of Sweden, Denmark, and Sardinia, proceeded
to the residence of the person pointed out as the receiver, and in the
name of Colonel Warrington, and by virtue of the declaration of Mohamed,
called upon him instantly to restore Major Laing's papers. He answered
haughtily, that this declaration was only a tissue of calumnies; and
Mohamed, on his side, trusting, doubtless, in a pretended inviolability,
yielding, perhaps, to fallacious promises, retracted his declaration,
completely disowned it, and even went so far as to deny his own
hand-writing.

This recantation deceived nobody; the Pasha, in a transport of rage, sent
to Mohamed his own son, Sidi Ali; this time influence was of no avail.
Mohamed, threatened with being seized by the _chiaoux_, retracted his
retractation; and in a new declaration, in the presence of all the
consuls, confirmed that which he made in the morning before the Pasha and
his officers.

One consolatory fact results from these afflicting details: the papers of
Major Laing exist, and the learned world will rejoice at the intelligence;
but in the name of humanity, in the name of science, in the name of the
national honour--compromised, perhaps, by disgraceful or criminal
bargains--it must be hoped that justice may fall upon the guilty, whoever
he may be.

* * * * *

A COFFEE-ROOM CHARACTER.

It was about the year 1805 that we were first ushered into the
dining-house called the Cheshire Cheese, in Wine-office-court. It is known
that Johnson once lodged in this court, and bought an enormous cudgel
while there, to resist a threatened attack from Macpherson, the author, or
editor, of _Ossian's Poems_. At the time we first knew the place (for its
visiters and keepers are long since changed for the third or fourth time,)
many came there who remembered Johnson and Goldsmith spending their
evenings in the coffee-room; old half-pay officers, staid tradesmen of the
neighbourhood, and the like, formed the principal portion of the company.

Few in this vast city know the alley in Fleet-street which leads to the
sawdusted floor and shining tables; those tables of mahogany, parted by
green-curtained seats, and bound with copper rims to turn the edge of the
knife which might perchance assail them during a warm debate; John Bull
having a propensity to commit such mutilations in the "torrent, tempest,
and whirlwind" of argument. Thousands have never seen the homely clock
that