Ben Sparrow came into the world exactly at midnight of the 21st of October 1805, a few hours after the battle of Trafalgar was fought and won; and the doubtful compliment was at once passed on the new arrival of being the very smallest baby that ever was seen. But then women go into extremes in these matters, and their statements that this is the most beautiful baby in the world, and this the smallest, and this the chubbiest, and this the darlingest, must be taken with very large pinches of salt. On that occasion the very smallest baby in the world acted in precisely the same manner as he would have done if he had been the very largest baby in the world. Looking upon the world as his own especial dunghill (as we all of us do), he immediately began to crow, and sounded his trumpet with the weakest of lungs to show that he had made his appearance upon the stage. The sound of Westminster bells was ringing in his ears as he gathered up his little toes and legs and clenched his little fists with an air of saying, Come on! to his brothers and sisters in the profession; and in after-days he often declared jocosely that he perfectly well remembered hearing his first twelve o'clock proclaimed by the tongue of old Westminster. Between that time and this, Ben Sparrow had grown from a very small baby to a very small man, and many eventful things had occurred to him. When he came to man's estate--the only estate he ever came into--he entered into business as a grocer; married, and lost his wife, who left behind her one child, a son, who had 'gone wrong,' as the saying is, and whose place knew him no more. The 'ups and downs' of life are generally believed to be a very common experience; but they could scarcely have been so with Ben Sparrow, he had so very many downs and so very few ups (if any) in the course of his career. Still he managed to plod on, somehow or other, until the present time, when he and his granddaughter, Bessie Sparrow, whom you have seen, and Tottie, a child of whom you have had a glimpse, after she had been put to bed by Bessie, are living together in the small house of which the grocer's shop forms part.