an of the procession,
while others accompanied it on either side; and the interest of the
scene was considerably heightened by each coach being occupied inside
by handsome well-dressed women and children. The rear of this imposing
spectacle was brought up by a long train of the twopenny post-boys, all
newly clothed in the royal uniform, and mounted on hardy ponies, chiefly
of the Highland and Shetland breed. The cavalcade halted in front of the
royal residence, and gave three cheers in honour of the day, which
were heartily returned by the populace. The procession then resumed its
progress by Charing-cross, the Strand, Fleet-street, Ludgate-hill, round
St. Paul's, and by Cheapside into Lombard-street,

Passing up the new street, the associates reached the mansion of
Dashall, who had previously engaged his friends to dinner.

An elegant repast was immediately served up, and highly enjoyed by the
party, after such prolonged exercise and abstinence.

The conversation turning on the recent interesting exhibition, it was
universally acknowledged, that the introduction of the mail coach into
the establishment of the General Post-office, might be classed among the
highest improvements of the age, as amazingly accelerating the
celerity of intercourse with all parts of the empire. Neither was
the well-merited meed of encomium withheld from the Twopenny-post
Institution, by which, so frequently in the course of the day, the
facility of communication is kept up within the metropolis and suburbs,
extending to all adjacencies, and bounded only by the limits of the
bills of mortality. Dashall, who seldom let slip an opportunity of
appropriate remark ~~275~~~ digressed from the procession to the
important national utility of the Post-office, and thence, by easy
transition, to the sublime powers of the human mind, as emphatically
exemplified in the invention of writing and printing; while Sir Felix,
who was well experienced in the British poets, favoured his aunt with a
quotation from Pope's Epistle of Heloisa to Abelard, subject, however,
to such whimsical interpolation as he deemed suitable to the occasion:--

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some antique,
lovesick, North of Ireland maid! They live, they speak, they breathe
what age inspires, Preposterous fondness and impure desires! The latent
wish without a blush impart, Reveal the frailties of a morbid heart;
Speed the neglected sigh from soul to soul, And waf