udge by
what one reads in that modern tyrant, the _Times_. Oh, mighty _Times_!
how we abuse you, and yet how should we relish our breakfast without
you? who ever comes up to all we look for when great occasions call
for your wonderful pen, stirring us to the quick; or whether, in an
idle mood, we seek to while away the passing hour by a description of
the last new folly, or the latest odour of the Thames, or anything
else instructive and amusing. By the way, if the senate of Carthage
took quarter as long sending supplies to their general as the Commons
discussing the way to purify the Thames, I fancy he would not have
crossed the Pyrenees.

I said I went three times to Carthage; the first time, an English
friend was leaving that day by a sailing ship, and I had promised to
lunch with him at Goulette, and then see him on board, the first of
which I did in a small house dignified by the name of _locanda_, or
_Hotel Francais_, where some Maltese captains were breakfasting, who
had a strong odour of onions and garlic, and at another table a
Savoyard was discussing the question of annexation with a Provencal,
in what I may term _moitie Francais moitie Italien_. They gave us soup
made of, I don't know what, but the pepper was very strong, or rather,
I may say, would have been, if it were not for the strong taste of the
water, and _vice versa_; after that, some dried fish, called sardines,
which they said had just been caught. For second course, we had a sort
of _gigot de mouton_, which, in form, resembled the temple of Neptune
at the "ruins," and you might almost have sworn they had cut it into
that shape on purpose; and quails, very excellent; and we finished
with cheese, which might have been manufactured from goat's milk, or
cow's milk, or camel's milk, or all three, or any other milk, but was
dignified by the appellation of _Chesterrre_, and was decidedly not
Stilton, and eke delicious oranges. In this dinner we meet, as in
life, with much good to counteract the evil, as the delicious quails
made up for rancid flesh of sheep or horse; so, when next Lady Julia
Plantagenet jilts me, I will remember Jessie Jones; or, again, as
these fragrant oranges, redolent of the East, caused me to forget the
nauseous _fromage_, so shall the friendship and good opinion of Brown
console me for the putty eye and freezing regard of the fashionable
Fitznoodle, when next we meet, not at Philippi, but in the park! After
lunch, and adieux, I mo