that Humphrey would attend him. Sam rubbed his hands when I told him who were coming; and I knew his thoughts as I gave him a letter from his old cronie, which went to say, We shall have rare doings in the kitchen. Humphrey and Sam were born in neighbouring cottages; they had often thrashed each other when boys on the village-green, and performed a similar operation on the corn together, when grown up men; and I believe have long regarded each other as cordially as their ancient masters.'

The gossip of Ephraim and his old friend the Doctor is truly amusing, and affords many entertaining anecdotes which we are sorry not to have space even to notice. The story of "Garrick and the Grenadiers" has a happy effect. effect."The transformations produced by the magic wand of Time are in nothing more exemplified than in Exeter 'Change; and we wish that we could insert various particulars concerning it, and concerning Thomson's shop, the wits who frequented it, and the evening-parties that cracked their good-humored jokes over their cold punch within its snug recess, till the nine o'clock bell put an end to their conclave. Garrick, Wilson, (the landscape-painter,) and Dr. Arne, were present at many of these social sittings. Those who wish to recreate their minds by these pleasing portraitures, we must refer to the book itself; at the same time strongly recommending to their perusal the almost graphic description of De Loutherbourg's Eidophusikon: an exhibition which, though it did not repay the labor and expence of the artist, (from a most deplorable. failure of public encouragement,) will be long remembered as a work of extraordinary genius.

Our rambling and excursive friend carries us back to the coronation of George III.; and we cannot refuse admission to an humorous pair of portraits, the Widow Chilcott and old John Stagg, two personages at that time of great celebrity in Westminster Hall.

Formerly there were shops on each side, within Westminster Hall. There the young beaux counsellors, not being overwhelmed with briefs, used to chat with pretty belles, who vended gloves, perfumes, and tooth-pick cases. There, too, they could get (to use the Johnsonian phrase) the flaccidity of their wigs curled into crispness, at Egerton Catchpole's, father of him that lived so long at the old house, the corner of Hosier Lane*, and a party to the aforesaid farce of Scratching Fanny. There in this small shop

* This curious old-fashioned house was pulled down in 1811. Its overhanging front, together with the three others, its neighbours, that escaped the fire of London, are admirably depicted in the interesting work of Ancient Domestic Architecture, by the faithful hand of Mr. Smith, Librarian at the British Museum.'

in the hall could they get their ponderous wigs repowdered, quarterly, at a small expense, after jumbling, as they were wont of yore, six in a hackney coach, from the Temple, at two-pence per cranium for the fare. There, too, lived the termagant widow, Chilcott*, who sold Hogarth's prints, and her opposite neighbour, the bookseller, John Stagg †, of the noted wags of Westminster, the wittiest and oldest stager of them all. He, the lively bibliopola, that could do more with the youth of Dean's Yard than all the masters in their great cocked hats, and all their rods to boot; who could toss a pancake better than the college-cook; who knew the law as well as half the judges on the bench, and was jocosely dubbed Brother Stagg by them, and all the other learned gentlemen who wore the robe.

Stagg was a church-and-king man, staunch; his neighbour, Nan Chilcott, a thorough Jacobite. "She was a clever, shrewd woman though," said Doctor Chauncey, "and the only one who, in the unsophisticated science of native raillery, was ever known to make Master John Stagg draw in his horns." They were, upon the whole, generally on good terms. John had known her father, as his playmate, and she knew John's good qualities. But his waggery (for he loved to hear her mob her betters) sometimes made him mischievously set her off; "and when her temper is once up, then," said Stagg, "the old Turk is running a muck."

She was

There were two special ways of effecting this. remarkably nice with her shop, and he gave her the title of Mistress Tidy Body. This was worse in her ear than the most opprobrious term; so, being a humane little man, he was accordingly sparing of the epithet" I keep it in reserve for high days and holidays," said John: but he was too apt to whistle Lillibullero, which, either sung, played, hummed, or whistled, was no small annoyance to all Jacobites; but to the ears of the Widow Chilcott, it was an air that made her rage slip all on one side, and -commonly caused the dislocation of her wits.

