front. Fitzgerald said, "You must stand sideways." Fox said, "Why I am as thick one way as the other." "Fire" was given— Adams fired, Fox did not, and when they said he must, he said, "I'll be d―d if I do. I have no quarrel." They then

advanced to shake hands. Fox said, "Adams, you'd have killed me if it had not been Government powder." The ball hit him in the groin.

Lord Mulgrave once said at table it was a fact that Charles Fox would have agreed to come in under Mr. Pitt latterly, as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Coke said there was such a report, and he wrote Fox, saying if it were so, they must separate. Fox assured him on his honour it was not so, and he kept the letter till his death.

Fox is described to have been as fond of shooting as a schoolboy. He went out one morning. It came on to rain. Fox stood under some firs with a gamekeeper, who was a great talker. All the day it rained incessantly. As the ladies were all waiting dinner, in came Fox: "Where have you been, Charles," said Mr. Coke. "Why, talking to that fellow all day. There is hardly a man I can't get something from if he talks," said Mr. Fox.

When Burke was dying, Fox went to see him; but Burke would not see Fox. When he came back, Mr. Coke was lamenting Burke's obstinacy. "Ah," said Fox, "never mind, Tom, I always find every Irishman has got a piece of potato in his head."

George IV. is said to have sworn he would knight Coke once, when a very violent petition was being brought up by him. Mr. Coke said he had made up his mind that if the King attempted it he would have knocked off the sword.

Mr. Coke said he remembered a fox killed in Cavendishsquare, and that where Berkeley-square now stands was an excellent place for snipes.

A LESSON FOR A GOVERNOR.

Sir Francis Head, in 1835, was appointed governor of Upper Canada; and one of his first experiences in his new post he thus felicitously relates:

"Within a week after my arrival at Toronto," says the Governor, "I had to receive an address from the Speaker and Commons' House of Assembly; and on inquiring in what manner I was to perform my part in the ceremony allotted to me, I was informed that I was to sit very still on a large scarlet chair with my hat on. The first half was evidently an easy job; but the latter part was really revolting to my