as there was of the
opposite element. Rubbing off the angles of character was one of the
objects actually proposed by the pastor as the result of these
gatherings; and I really felt as though a corner or two had gone out of
my constitution. If a man is disposed to be priggish, or a lady
exclusive, in religious matters, I would recommend the one or the other
to avail themselves of the next opportunity to attend a
Tea-and-Experience Meeting at Kensal New Town.

CHAPTER X.

SUNDAY LINNET-SINGING.

There is something very Arcadian and un-Cockney-like in the idea of
linnet-singing in Lock's Fields. Imagination pictures so readily the
green pastures and the wild bird's song, and Corydon with his pipe and
his Phyllis, that it seems a pity to disabuse that exquisite faculty of
our nature so far as to suggest that the linnets of which we speak are
not wild, but tame and caged, and the fields very much less rural than
those of Lincoln's Inn. This was the announcement that drew me to the
New Kent Road on a recent Sunday morning to hear what poor Cockney Keats
called the "tender-legged linnets:" "Bird-singing.--A match is made
between Thomas Walker (the Bermondsey Champion) and William Hart
(Champion of Walworth) to sing two linnets, on Sunday, for _2l._ a side;
birds to be on the nail precisely at two o'clock; the host to be
referee. _10s._ is now down; the remainder by nine this evening, at the
Jolly Butchers, Rodney Road, Lock's Fields. Also a copper kettle will be
sung for on the same day by six pairs of linnets; first pair up at
half-past six o'clock in the evening. Any person requiring the said
room for matches, &c., on making application to the host, will
immediately be answered."

Rodney Road, be it known, is anything but a romantic thoroughfare,
leading out of the New Kent Road, a little way from the Elephant and
Castle; and the caravanserai bearing the title of the Jolly Butchers is
an unpretending beershop, with no outward and visible signs of especial
joviality. On entering I met mine host, rubicund and jolly enough, who
politely pioneered me upstairs, when I reported myself as in quest of
the linnets. The scene of contest I found to be a largish room, where
some twenty or thirty most un-Arcadian looking gentlemen were already
assembled, the only adjunct at all symptomatic of that pastoral district
being their pipes, at which they were diligently puffing. The whole of
the tender-legged competitors, both for