about me were pleased with their hopes and bargains, I found my account in observing them, in attention to their several interests. I, indeed, looked upon myself as the richest man that walked the Exchange that day; for my benevolence made me share the gains of every bargain that was made. I went upstairs to one of the windows which opened to the area below, where all the several voices lost their distinction, and rose up in a confused humming; which created in me a reflection that could not come into the mind of any but of one a little too studious: for I said to myself, with a kind of pun in thought, " What nonsense is all the hurry of this world to those who are above it!”

In these, or not much wiser thoughts, I had like to have lost my place at the chop-house, where every man, according to the natural bashfulness or sullenness of our nation, eats in a public room a mess of broth or chop of meat in dumb silence, as if they had no pretence to speak to each other on the foot of being men, except they were of each other's acquaintance.

I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw people who had dined with me at the fivepenny ordinary just before give bills for the value of large estates; and could not but behold with great pleasure property lodged in, and transferred in a moment from such as would never be masters of half as much as is seemingly in them, and given from them every day they live. But before five in the afternoon I left the city, came to my common scene of Covent Garden, and passed the evening at Will's in attending the discourses of several sets of people, who relieved each

other within my hearing on the subjects of cards, dice, learning, and politics. The last subject kept me till I heard the streets in the possession of the bellman, who had now the world to himself, and cried, Past two of clock."

This roused me from my seat, and I went to my lodging, led by a light, whom I put into the discourse of his private economy, and made him give me an account of the charge, hazard, profit, and loss of a family that depended upon a link, with a design to end my trivial day with the generosity of sixpence, instead of a third part of that sum.

When I came to my chambers I writ down these minutes, but was at a loss what instruction I should propose to my reader from the enumeration of so many insignificant matters and occurrences; and I thought it of great use if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to receive it from anything it meets with. This one circumstance will make every face you see give you the satisfaction you now take in beholding that of a friend; will make every object a pleasing one; will make all the good which arrives to any man an increase of happiness to yourself. From "The Spectator," by STEELE.

Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content—
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent---
The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown.

Greene.

48. HYMN OF THE CITY.

Not in the solitude

Alone may man commune with Heaven, or see,
Only in savage wood

And sunny vale, the present Deity;
Or only hear His voice

Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.

Even here do I behold

Thy steps, Almighty!-here, amidst the crowd
Through the great city rolled,

With everlasting murmur deep and loud-
Choking the ways that wind

'Mongst the proud piles, the work of humankind.

Thy golden sunshine comes

From the round heaven, and on their dwelling lies And lights their inner homes;

For them Thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies, And givest them the stores

Of ocean, and the harvest of its shores.

Thy Spirit is around,

Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along;
And this eternal sound-

Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-
Like the resounding sea,

Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of Thee.

And when the hour of rest

Comes, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine
Hushing its billowy breast,

The quiet of that moment too is Thine;
It breathes of Him who keeps
The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.

W. C. BRYANT.

49. THE DEATH OF THE FRENCH KING.

When I consider this great city in its several quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations, distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests. The courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another as the court and city in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.

For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffee-house has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the King of France's death.

As

I foresaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee - houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that

occasion.

That I might begin as near the fountainhead as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their "Grand Monarque." Those among them who had espoused the Whig interest very positively affirmed that he departed this life about a week since; and therefore proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends on the galleys, and to their own re-establishment. But finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress.

Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's, I saw an alert young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: "Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word.