kable incident.~20~~

CHAPTER II

"Look round thee, young Astolpho; here's the place
Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in;--
Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease.
Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench,
Doth Hope's fair torch expire, and at the snuff,
Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward,
The desperate revelries of fell Despair,
Kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds
That the poor Captive would have died ere practised,
Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition."

The Prison.--Act I. Scene III.

TRAVERSING the streets, without having in view any particular object,
other than the observance of Real Life in London, such as might occur
from fortuitous incident; our two perambulators skirted the Metropolis
one fine morning, till finding themselves in the vicinity of
Tothill-fields Bridewell, a place of confinement to which the
Magistrates of Westminster provisionally commit those who are supposed
to be guilty of crimes. Ingress was without much difficulty obtained,
and the two friends proceeded to a survey of human nature in its most
degraded state, where, amidst the consciousness of infamy and the
miseries of privation, apathy seemed the predominant feeling with these
outcasts of society, and reflection on the past, or anticipation of the
future, was absorbed in the vacuum of insensibility. Reckless of his
destiny, here the manacled felon wore, with his gyves, the semblance
of the most perfect indifference; and the seriousness of useful
retrospection was lost in the levity of frivolous amusement. Apart from
the other prisoners was seated a recluse, whose appearance excited the
attention of the two visitants; a deep cloud of dejection overshadowed
his features, and he seemed studiously to keep aloof from the
obstreperous revelry of his fellow-captives. There was in his manner
a something inducing a feeling of commiseration which could not be
extended to his callous ~21~~ companions in adversity. His decayed
habiliment indicated, from its formation and texture, that he had seen
better days, and his voluntary seclusion confirmed the idea that he
had not been accustomed to his present humiliating intercourse. His
intenseness of thought precluded the knowledge of approximation on his
privacy, until our two friends stood before him; he immediately rose,
made his