But to return to the want of hospitality of the English to the foreign bards who have come over to sing the marvels of the Great Exhibition. You may meet in London at this moment a dozen literary phantoms who drag the shroud of their _ennui_ and discouragement along Piccadilly. These shadows, when they recognize each other, shake hands and relate their disappointments. They are French journalists. Separated one from the other, and not knowing on what chord of their lyres to celebrate the virtues of a people who laugh in their faces, and who seem to be ignorant of the men whose names are most known and admired at Paris, these French journalists ask each other the same question--"Do you amuse yourself at London?" And they all make the same reply, "I am bored at the rate of twenty shillings a day!" To which they all exclaim in chorus, "That's very dear!" A year ago, when the Friends of Peace, those generous Utopian dreamers, came to London, they were received at the station by the most celebrated English economists, carried in triumph to the residences prepared for them, taken to visit all that is curious in England--in a word, treated as princes. But then they were the friends of the great Cobden! whereas England cares not a straw for the mob of simple literary men, writers of imagination! She would not even send their _confrères_ to bid them welcome. Let them manage them as they can; let them lodge in bad hotels, and dine ill; let them content themselves with seeing London on the outside, for neither the docks of the Thames nor the museums of the great nobles will be opened to them! But what matters, after all, that we are at London without any guides but ourselves? My opinion is, that we must put a good face on it, and see the marvels of the monster town in spite of itself. LONDON SPARROWS. BY CHARLES DICKENS.