own age, with
curly hair and white teeth, whom we devoutly and sincerely believed to be
the lost son and heir of some illustrious personage--an impression which
was resolved into an unchangeable conviction on our infant mind, by the
subject of our speculations informing us, one day, in reply to our
question, propounded a few moments before his ascent to the summit of the
kitchen chimney, 'that he believed he'd been born in the vurkis, but he'd
never know'd his father.' We felt certain, from that time forth, that he
would one day be owned by a lord: and we never heard the church-bells
ring, or saw a flag hoisted in the neighbourhood, without thinking that
the happy event had at last occurred, and that his long-lost parent had
arrived in a coach and six, to take him home to Grosvenor-square. He
never came, however; and, at the present moment, the young gentleman in
question is settled down as a master sweep in the neighbourhood of
Battle-bridge, his distinguishing characteristics being a decided
antipathy to washing himself, and the possession of a pair of legs very
inadequate to the support of his unwieldy and corpulent body.

The romance of spring having gone out before our time, we were fain to
console ourselves as we best could with the uncertainty that enveloped
the birth and parentage of its attendant dancers, the sweeps; and we
_did_ console ourselves with it, for many years. But, even this wicked
source of comfort received a shock from which it has never recovered--a
shock which has been in reality its death-blow. We could not disguise
from ourselves the fact that whole families of sweeps were regularly born
of sweeps, in the rural districts of Somers Town and Camden Town--that
the eldest son succeeded to the father's business, that the other
branches assisted him therein, and commenced on their own account; that
their children again, were educated to the profession; and that about
their identity there could be no mistake whatever. We could not be
blind, we say, to this melancholy truth, but we could not bring ourselves
to admit it, nevertheless, and we lived on for some years in a state of
voluntary ignorance. We were roused from our pleasant slumber by certain
dark insinuations thrown out by a friend of ours, to the effect that
children in the lower ranks of life were beginning to _choose_
chimney-sweeping as their particular walk; that applications had been
made by various boys to the constituted authoriti