in imbibing some comforting compositions which were heated from the kettle of a certain Lucky Murray, who kept a public-house, where he and his friends occasionally resorted to refresh themselves, and to give them courage to meet the storms that were sometimes brewed at home. Alexander, though very far from being what is vulgarly called drunk, was so far pot-valiant as to have been converted from Alexander the Copper-smith into Alexander the Great. His indignation at woman's government had been brought to the boiling-point by Lucky Murray's bubbling kettle, until it began to distil a powerful warlike spirit within him. He had no children, so that he had no tie to cut but one, and that was one which, at the present moment, it gave him little uneasiness to sever. My sergeant came in at this critical instant. He was invited to join the party. And he had not long descanted on the glories of a soldier's career, when the copper-smith griped his hand as he would have done the handle of his largest hammer, and declared himself quite ready to join the gallant corps to which the orator belonged. My questions to Alexander were few. He drank the health of George III. in a glass of particularly fine old port, and, that nothing might be wrong, I sent to the inn for a post-chaise, to carry him, at my own expense, to Edinburgh, to be inspected and passed; and Alexander-now the Great-having got into it, with the sergeant and corporal, drove off from the door, cheering defiance at his indignant better-half, who was then looking coolly from the window, in much too proud a humour to shew the slightest symptom of emotion.

They were no sooner fairly off, than, filling a bumper, I joyously drank it off to the inward toast of the British Grenadiers; and, laughing heartily at the happy accident which had occurred to me, I hastened to dress, in order to go out to one of those honest substantial burgal supperparties to which I was almost nightly invited; and as I walked to the house of my host, I inwardly chuckled at the thought that I need not be so particular in my hours to-night, as I could to-morrow count upon undis

turbed repose. Full of the triumph which I had had over Alexander the copper-smith, I exerted all my talents for humour to give the story to an unusually large party which I met, and I succeeded in keeping them for some time in a roar of laughter with my ludicrous narration of the circumstances. I did give myself a more than ordinary licence that night, and at a very late hour indeed, I went home to my lodgings, and put myself comfortably to bed, with strict injunctions to my servant, that I was on no account to be disturbed till I should ring my bell. Now for a sound sleep at last,' said I, as I covered myself up like a dormouse, and in one instant I was in the land of forgetfulness.

I cannot say how long I had slept; the time certainly appeared to me to be somewhat less than an hour, when I began to dream that I was in a battle. It was a hot one, and the cannonading was tremendous. My captain of the grenadiers was hit by a ball that absolutely dispersed him in powder before my eyes. I, as the elder lieutenant, firmly stepped into his place, and the word being given to advance, I led on the company. The frontrank man next to me was my friend Alexander the Great. He now well deserved that appellation, for he had grown much taller and stouter, and he appeared to me to be the most powerful man in the whole line. He advanced with a steadiness and determination that made me proud of my recruit; I exulted in him. The thunder of the cannonade increased: it became so loud at last that it awaked me; I lay stupified and confounded for a moment. The thunder of the cannon was no other than the thunder of a large hammer on the side of a huge copper caldron. I rubbed my eyes for a moment; I listened; I jumped out of bed, and, rushing to the window, threw up the sash, and stretched out my night-capped head, as if I would have leaped into the street with anxiety to see what was passing below. What was my astonishment and dismay when I beheld, in the interior of a large copper-vessel, and working away with the fury of a Cyclop, the very identical man, Alexander the copper-smith! I stared

as if I had beheld an apparition. The eyes of Alexander happened to turn up at that moment. A braw morning this, sir!' said he. I could not reply, but drawing in my head, and slapping down the window, I proceeded to the bell-rope, which I pulled with an energy and perseverance that speedily brought my servant to me in his shirt. A single question satisfied me as to the truth. Alexander, though he had passed in all respects as a sound healthy man, was found to be just the fifth part of an inch below the standard-height, and so he had been rejected by the inspecting field-officer. Thus was I at once deprived of the honour of sending a recruit, and exposed to a renewal of all the torment from which, for a moment, I had supposed myself free.

And so, for the present, must my recollections terminate. It is not impossible that, on some future occasion, I may be tempted to renew them.

JACQUES, THE COACHMAN.

