glish Spy reflects
good qualities as well as bad ones, and I should not do him justice if
I denied him a fair proportion of both. Descending to observe the
eccentrics in a more humble sphere, who can pass by the dandy candy
man with his box of sweetmeats, clean in person as a new penny, and
his sturdy figure most religiously decorated with lawn sleeves, and
a churchman's _tablier_ in front; while his ruddy weather-beaten
countenance, and hairy foraging cap, give him the appearance of a Scotch
presbyterian militant in the days of the covenanters. Then, too, his
wares cure all diseases, from a ravaging consumption to a frame-shaking
hooping cough; and not unlikely are as efficacious as the nostrums of
the less Mundivagant professors of patent empiricism. Of all men in the
world your coach _cad_ has the quickest eye for detecting a stranger;
and who but Sam Spring, the box-book keeper of Drury Lane, whose eternal
bow has grown proverbial, could ask an impudent question with more
politeness than Mr. Court, the _charge de affaires_ in the High Street,
for the conflicting interests of half a hundred coach proprietors 1 "Do
you travel to-day, sir?--Very happy to send for your luggage--Go by the
early coach, sir?--Our porter ~248~~shall call you up, only let me put
you down at our office." Thus actually bowing you into his book a
week before you had any serious intention of travelling, by the very
circumstance of reminding you of the mode by which you intend to reach
home. I could add to these sketches a few singularities among the
trading brotherhood of the Chelts; but we may meet again: and after
all it would, perhaps, be considered invidious to point out the honest
tradesman to public notice, merely because he has caught something of
the eccentricities of his betters, or, like them, is led away by the
force of example.

ERRATA.

In Chapter I, page 223, Contents, dele hi, and for Penn,
read pun. The Man in the Cloak, noble Anecdote of, instead
of the Fox* hunting Parson,--Printer.

TRAVELLER'S HALL.

~249~~

Sketches in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn,
Cheltenltam--The Traveller's Ordinary--Trade Puns--Bolton
Trotters and Trottees--Song, All the Booksellers--Curious
Sporting Anecdote of a Commercial Man--Song, The Knight of
the Saddle Bags--Private Theatricals in Public--Visit to
the Oakland Cottages, a Night Scene.

An invitation to dine with the traveller