der such
circumstances. But alas and alas! truth must be spoken, whatever else
is in the wind; and the excellent "Newgate Calendar," which contains the
biographies and thanatographies of Hayes and his wife, does not say a
word of their connections with any of the leading literary or military
heroes of the time of Her Majesty Queen Anne. The "Calendar" says, in so
many words, that Hayes was obliged to send to his father in Warwickshire
for money to get him out of the scrape, and that the old gentleman came
down to his aid. By this truth must we stick; and not for the sake of
the most brilliant episode,--no, not for a bribe of twenty extra guineas
per sheet, would we depart from it.

Mr. Brock's account of his adventure in London has given the reader
some short notice of his friend, Mr Macshane. Neither the wits nor the
principles of that worthy Ensign were particularly firm: for drink,
poverty, and a crack on the skull at the battle of Steenkirk had served
to injure the former; and the Ensign was not in his best days possessed
of any share of the latter. He had really, at one period, held such a
rank in the army, but pawned his half-pay for drink and play; and for
many years past had lived, one of the hundred thousand miracles of our
city, upon nothing that anybody knew of, or of which he himself could
give any account. Who has not a catalogue of these men in his list?
who can tell whence comes the occasional clean shirt, who supplies
the continual means of drunkenness, who wards off the daily-impending
starvation? Their life is a wonder from day to day: their breakfast
a wonder; their dinner a miracle; their bed an interposition of
Providence. If you and I, my dear sir, want a shilling tomorrow, who
will give it us? Will OUR butchers give us mutton-chops? will OUR
laundresses clothe us in clean linen?--not a bone or a rag. Standing as
we do (may it be ever so) somewhat removed from want,[*] is there one of
us who does not shudder at the thought of descending into the lists to
combat with it, and expect anything but to be utterly crushed in the
encounter?

* The author, it must be remembered, has his lodgings and
food provided for him by the government of his country.

Not a bit of it, my dear sir. It takes much more than you think for to
starve a man. Starvation is very little when you are used to it. Some
people I know even, who live on it quite comfortably, and make their
daily bread by it. It had been ou