THE street of Saint Antoine is the most truly Parisian quarter of all Paris. In it dwells a race, rude, untaught, frolicsome, and good-natured; fond of spectacles, easily excited, brave, and ready to shed their blood at a moment's notice; the true representatives, in short, of that people who, in the space almost of a few hours, have more than once overturned dynasties, and changed the fate of empires-who, in a fit of stern and savage ire, threw down the Bastile, and in the next instant danced merrily on its ruins.

Such being the peculiarities of the Saint Antoine people, it is not to be wondered at that the coachmen of the division, living in such an atmosphere, should partake of the general character, lively, rough, and rattling, of the other inhabitants. The vehicles which they drive are for the most part of a half stage-coach order, and

convey people to all the suburban quarters of the city, not at very regular hours, but rather whenever chance brings a complement of passengers. As you enter the street Saint Antoine, you behold these personages standing in a dense knot, with tawny greatcoats on their backs, and otter-skin bonnets on their heads-a noisy, restless assemblage, breaking up in a second, and in a second re-collecting; a perpetual mob, in fact, though, unlike other mobs, entirely beyond the power of the police. The moment you come in sight of this body, they divine at once by your step, by your glittering shoes, by your newly-brushed hat, and a thousand signs indistinguishable by others, that you are for the country,' or for a drive. Then all the band starts like lightning to meet you, as hounds dart after a hare. One grasps you by the right arm, and cries: To Charenton, sir?' Another holds your left: To Alfort, sir?' A third has you by the collar, roaring: "To Conflans, sir?' and, upon the whole, you may think yourself extremely lucky, if you get out of their hands without having incurred the necessity of applying to your tailor as soon as you get home. Such is the mode of going to work practised by these wild men of the Saint Antoine stand, who are as different from the polished, civil coach and cab drivers of other districts, as a street fiddler from Paganini.

One morning, wishing to go to Vincennes, I felt a horror, from sad experience, of passing through among these reckless beings towards the other end of the street, and took a circuitous route, intending to traverse a little back lane, which lay in the desired direction. This manœuvre might have been successful at other times, but now it took me into the very midst of the enemy. The Saint Antoine coachmen had not yet taken up their usual stands, and were seated on logs of wood, discussing their breakfasts, in this very lane, with their vehicles and horses beside them. I had popped on them before I saw my danger, and at the first glimpse of me, the whole band rose at one and the same instant, and flew towards me. My first thought was to fly, but they were

too close for flight to save me; so, putting on a resolution, I clapped my hat firmly on my head, and marched towards them, with something of the feeling of a Curtius about to leap into the fatal gulf. A multitude of hands were speedily on my arms, shoulders, collar, and back, while reiterated queries were poured forth. 'Do you wish to go to Saint Mandé, sir?' To Vilette?" "Go with me, sir!' 'With me, sir!' For a quarter of an hour this scene continued, by which time they had dragged me to the wheels of the first vehicle. Stunned and stupified, I at last shook them off, and roared to them all to go to the ;' the person, in short, not to be named to ears polite. A shout of laughter broke forth from them, the unfailing effect produced by anger that is unshared by those who have aroused it. 'But where do you wish to go to, sir?' cried one of them, after a short pause. 6 To Vincennes,' said I, fairly wearied out. 'Ha!' cried a voice from the middle of the group; this is my affair; the gentleman belongs to me. Stand about, ye dogs, or I'll make you!'

.

The person who spoke thus was a vigorous-looking fellow, who immediately began to act up to his words. He pushed the others aside with his arms, and, having seized me by the collar, commenced whirling the butend of a very heavy whip round about our two heads, while at the same time he stretched out one of his legs, and made it perform a most extraordinary circular movement, such as I had never seen a limb perform before, and which carried with it so effective a species of eloquence, that the circle soon enlarged considerably around us. Then the victor, lifting rather than leading me to his vehicle, placed me on the front-seat outside, between an artillery-soldier and a servant-woman, who were already seated. There is no better seat, sir,' cried my coach-driver; all the insides are taken up.' And so it proved, for immediately a voice from that quarter grumbled out, in half-suffocated tones: They are taken up, truly! We are stuffed like a herring-barrel. Nine of us in a place where there is room only for six!'