only to Sir Astley Cooper. How much more profitable is empiricism than science and art! and some of the greatest fortunes made in Europe have been in the manufacture of boot-blacking! What a quantity must be sold in London to afford an advertising bill of £250,000 annually!

St. John Long's empirical secret was left sealed by him, price £10,000; not to be opened before bought. It has been taken on the terms of his will-a pig in the poke.

It has been ascertained, that the careless and imperfect mixing of the ingredients of Morrison's pills, often leaves the powerful agents in one part of the mass, before it is made into pills, which kills those who happen to have a box of that portion-while the rest may be swallowed with as much impunity as so many bits of dough from the kneading-trough.

BEST APPROACH TO LONDON.

Ir one wishes to get the pleasantest impressions on entering London for the first time, I should by all means advise him to go in through Knightsbridge, by Hyde Park Corner, in the daytime. If it happens to be in the spring, when all the nobility and gentry are in town, and a sunshiny day, in the afternoon, at any time from three to six o'clock -better from four to five-he will then see for the first time, not only a truly imposing display of long lines of the most magnificent and costly mansions, public and private, surrounding the richest and most beautiful parks in the world, but there will be presented to his view, as he passes along, a moving world of the richest equipage, which the boundless wealth and the pride of England concentrate in the metropolis at this season of the year, together with stage and hackney coaches, omnibuses, cabriolets, and footpassengers, without number;-all in their best dress and most splendid livery, rolling and crowding along that spacious avenue, and swarming in the great park like bees at the mouth of a hive in a May-day sun; each one not seeming to regard the movements of the vast throngs that are justling by him in their different ways, and seeking their own pleasures. If he enters London by Kensington in a private carriage, so as to have the privilege (for no public or common vehicle may go that way) of passing into Hyde Park at the turnpike gate,-or if he is on horse or on foot, as he enters those rural grounds, he will have Kensington Gardens on his left, imbosoming by their impenetrable shades Kensington Palace, tenanted by the Duke of Sussex,

the Dutchess of Kent, and the Princess Victoria, heir-presumptive to the British throne. At the opening of a single avenue through the trees, he will catch a glimpse of the royal, but humble dwelling. Before him is every irregularity of natural scenery,-of uneven grounds, of sheets of water, of copses of aged and magnificent oaks, and every here and there single trees, variegating the scene. As he advances, a heavy swell of harmony, or a soft melodious strain of sweet music, bursts upon his ear. He inclines that way, and soon there opens upon his view an immense crowd of gayly-dressed persons, promenading under the shades within the range of Kensington Gardens; old and young, male and female, the mother with her daughters, the nurse with the little ones; larger and smaller parties; individuals alone; some sitting in chairs, some standing, some walking, but all observing a common centre, where stands the royal band from Knightsbridge barracks, in their plumes and elegant attire, whose duty it is to entertain the public with the best of their performances for two or three hours in the afternoon. Along the Ah-ha!* which separates Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park, and within the latter, is drawn up a regiment of mounted ladies and gentlemen, listening to the music, as they sit upon their horses, as if themselves and their beasts were alike charmed; and the moment the band have finished the performance of the piece, and pause to rest, away the whole mounted party dash upon full gallop, like a portion of an army, though not with equal discipline, and in scattered lengthened train make the round of the park, some two or three miles, appearing again at the same point stationary as before, waiting for the band to strike up another piece in their accustomed superior style. While this troop are making the circuit of the park, the foot assemblage in the gardens (which, by-the-by, are nothing more or less than a grove of forest-trees, principally oak) disperse among the shades or along the margin of the grove, and make their return, surrounding the band, simultaneously with the mounted party, to be enraptured again by the exquisite performances of these trained and professional musicians. They are always the band of the regiment of Horse Guards that may happen to be stationed at the Knightsbridge barracks for the time being; and perhaps there is no class of musicians in the world more skilled in their art than the several bands of the household troops of the King of Great Britain.

As the stranger passes from the west end of Hyde Park

*"Ah-ha!”—An enclosure, composed of a deep ditch, walled on one side, all below the surface of the ground, to prevent disfiguring parks and pleasure-grounds, and interrupting prospects. It is not seen till one comes immediately upon it, and is taken by surprise. Hence the name Ah-ha!-an exclamation.

to the east, from the point occupied by this band, he will discover two principal ways leading in the same direction, one for carriages, and the other for horses. The former is nearest to and runs parallel with the public highway, between the one and the other of which is a high wall and a margin of trees some few rods in breadth, running from one end of the park to the other. The way for those on horseback runs nearly equidistant between the carriage-road and a broad sheet of water, constituting a lake in the centre of the park, which is created by damming the Serpentine River (a rivulet); and at the point of this dam within the park is an artificial cascade, where the waters of the river plunge down the shelving rocks, laid there by the hand of man, into an abyss, that is overshadowed by a thick plantation of trees, all irregular and natural, as if it were a work of God's creation. A heavy and magnificent stone bridge, of the finest architecture, is thrown across these waters, corresponding with the east line of Kensington Gardens and the west of the park, which is passed in the circle of this favourite and beautiful drive around this enchanting enclosure. The northwest regions of the park are a forest planted on undulating grounds, where herds of deer and cattle are seen, as familiar with the sight of this splendid equipage, rolling and rattling around their domain, as with the oaks which overshadow them; and as little startled at the one as the other.