"I saw her in her tantarums," said Peter Toms," and never -shall forget the sight. She sat, looking no one in the face, but, like Hecate in her cave, her long crutch-stick beneath her crumpled chin, held tight by her skinny hands, portending evil. It was one morning, when Mr. Worsley, the Surveyor-general, with his

* Mrs. Chilcott succeeded her father in the little shop on the left side of Westminster Hall. She wrote verses upon the South Sea bubble, and Mary Tofts, the monstrous rabbit breeder, of Godalmin. Dr. Arbuthnot often chatted with old Nan. Once she asked St. Andre, if he would walk in and take a Welsh rabbit. This pleased the wits of the day.'

John Stagg, a publisher of some of Hogarth's early prints, and who assisted the satiric painter in his selection for the strictures upon Wigs. John was nephew of Pope's housekeeper, and apprenticed by that illustrious poet to Jacob Tonson. He used to relate, and that most comically, Dryden's quarrel with old Jacob, when he asserted the sturdy bookseller had " two left legs."

friend Sir Robert Taylor, and some officers of the Board of Works, came to make a survey, and to plan the scaffolding for the coronation.

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"Have you received orders to quit, Widow Chilcott?" said Stagg, as the gentlemen came up the hall, from Old Palace Yard. "Mind your own affairs," said she. Very good," said Stagg, "I would have helped you to pack up;" then turning round, he maliciously observed, with affected obsequiousness, "you know very well we must all turn out, Mistress Chilcott, and it is our bounden duty to submit respectfully to our superiors."-" Superiors!" said she, "humph, I do not know who they may be

but I'll not budge a foot but by force."-" Mercy on me!" said Old Stagg, "I wish I had half thy noble spirit." Away with you! sneaking bookbinder," said she. It was just then the Surveyor-general took a measuring-rod-when Stagg whistled Lillibullero.

"Now old dame Chilcott had two great bombs to discharge at once," said Peter Toms; " one at the Surveyor-general and another at Mister Lillibullero: she was ready to burst with rage."

:

The Surveyor-general knew the old termagant's politics; her hatred to the government every one knew, and moreover he knew her attachment to the spot. Her father had held a stall there before her and being kind and considerate in the duties of his office, and not self-important, as many in authority are apt to be, he soothed the old widow, by telling her he was concerned to disturb her and, that when the scaffolds he was obliged to erect over her premises were removed, she should be reinstated more commodiously."-" Now, there are those," said the lively Peter, "who would have not minced the matter with the sulky old touch, but have ordered her off, with " Away, you old devil you -you Jezabel-what! you will not budge! but I'll send you packing in a trice-away, you spit-fire cockatrice, good-for-nothing, crooked old Jacobite!'" But the Surveyorgeneral was no such man.

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There are some untoward tempers, however, that no gentleness can conciliate, nor roughness subdue. Old Nan Chilcott's was one of those. "Yes," said she, “ my poor father was bamboozled by that smooth-spoken Mister Vanburgh. He, too, was

to have mighty fine things done; but I know it cost him forty pounds to make room for a beggarly set, with their crowns and stars and garters, to eat and drink and carouse, and drive honest people out of doors. I wish I was a man, I'd pick up the glove with a vengeance! and send that swaggering hero, Mister Dymoke, galloping out of the hall, a little faster than he came in! But all manhood's gone over the water with Charley!" Old Stagg, from the opposite side of the hall, whistled Lillibullero.

"Well, but my good woman," said the Surveyor-general, you must not speak treason under the royal roof.”Royal roof! royal roof!" said she, “ marry come up, and a pretty royal roof it is," pointing up with her crutch-stick; are you not ashamed to look upon such a cob-webby, filthy, spider-warren? Out upon

you,

you, who set you up master of the Board of Works, and a fine board it is; and so called, no doubt, of the wooden heads of which it is composed. Things were done badly enough in old Van's time, God knows, and now we shall see them Worsley done."-" Ha, ha," said Sir Robert, "what you are a punster, old Nan.". "Punster!" said she; "you are looking out for a place too-eh? Taylors should sit cross-legged at the other board, over at the palace there the board of Green Cloth."- "Egad," said Sir Robert, " we shall be well dressed all round."

