But from the general let me descend to the particular. I take up the “Little Pedlington Gazette,” and I find our London Correspondent dates from --- Club, St. James’s-square. Of course, in a free country, a man may date his letters where he likes; but I’ll be bound to say the letter is written in a cheap coffee-house in Chancery-lane, and all its contents are culled from that day’s papers. From the letter, however, I am led to suppose that the writer is a member of the House of Commons—that he has the run of the clubs—that royal personages are not unfamiliar with him—and that his intimacy with Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli is only equalled by his friendship with Palmerston and Russell. Our London Correspondent has very wonderful eyes, and I am sure his ears must be longer than those of any other animal extant. I have tried the Strangers’ Gallery in the House of Commons, and the Speaker’s, and the Reporters’, and in all I have the utmost difficulty in distinguishing emotions which an animated debate must excite in the disputants. The Parliamentary fashion is for a minister, when attacked, to sit with his hat so pulled down over his eyes that you can scarce see a feature. Lord John always sits in this way, so does Lord Palmerston. Our London Correspondent can see what no one else can, and there is not a wince of the galled jade but what is visible to his eyes. He sees Palmerston winking to Sir George Grey, and hears what Cornewall Lewis whispers to Lowe. Lord John does not chuckle quietly to himself, nor Disraeli whisper a sarcasm, nor Walpole meditate a joke, but he hears it. He possesses a rare and blessed gift of ubiquity. At the very time that he is watching these exalted personages in the House, he is chatting confidentially with Hayter in the lobby, or looking in at the Opera, or gossiping behind the scenes with Wright and Paul Bedford, or having a chop at the Garrick with Thackeray, or shining at Lady Plantagenet’s soirée “as a bright particular star.” I wonder the dear creature’s head is not quite turned with the attentions he receives from the nobility, with whom he is as intimate as I with Smiths and Browns. Occasionally I meet with a few London Correspondents imbibing together their frugal half-and-half. It does me good to hear them. It reminds me of Elia’s Captain Jackson’s bacchanalian orgies, where “wine we had none, nor, except on very rare occasions, spirits; but the sensation of wine was there.” Says one to another, “Oh, how did you get on last night?” “Pretty well,” is the reply, “considering there were none but lords there.” Walking in a low neighbourhood, I meet one. I ask after his health. “Devilish seedy,” says he; “up too late last night at Lady ---,” naming one of the proudest members of the proudest aristocracies in the world. Yet are they too uncultivated, and hairy, and _outré_, to pass with credit in Belgravia. Their literary efforts are not remarkable for polish.