Hyde Park contains 395 acres, and is the favourite resort of the nobility and gentry of London, for airing in carriages, on horseback, and on foot. Towards the decline of every sunny day, a perpetual and endless tide of the fashionable population roll out of that huge and vast metropolis, and pour into these pleasure-grounds, as if they could never be counted, to breathe the purer air, and to display their equipage and finery. The grounds are left as nature made them, uneven, and clustering with forest scenery, as nature might be supposed to have planted it, in the midst of which lies the broad and extended sheet of water before described. The eastern portion of the park is vacant of trees, and appropriated for reviews of troops, when occasion demands.

On the east boundary of the park, about half a mile long, the stranger beholds, as he approaches it, one continuous and solid front of magnificent houses, each diverse from every other, but the entire range grand and imposing,— which constitutes the west line of that vast and compact portion of the metropolis, commonly called the West End. Half way on the northern boundary of the park is another imposing front, of that portion of the metropolis which lies in the northwest. There are four grand entrances to Hyde Park: one at the northeast corner, two on the east,

and one on the southeast, which is known all over the world as Hyde Park Corner. From this point distances are reckoned from the whole southwest and west of England.

The entrance is composed of three grand archways for carriages, two for foot-passengers, and a lodge, the entire frontage extending 107 feet. The arches are supported by fluted Ionic columns, and the gates are bronzed iron; the whole constituting an architectural screen of the most chaste and beautiful description. Directly opposite, as an entrance to the gardens of the king's palaces-St. James and Pimlico-is a grand triumphal arch of a far more imposing structure. At this corner, the beginning and west end of the north line of Piccadilly, is Apsley House, or the palace of the Duke of Wellington, if palace it may be called. A few rods within this corner is a colossal statue of Achilles, eighteen feet in height, cast from twenty-four-pounders, taken at the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo, weighing thirty tons, and inscribed to "Arthur Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms, by his countrywomen." Observe: It is a naked statue, inscribed by his countrywomen!

From Hyde Park Corner the stranger turns his eye from a large body of the metropolis in the southwest, composed of Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Pimlico, and Brompton, and from that magnificent corner opposite the grand triumphal arch, St. George's Hospital, down the spacious line of Piccadilly, which is full of all the world, rumbling onward either way, like the noise of an earthquake; and over Green Park, which is half as large as Hyde Park, having Piccadilly on the north, and another range of princely houses on the east, the southern termination of which is the palace built by the Duke of York, now the property of the Duke of Sutherland, and which covers the royal palace of St. James. Just over the royal gardens of Pimlico is descried the new palace, formerly Buckingham House, and now about to be tenanted by the king. Farther on, between the new palace on the right and the Duke of Sutherland's on the left, and over the dense shades which cover St. James's Park on the north, called the Mall, rise peering towards heaven the lofty towers and long heavy roof of Westminster Abbey, that venerable pile of ancient and religious architecture, of its kind the peculiar pride of the British metropolis, where lie entombed the relics of Britain's renowned and mighty dead-her poets, her statesmen, her ́military and naval chieftains, mingling their ashes with those who served under the mitre, and were deemed worthy of this distinction.

Onward the stranger moves, and soon finds himself buried in the mighty city. On his left, as he passes along Piccadilly, is a vast field and a weight of houses, that might break

through the crust of the globe if it were not thick and strong. On his right, too, he beholds an amazing cluster of similar structures heaped together. He passes the street of St. James, and looks down on the palace of that name, which, for the meanness of its external show, might be mistaken for an old brewery or a livery-stable. Old Bond-streetthe famous old Bond-street-comes next on his left, of more reputation than its opening would seem to indicate; but nevertheless, the English, who like old ways better than new ones, still manifest a lingering partiality to this old, favourite avenue, and go a-shopping there because their fathers and their mothers did. What a crowd of carriages! -two lines running through and through-the coachmen and footmen fighting for their rights. What a rich display of goods and gold in the windows as plentiful as stones in the streets! Alas! how many husbands are ruined by the stopping of those carriages!

Now comes Regent-street-new, grand, more show than substance; the Quadrant, a peculiar beauty; the two circuses, if I may bring two such distant points so near together; and if I may travel with the stranger a little north, while going east, there is Portland Place, continuous from Regent-street, the most spacious and by far the grandest street in the metropolis, leading to a region requiring too particular a description to be noticed here. As we travel back from Portland Place, we may take a look to the right and left into Oxford-street, long, spacious, beautiful, rich, and full of bustle. At the foot of Regent-strcet there is Waterloo Place, spacious and grand; magnificent clubhouses; the Duke of York's monument, standing on the site of Carlton House, the favourite mansion of the last Prince of Wales; Carlton Terrace, also magnificent; Pall Mall; the King's Theatre and Haymarket. Next, Trafalgar Square; Charing Cross, looking down through Parliament-street to the Parliament Houses and Westminster Abbey; the Strand; Temple Bar; and here for the present we rest, to introduce the stranger to London within the walls, and to a more particular description of this vast me. tropolis, in another place.