By this time several gentlemen of the robe had collected before her shop; and old Stagg thrust his head forward among the group: she was lying in wait for him, and he had better have kept aloof, "Why don't you ask the King, as you are a loyal subject, to appoint you cobweb-brusher royal, Mistress Tidy Body, you might straddle your besom, like Hogarth's frontispiece here," pointing to the humorous print of the witch riding her broom up to the moon, which was exposed for sale on her stall. "What then," said she, aiming a blow at his knuckles with her ebony crutch-stick, when, missing him, she made amends, by pointing it at him, with a malicious grin, saying, "Go, go home, and bid your own old witch brush the cobwebs off your antlers, Mister Stagg." This happened to be a severe wipe at the bookseller, and there was a general laugh at John's expence. Mr. Sergeant Glynn*, arm in arm with one of the cursitor barons, turned upon old John, and asked significantly," Have you any further questions to put, Brother Stagg ?" This would have passed unnoticed; but unfortunately for the baron, he too must have a joke, having for the moment forgotten what the world whispered about his help-mate. "What say you, my old buck?" said the wit, "a little hartshorn may cure the evil." "Oh! no," retorted Stagg, " he that had horns to hide, invented the lawyer's wig," and bowing respectfully, added" Have you any further questions to put, Brother Baron ?"

We lament that we must here take our leave of our truly agreeable companion; and the more because, in our selection of the matter which we have cited, the excellence and value of the whole have not a little perplexed us in our choice. Many interesting and fascinating memorials of numerous celebrated characters we have been obliged to pass over; among others, of Dr. Chauncey, Ned Shuter, Mr. Gostling, the ingenious antiquary, Lawyer Forrest, Roquet, Dibdin, Dr. Snags, Gainsborough, Caleb Whitefoord, &c. &c. &c. The chapter intitled Old London Bridge, with Portraits of some of its Inhabitants,' is one of the pleasantest in the collection; and its topographical descriptions will amply repay those who are in search of antiquarian information.

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* The worthy Recorder of London, and member for Middle

REV. MARCH, 1824.

R

That

That the dialogues and the jokes attributed to the eminent wits and humorists, who are brought before us in this excellent piece of literary gossip, are for the most part if not altogether fictitious, is no drawback from the merits of the work, but in respect of ingenuity a great augmentation of them. If the colloquy sometimes descends to vulgarity, and the humor is occasionally defective in point, these faults are most abundantly redeemed by the general execution of the book; and particularly by the mass of information contained in the notes, which serve the additional purpose of an useful nomenclature of the different persons mentioned in the text, rendered still more useful by short memoranda of their lives and characters. In this particular, it will be found to be a most interesting repertory of the names and works of several artists, musicians, &c. &c. &c., who have left behind them too few and too perishable memorials of their career (though highly prized and honored in their own generation) to be distinctly remembered by posterity.

In any future edition, an unsightly classical error, twice occurring in vol. ii. p. 280., should be corrected viz. Lugete Veneris Cupidinesque instead of Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque.

We understand that the public are indebted for this ingenious and amusing production to Mr. Pyne; whose pen has also been otherwise employed in their service.

ART. II. Colombia: being a Geographical, Statistical, Agricultural, Commercial, and Political Account of that Country, adapted for the General Reader, the Merchant, and the Colonist. 8vo. 2 Vols. 11. 16s. Boards. Baldwin and Co.

COLO

OLOMBIA is a new name in political geography, which may be vainly sought in any very modern Gazetteers. It designates the territory of a republic recently formed at the northwest corner of South America, whose delegates now assemble at Santa Fé de Bogota, and whose president is the well known Bolivar: but whose ultimate boundaries are not yet defined, as Peru may probably determine to coalesce with this confederacy of provinces, and thus to merge in the dominion the antient empire of the Incas. In general, it is bounded on the west by the Pacific ocean; on the north, by the isthmus of Darien and the Atlantic; on the south, by the river Orellaña; and on the east, by Dutch and Portuguese Guyana: which last frontier contains much litigable territory. Of Colombia thus defined, the work before us undertakes a detailed geographical description. To the publications of Humboldt, Depons, and other travellers, the author acknowleges exten