~50~~ peaceful slumber, dreams not of the change his house has undergone, and wakes to find a double transformation; his _Angel_ vanished, or exchanged for the rude semblance of an Oxford _Bear_, with a cognomen thereto appended, as foreign to his family nomenclature "as he to Hercules." In the morning the dames are wailing the loss of their polished knockers; and the barber-surgeon mourns the absence of his obtrusive pole. The optician's glasses have been removed to the door of some prying _domine_; and the large tin cocked hat has been seized by some midnight giant, who has also claimed old Crispin's three-leagued boot. The golden fish has leaped into the Thames. The landlord of the Lamb bleats loudly for his fleece. The grocer cares not a fig for the loss of his sugar-loaves, but laughs, and takes it as a currant joke. Old Duplicate is resolved to have his balls restored with interest; and the lady mother of the black doll is quite pale in the face with sorrow for the loss of her child. Mine host of the vine looks as sour as his own grapes, before they were fresh gilded; and spruce master Pigtail, the tobacconist, complains that his large roll of real Virginia has been chopped into short cut. But these are by far the least tormenting jokes. That good-humoured Cad, Jem Miller, finds the honorary distinction of private tutor added to his name. Dame ----s, an irreproachable spinster of forty, discovers that of Mr. Probe, man-midwife, appended to her own. Mr. Primefit, the Eton Stultz, is changed into Botch, the cobbler. Diodorus Drowsy, D.D., of Windsor, is re-christened Diggory Drenchall, common brewer; and the amiable Mrs. Margaret Sweet, the Eton pastry-cook and confectioner, finds her name united in bands of brass with Mr. Benjamin Bittertart, the baker. The celebrated Christopher Caustic, Esq., surgeon, has the mortification to find his Esculapian dormitory decorated with the sign-board of Mr. Slaughtercalf, a German butcher; while his handsome brass pestle ~57~~ and mortar, with the gilt Galen's head annexed, have been waggishly transferred to the house of some Eton Dickey Gossip, barber and dentist. Mr. Index, the bookseller, changes names with old Frank Finis, the sexton. The elegant door plate of Miss Caroline Cypher, spinster, is placed on the right side of Nicodemus Number, B.A., and fellow of Eton, with this note annexed: "New rule of Addition, according to Cocker." Old Amen, the parish clerk, is united to Miss Bridget Silence, the pew opener; and Theophilus White, M.D. changes place with Mr. Sable, the undertaker. But we shall become too grave if we proceed deeper with this subject. There is no end to the whimsical alterations and ludicrous changes that take place upon these occasions, when scarce a sign or door plate in Eton escapes some pantomimic transformation.*