Then, the cloth, the plates, the salt-cellars, the knives and forks, the glasses and pewter-pots, being all that the guests had not eaten or drunk, were cleared; bunches of pipes were laid upon the table; and everybody ordered what he liked to drink, or went his way. Mr. Simpson’s punch, in wicked tumblers of immense dimensions, was the most in favour. Mr. Simpson himself consorted with a company of generous spirits—connected with a Brewery, perhaps—and smoked a mild cigar. The large gentleman out of Devonshire: so large now, that he was obliged to move his chair back, to give his satin waistcoat play: ordered a small pint bottle of port, passed it to the pink nephew, and disparaged punch. The nephew dutifully concurred, but looked at the undertaker’s glass, out of the corner of his eye, as if he could have reconciled himself to punch, too, under pressure, on a desart island. The ‘parties’ from the Docks took rum-and-water, and wandered in their conversation. He of the Eastern Counties took cold gin-and-water for a change, and for the purification of his blood. Deep in the oiled depths of the old-fashioned table, a reflection of every man’s face appeared below him, beaming. Many pipes were lighted, the windows were opened at top, and a fragrant cloud enwrapped the company, as if they were all being carried upward together. The undertaker laughed monstrously at a joke, and the agriculturist thought the country might go on, say ten years, with good luck. Eighteen pence a-head had done it all—the drink, and smoke, and civil attendance excepted—and again this was Billingsgate! Verily, there is ‘an ancient and fish-like smell’ about our popular opinions sometimes; and our hereditary exaltations and depressions of some things would bear revision! GREENWICH WEATHER-WISDOM. In England everybody notices the weather, and talks about the weather, and suffers by the weather, yet very few of us _know_ anything about it. The changes of our climate have given us a constant and an insatiable national disease—consumption; the density of our winter fog has gained an European celebrity; whilst the general haziness of the atmosphere induces an Italian or an American to doubt whether we are ever indulged with a real blue sky. ‘Good day’ has become the national salutation; umbrellas, water-proof clothes and cough mixtures are almost necessities of English life; yet, despite these daily and hourly proofs of the importance of the weather to each and all of us, it is only within the last ten years that any effectual steps have been taken in England to watch the weather and the proximate elements which regulate its course and variations.