e time of the delusion it was always as
a Goddess that he considered her, and chose to wait upon her. Men serve
women kneeling--when they get on their feet, they go away.

That was what an acquaintance of Pen's said to him in his hard homely
way;--an old friend with whom he had fallen in again in London--no other
than honest Mr. Bows of the Chatteris Theatre, who was now employed as
pianoforte player, to accompany the eminent lyrical talent which nightly
delighted the public at the Fielding's Head in Covent Garden: and where
was held the little club called the Back Kitchen.

Numbers of Pen's friends frequented this very merry meeting. The
Fielding's Head had been a house of entertainment, almost since the
time when the famous author of 'Tom Jones' presided as magistrate in the
neighbouring Bow Street; his place was pointed out, and the chair
said to have been his, still occupied by the president of the night's
entertainment. The worthy Cutts, the landlord of the Fielding's Head,
generally occupied this post when not disabled by gout or other illness.
His jolly appearance and fine voice may be remembered by some of my
male readers: he used to sing profusely in the course of the harmonic
meeting, and his songs were of what may be called the British
Brandy-and-Water School of Song--such as 'The Good Old English
Gentleman,' 'Dear Tom, this Brown Jug,' and so forth--songs in which
pathos and hospitality are blended, and the praises of good liquor and
the social affections are chanted in a baritone voice. The charms of our
women, the heroic deeds of our naval and military commanders, are often
sung in the ballads of this school; and many a time in my youth have I
admired how Cutts the singer, after he had worked us all up to patriotic
enthusiasm, by describing the way in which the brave Abercrombie
received his death-wound, or made us join him in tears, which he shed
liberally himself, as in faltering accents he told how autumn's falling
leaf "proclaimed the old man he must die"--how Cutts the singer became
at once Cutts the landlord, and, before the applause which we were
making with our fists on his table, in compliment to his heart-stirring
melody, had died away,--was calling, "Now, gentlemen, give your orders,
the waiter's in the room--John, a champagne cup for Mr. Green. I
think, sir, you said sausages and mashed potatoes? John, attend on the
gentleman."

"And I'll thank ye give me a glass of punch too, John, and take