When I called on the young man, a few mornings since, I was much struck with his more than usually picturesque condition. Being always fond of air, he had hired a back attic, overlooking two charming gardens filled with clothes’-lines, and commanding a distant view of some brick-fields, a pig, and an Irish hodman from Carrickfergus. His wife was seated at the fire, watching a leg of mutton as it pirouetted before the grate, at the end of a bit of whipcord: Fernando, her eldest boy, was riding with manifest ecstacy on the back of an old chair: and her two other darling babes, Alphonso and Eleonora, were fast asleep, on a turn-up bedstead, in an adjoining room. Close by Thomas, who was busy writing reviews at a deal table with three legs, was an elderly cotton shirt, hanging to dry on a small wooden horse, quite a pony in its dimensions; and at the further end of the room, near the door, stood a pot of half-and-half, a pen’orth of pickled cabbage in a tea-cup, a twopenny French roll, a black horn dinner knife, and a fork with two prongs, both of which were broken. On observing these evident symptoms of domestic conviviality, I abruptly hastened my departure; but, on my return home by way of Crutched-Friars, could not refrain from stopping an instant in order to survey my old friend’s establishment. It was in the most deplorable condition possible. The voice of its till was mute; the very fixtures themselves were removed; and advertisements, three deep, specifying in large red characters the virtues of Daffy’s Elixir, were posted up, on door, wall, and window-shutter. Altogether, the scene was of the most affecting character, and forcibly impressed on my mind the calamities attendant on what Shakspeare calls “ill-judged ambition.” [ANONYMOUS.] [Illustration: 116] THE OLD GENTLEMAN’S TEETOTUM. At the foot of the long range of the Mendip hills, standeth a village, which, for obvious reasons, we shall conceal the precise locality of, by bestowing thereon, the appellation of Stockwell. The principal trade of the Stockwellites is in coals, which certain of the industrious operative natives sedulously employ themselves in extracting from our mother earth, while others are engaged in conveying the “black diamonds,” to various adjacent towns, in carts of sundry shapes and dimensions. The horses engaged in this traffic are of the Rosinante species, and, too often, literally raw-boned. Stockwell, moreover, hath its inn, or public house, a place of no small importance, having for its sign a swinging creaking board whereon is emblazoned the effigy of a roaring, red, and rampant lion.--High towering above the said lion are the branches of a solitary elm, the foot of which is encircled by a seat, especially convenient for those guests whose taste it is to “blow a cloud” in the open air; and it is of two individuals, who were much given thereon to enjoy their “_otium cum dignitate_,” that we are about to speak.