ts old hostel in Ludgate Hill, the "Belle Sauvage" to whom the
_Spectator_ so pleasantly alludes in that paper; and who was, probably, no
other than the sweet American Pocahontas, who rescued from death the
daring Captain Smith. There is the "Lion's Head'" down whose jaws the
_Spectator's_ own letters were passed; and over a great banker's in Fleet
Street, the effigy of the wallet, which the founder of the firm bore when
he came into London a country boy. People this street, so ornamented with
crowds of swinging chairmen, with servants bawling to clear the way, with
Mr. Dean in his cassock, his lackey marching before him; or Mrs. Dinah in
her sack, tripping to chapel, her footboy carrying her ladyship's great
Prayer-book; with itinerant tradesmen, singing their hundred cries (I
remember forty years ago, as a boy in London city, a score of cheery,
familiar cries that are silent now). Fancy the beaux thronging to the
chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their
periwigs appearing over the red curtains. Fancy Saccharissa beckoning and
smiling from the upper windows, and a crowd of soldiers brawling and
bustling at the door--gentlemen of the Life Guards, clad in scarlet, with
blue facings, and laced with gold at the seams; gentlemen of the Horse
Grenadiers, in their caps of sky-blue cloth, with the garter embroidered
on the front in gold and silver; men of the Halberdiers, in their long red
coats, as bluff Harry left them, with their ruffs and velvet flat caps.
Perhaps the king's Majesty himself is going to St. James's as we pass. If
he is going to Parliament, he is in his coach-and-eight, surrounded by his
guards and the high officers of his crown. Otherwise his Majesty only uses
a chair, with six footmen walking before, and six yeomen of the guard at
the sides of the sedan. The officers in waiting follow the king in
coaches. It must be rather slow work.

Our _Spectator_ and _Tatler_ are full of delightful glimpses of the town
life of those days. In the company of that charming guide, we may go to
the opera, the comedy, the puppet show, the auction, even the cockpit: we
can take boat at Temple Stairs, and accompany Sir Roger de Coverley and
Mr. Spectator to Spring Garden--it will be called Vauxhall a few years
since, when Hogarth will paint for it. Would you not like to step back
into the past, and be introduced to Mr. Addison?--not the Right Honourable
Joseph Addison, Esq., George I's Secretary of