sented to my perceptions! With what pomp and form they used to enter
and depart from their house of God! I still saw with the mind's eye the
widow Hogarth, and her maiden relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle
dressed in their silken sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black
hoods, their lace ruffles, and their high-crook'd canes, preceded by
their aged servant, Samuel; who, after he had wheeled his mistress to
church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and
opened and shut the pew! There too was the portly Dr. Griffiths, of the
_Monthly Review_, with his literary wife in her neat and elevated
wire-winged cap! And oftimes the vivacious and angelic Duchess of
Devonshire, whose bloom had not then suffered from the canker-worm of
pecuniary distress, created by the luxury of charity! Nor could I forget
the humble distinction of the aged sexton, Mortefee, whose skill in
psalmody enabled him to lead that wretched group of singers, whom
Hogarth so happily portrayed; whose performance with the pitch-fork
excited so much wonder in little boys; and whose gesticulations and
contortions of head, hand, and body, in beating time, were not outdone
even by Joah Bates in the commemorations of Handel! Yes, simple and
happy villagers! I remember scores of you;--how fortunately ye had, and
still have, escaped the contagion of the metropolitan vices, though
distant but five miles; and how many of you have I conversed with, who,
at an adult age, had never beheld the degrading assemblage of its
knaveries and miseries!

I revelled in the melancholy pleasure of these recollections, yielding
my whole soul to that witchery of sensibility which magnifies the
perception of being, till one of the bells was overset, when, the peal
stopping, I had leisure to think on the rapid advance of the day, and on
the consequent necessity of quickening my speed.

* * * * *

THE SKETCH-BOOK.

NO. XLIV.

* * * * *

THE BLUE BOTTLE

"A _fly_ your honour."--_Brighton Cliff_

Talk of musquitoes!--a musquito is a gentleman who honourably runs you
through with a small sword, and from whom (as from a mad dog) we may
easily seek a defence in--_muslin_.

But your rory-tory, hurly-burly blue-bottle, is no better than a bully.
His head is a _humming-top_, and his tight blue little body like a
tomahawk, cased in glittering steel, which he takes a delight in
whir