When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a mattrass in the middle of a miserable room: an old woman was washing the blood from my head and face, and a surgeon, busied with his instruments, was preparing to trepan me. "Oh, let the poor gentleman die in peace!" cried the woman compassionately: and as I thought I felt distinctly that, spite of my external wounds, I had received no internal injury, I happily found strength to resist the operation; though the young man, who was an hospital pupil, was extremely eager to prove his skill--which, he encouragingly added, he had not yet had an opportunity of trying--upon my skull. I exerted all my remaining strength, ordered a carriage, asked for water and a looking-glass, in which, however, I could scarcely recognize myself, the greater part of the skin of my face being left in the high road. It was not till nature had replaced it by a new one, that my groom,--who was sitting by me at the time of the accident, and was thrown into a field by the road-side and but little hurt,--told me what strange circumstances had attended the accident. The pole of the curricle had splintered like a lance against the wagon: the light vehicle fell forwards, and I with it. The stump of the pole had stuck into the earth, and had fastened down my head. Upon me laid the horse entangled in the traces, making the most furious efforts to get free, and continually kicking with his hind feet against the broken pole, which thus became my sole preserver, by receiving the blows which would otherwise have dashed my head into a hundred pieces. This lasted almost a quarter of an hour before they could disengage the horse. From that day I never liked meeting funerals. As postscript to these reminiscences of my past life, I must add one comical incident. The boy I ran over recovered completely, and six weeks after his accident and mine, his mother brought him to me with rosy cheeks and dressed in his Sunday clothes. As I kissed him and gave his mother a parting present, the poor woman exclaimed with tears of joy, "Oh, Sir, I wish my boy could be run over so every day of the week!" _July 28th._ It was a long time since I had visited the City, and I accordingly devoted yesterday to it. As I am, in my quality of Teutonic knight, a beerbrewer, I turned my 'cab' to Barclay's brewery, which the vastness of its dimensions renders almost romantic, and which is one of the most curious sights in London.