comes to pass, and every street is momentarily washed as clean as the most
diligent housemaid could desire. Every little shelter is crowded with
solitary, houseless-looking people, who seem employed in taking
descriptions of each other for the _Hue and Cry_, or police gazette. On
the pavement may probably be seen some wight who with more than political
obstinacy, resolves to "weather the storm," with slouched hat, which acts
upon the principle of capillary attraction, drenched coat, and boots in
which the feet work like pistons in tannin: now

The reeling clouds,
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet,
Which master to obey.

Company, in such cases, usually increases the misery. Your wife, with a
new dress, soon loses her temper and its beauty; the children splash you
and their little frilled continuations; and ill-humour is the order of the
day; for on such occasions you cannot slip into a tavern, and follow Dean
Swift's example:

On rainy days alone I dine,
Upon a chick, and pint of wine:
On rainy days I dine alone,
And pick my chicken to the bone.

Go you to the theatre in what is called a wet season, and perhaps after
sitting through a dull five-act tragedy and two farces, your first
solicitude is about the weather, and as if to increase the vexation, you
cannot see the sky for a heavy portico or blind; then the ominous cry of
"carriage, your honour"--"what terrible event does this portend"--and you
have to pick your way, with your wife like Cinderella after the ball,
through an avenue of link-boys and cadmen,[4] and hear your name and
address bawled out to all the thieves that happen to be present. Or,
perchance, the coachman, whose inside porosity is well indicated by his
bundle of coats, as Dr. Kitchiner says, is labouring under "the
unwholesome effervescence of the hot and rebellious liquors which have
been taken to revive the flagging spirits," and like a sponge, absorbs
liquids, owing to the pressure of the surrounding air.

[3] This expression is not the exclusive property of Oxford,
Cambridge, or the Horse Guards. See Shakspeare's Henry VIII, where
the Duke of Buckingham says of Wolsey, "He _bores_ me with some
trick;" like another great man, the Cardinal must have been a great
bore.

[4] Towards the close of the last opera season we heard a ludicrous
mistake. One of these fellows bawled out "the Duke of Grafton's
carriage;" "N