THE STEAM-BOAT FROM LONDON TO

CALAIS.

If true politeness be display'd,

As Chesterfield has somewhere said,
By anti-risibility;

They who are fond of grins and jokes,
Have clearly naught to do with folks
Of saturnine gentility.

Wherefore, kind reader, if you share
Whitechapel laughs, and vulgar fare,
Beneath our Steam-boat's banners,
Be not fastidious when 'tis done,

Nor cry

"I don't object to fun,

But can't abide low manners."

"BLESS my heart! Mrs. Suet here!-Ah, Mrs. Hoggins, how d'ye do?—Dear me ! Mrs. Sweatbread, and Mrs. Cleaver too! Why, we shall have the whole of Whitechapel on board presently.—I believe," said the voluble dame, looking round with a gracious and comprehensive smile, "I believe we are all butchers' ladies.""I believe we ar❜n't no such a thing, Ma'am," cried a corpulent female with an oleaginous face, while, trying to turn up her pug-nose, which however was kept tolerably steady by a triple chin, she waddled away to another part of the vessel.-"Well, I'm sure! Marry, come up! Hoity, toity!" burst from the coterie with which she had disclaimed carnificial affinity; here's airs for you!"-" And her veil's only bobbinet lace," cried one ;-" And them fine ear-rings is only gilt, I warrant ye," said another." Well, I

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do declare, there's neighbour Croak, the undertaker, with his long woe-begone phiz; it gives one quite the blue-devils to look at him. I say, Croak, who is that stuck-up fat thing that just left us?"—" Don't you know her?" inquired Croak, in a whisper; "why, that's Mrs. Dip, the great tallow-chandler's lady, of Norton Falgate."-" Well, suppose she is, she needn't turn her nose up at us: if we were to call upon her on melting-day, we might have something to turn up our noses at, I fancy, ha, ha, ha! Lauk! how serious you look; she isn't a friend of yours, is she?"-" I never laughs at nobody," replied the prudent Mr. Croak, "for in our line every body's liable to become a customer. Your poor brother Joe, Ma'am, made a very pretty corpse. I dare say, when he was setting off on that water-party, just as we may be now, he little thought he was to be drown'd; and who knows what may happen to us this very day ?”—“ La, Mr. Croak, you're quite shocking; worse than a screech owl: I wonder you could join a party of pleasure."-" Pleasure, indeed!” cried Croak, with a Sardonic grin, followed by a groan; "brother Tom lies dead at Calais, and one wouldn't give the job to strangers, you know, being in one's own line."-" Is poor Tom gone at last? you used to call him Silly Tom, didn't you ?"-" No,” said Croak, surlily; "I always call'd him Tom Fool." -"Well, but he has left you and George something, hasn't he?" "Yes," replied the undertaker, giving his lower jaw a still more lugubrious expansion," he has bequeathed to one of us the payment of his debts, and to the other the care of his children."-" Well,

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well, Mr. Croak, it ought, at all events, to make you happy, that you've now got a fair excuse for being miserable."

"I'll take your bundle, young gentleman," said the ship's steward, addressing a youth by my side, who, I found, was Mrs. Cleaver's son; and whose sallow complexion, spindle legs, lank hair, squinting eyes, and look of impudent cunning, proclaimed him, at the same time, a genuine son of the City.-" No, but you von't tho'," said the young Cockney, holding his bundle behind him; "I understands trap; I'm up to snuff and a pinch above it; I'm not to be diddled in that there vay. I s'pose you thought mother and I vas going to pay a crown a-piece for our dinner; but ve don't stand no nonsense, for I've got a cold beafsteak and inguns in this here 'ankerchief, and that, vith a glass of brandy and vater cold, arout sugar, is vhat I call a prime spread."-" Bravo, Dick!" said the delighted mother, winking at her son; "if they can take you in, I give 'em leave. As I hope to be saved, here's Mr. Smart the tanner; well, now we shall have some fun."-" Ladies,” cried the facetious Mr. Smart, sliding forward his foot, and making a bow of mock ceremony, "your most hydrostatic and humblecumdumble."-" There you go, Mr. Smart, as droll as ever, always beginning the conversation with a repartee. Did you hear that, Mrs. S. ? that was a good'n; wasn't it, Mrs. H. ?"—" That there tower, mother," said Dick, with a sagacious nod, "vas built by Villiam the Conqueror; I vonder vhy they stuck hoyster shells all over it."-" I suppose," cried Mr.

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Smart," to show that he astonished the natives in more ways than one, ha, ha, ha!"-Dick laughed, though he didn't know why; and, pulling up his neckcloth, proceeded to give his mother a lesson in English history." It vas his dad, you know, that vas called Villiam Rufus, on account of his black 'air, and vas shot by a hill-directed harrow, vhich vent right thro' his 'art-" "And fell at Harrow on the Hill," cried Mr. Smart, "whence it took its name, ha, ha, ha! Excuse me, Mrs. Cleaver, but your son has, somehow, picked up a little of the Cockney pronunciation."- "Not more, Sir, than a young man should have, who means to live all his life in the City. He went to a very good school."-" And master vasn't a coxcomb," added Dick, "about his Wees and Haitches."—" And, at all events," resumed Mrs. Cleaver," he seems to have taught the boy his English history thoroughly: not that I like that sort of reading myself; we have so much blood and slaughter in our line, that it's no more treat to me than figs to a grocer's wife; but I sometimes make our Sal read to me the explanation of the pictures in her History of England, and I have stood upon the very spot in Smithfield"O, ay,” cried Dick, interrupting her, "vhere that feller knocked the other feller off his 'orse for rebelling against the Lord Mayor."

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"What lady and gentleman," bawled the Steward, belongs to this here band-box, and this here spaniel ?"--Whether you mean it or not, said I to myself, you shall have a shilling extra for the sly satire

of making those objects the principals, and the human beings their mere appendages and accessories: for the woman is too often the creature of her cap, on whose becomingness she depends for the temper and happiness of the day; and the gentleman will follow his dog from sunrise to sunset, through bog and briar, as patiently as a blind beggar; not, however, for the pleasure of picking up halfpence, but of knocking down partridges.

I listened no more, at that time, to the conversation around me, for I had never been on board a steam-vessel, and as I observed that we were about to start, I gave all my attention to the process. The mooring ropes were unbound-we floated out into the clear mid-channel-the Captain rang a little bell communicating with the people stationed at the works below-when instantly the huge machine seemed to become instinct with life, and to dart down the river with the rapidity and roar of a wild animal springing upon its prey. We shot along the Thames as a falling star flits athwart the heavens; objects were hardly seen before they were overtaken, past, and again out of sight; we outstripped ships pursuing the the same course, at full sail, with a celerity that deceived the eye, and rendered it difficult to believe that they were not at anchor. As I saw our prow opening to itself a foaming channel, and ploughing up huge waves which rocked the boats and small craft as they rolled to the banks, I could hardly help imagining that I was on the back of some realised kraken, that was swallowing up the river in his monstrous jaws;