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REAL LIFE IN LONDON

CHAPTER I

With what unequal tempers are we form'd!
One day the soul, elate and satisfied,
Revels secure, and fondly tells herself
The hour of evil can return no more:
The next, the spirit, pall'd and sick of riot,
Turns all to discord, and we hate our being,
Curse our past joys, and think them folly all.

~1~~MATTER and motion, say Philosophers, are inseparable, and the
doctrine appears equally applicable to the human mind. Our country
Squire, anxious to testify a grateful sense of the attentions paid
him during his London visit, had assiduously exerted himself since his
return, in contributing to the pleasures and amusements of his visitors;
and Belville Hall presented a scene of festive hospitality, at once
creditable to its liberal owner, and gratifying to the numerous gentry
of the surrounding neighbourhood.

But however varied and numerous the sports and recreations of rural
life, however refined and select the circle of its society, they
possessed not the endless round of metropolitan amusement, nor those
ever-varying delights produced amid "the busy hum of men," where every
street is replete with incident and character, and every hour fraught
with adventure.

Satiety had now evidently obtruded itself amid the party, and its
attendants, lassitude and restlessness, were not long in bringing up the
rear. The impression already made upon the mind of Bob by the cursory
view he had taken of Life in London was indelible, and it required
little persuasion on the part of his cousin, the Hon. Tom Dashall,
to induce him again to return to scenes of so much delight, and which
afforded such inexhaustible stores of amusement to an ardent and
youthful curiosity.

~2~~A return to the Metropolis having therefore been mutually agreed
upon, and every previous arrangement being completed, the Squire once
more abdicated for a season his paternal domains, and accompanied by
his cousin Dashall, and the whole _ci-devant_ party of Belville Hall,
arrived safe at the elegant mansion of the latter, where they planned
a new system of perambulation, having for its object a further
investigation of manners, characters, objects, and incidents, connected
with _Real Life in London_.

"Come," cried Dashall, one fine morning, starting up immediately after
breakfast--

"----rouse for fresh game, and away let us