(I was once amused-there is a pleasure in affecting affectation—at the indignation of a crowd that was jostling in with me at the pit-door of Covent Garden Theatre, to have a sight of Master Betty-then at once in his dawn and his meridian-in Hamlet. I had been invited, quite unexpectedly, to join a party, whom I met near the door of the playhouse, and I happened to have in my hand a large octavo of Johnson and Steevens's Shakespeare, which, the time not admitting of my carrying it home, of course went with me to the theatre. Just in the very heat and pressure of the doors opening-the rush, as they term it -I deliberately held the volume over my head, open at the scene in which the young Roscius had been most cried up, and quietly read by the lamp-light. The clamour became universal. "The affectation of the fellow," cried one. "Look at that gentleman reading, Papa,” squeaked a young lady, who, in her admiration of the novelty, almost forgot her fears. I read on. "He ought to have his book knocked out of his hand," exclaimed a pursy cit, whose arms were too fast pinioned to his side to suffer him to execute his kind intention. Still I read on-and, till the time came to pay my money, kept as unmoved as Saint Anthony at his holy offices, with the satyrs, apes, and hobgoblins mopping and making mouths at him, in the picture, while the good man sits as undisturbed at the sight as if he were the sole tenant of the desert. The individual rabble (I recognized more than one of their ugly faces) had damned a slight piece of mine a few nights before, and I was determined the culprits should not a second time put me out of countenance.)

There is a class of street readers, whom I can never contemplate without affection-the poor gentry, who, not having wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at the open stalls—the owner, with his hard eye, casting envious looks at them all the while, and thinking

when they will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after page, expecting every moment when he shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they "snatch a fearful joy”. Martin B-1 in this way, by daily fragments, got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper damped his laudable ambition, by asking him (it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work. M. declares that under no circumstance in his life did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess 2 of our day has moralized upon this subject in two very touching but homely

stanzas:

I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,

And read, as he'd devour it all;

Which, when the stall-man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
"You, sir, you never buy a book,

Therefore in one you shall not look".

The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh

He wish'd he never had been taught to read,

Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need.

Of sufferings the poor have many,
Which never can the rich annoy.
I soon perceived another boy,

Who look'd as if he had not any
Food, for that day at least,-enjoy

The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder.

This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder,
Thus hungry, longing, thus without a penny,

Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat:

No wonder if he wished he ne'er had learn'd to eat.

1 The son of Admiral Burney, an intimate friend of Lamb. 'Mary Lamb.

XLIX. REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE.

HE Old Year being dead, and the New Year coming

THE E

of age, which he does, by Calendar Law, as soon as the breath is out of the old gentleman's body, nothing would serve the young spark but he must give a dinner upon the occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited. The Festivals, whom he deputed as his stewards, were mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below; and it was time they should have a taste of their own bounty. It was stiffly debated among them whether the Fasts should be admitted. Some said the appearance of such lean, starved guests, with their mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But the objection was overruled by Christmas Day, who had a design upon Ash Wednesday (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how the old Domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the Vigils were requested to come with their lanterns, to light the gentlefolks home at night.

All the Days came to their day. Covers were provided for three hundred and sixty-five guests at the principal table, with an occasional knife and fork at the side-board for the Twenty-Ninth of February.

I should have told you that cards of invitation had been issued. The carriers were the Hours: twelve little, merry, whirligig foot-pages, as you should desire to see, that went all round, and found out the persons invited well enough, with the exception of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday, and a few such Movables, who had lately shifted their quarters.

Well, they all met at last-foul Days, fine Days, all sorts of Days, and a rare din they made of it. There

was nothing but, Hail! fellow Day, well met-brother Day-sister Day-only Lady Day kept a little on the aloof, and seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some said Twelfth Day cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany suit, white and gold, like a queen on a frostcake, all royal, glittering, and Epiphanous. The rest came, some in green, some in white-but old Lent and his family were not yet out of mourning. Rainy Days came in, dripping; and sunshiny Days helped them to change their stockings. Wedding Day was there in his marriage finery, a little the worse for wear. Pay Day came late, as he always does; and Doomsday sent word-he might be expected.

April Fool (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself to marshal the guests, and wild work he made with it. It would have posed old Erra Pater1 to have found out any given Day in the year to erect a scheme upon -good Days, bad Days, were so shuffled together, to the confounding of all sober horoscopy.

He had stuck the Twenty-First of June next to the Twenty-Second of December, and the former looked like a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. Ash Wednesday got wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt Christmas and Lord Mayor's Day. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him—to the great greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day was at his elbow, plying with him the wassail-bowl, till he roared and hiccupp'd, and protested there was no faith in dried ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, censorious, hy-po-crit-crit- critical mess, and no dish for a gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard that stood before his left-hand neighbour, and daubed his hungry beard all over

1 A proverbial name for an almanac, cf. Hudibras, Pt. I. Can. i. 1.

I20.

with it, till you would have taken him for the Last Day in December, it so hung in icicles.

At another part of the table Shrove Tuesday was helping the Second of September to some cock broth, which courtesy the latter returned with the delicate thigh of a hen pheasant so there was no love lost for that matter. The Last of Lent was spunging upon Shrove-tide's pancakes; which April Fool perceiving, told him that he did well, for pancakes were proper to a good fry-day.

In another part, a hubbub arose about the Thirtieth of January, who, it seems, being a sour, puritanic character, that thought nobody's meat good or sanctified enough for him, had smuggled into the room a calf's head1, which he had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking to feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish, March Manyweathers, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the meagrims, screamed out there was a "human head' in the platter", and raved about Herodias' daughter to that degree that the obnoxious viand was obliged to be removed, nor did she recover her stomach till she had gulped down a Restorative, confected of Oak Apple, which the merry Twenty-Ninth of May always carries about with him for that purpose.

The King's Health being called for after this, a notable dispute arose between the Twelfth of August2 (a zealous old Whig gentlewoman) and the Twenty-Third of April3 (a new-fangled woman of the Tory stamp), as to which of them should have the honour to propose it. August grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had basely supplanted her; whom she represented as little

1 An allusion to the Calves' Head Club, which celebrated the anniversary of Charles's execution by dining on this dish.

2 The birthday of George IV.

The festival of St. George.