with the Expedition, to get a sight, as he said, of the great Chinese Wall.

Well, after the battle was over, we turned, as the song says, from Lions into Lambs, sparing all such as made signs for quarter, only marking them, by cutting off their tails, as being under British protection. A good many of the natives were also chevied after, and humanely hunted back to their homes, though some of our fellows, it must be owned, preferred breaking into the villas and Joss-houses in search of the silver, and got plenty of tin, besides Poo-Choos, Joo-ees, and the like. Mister Augustus for his share only getting a fiddling little Ye-Yin, alias a Kit. The truth is, I was too much interested in going after a poor little stray Chinese. From the marks, it was evidently very young, and unaccompanied, and the mere idea of a lost child in such a vast empire of China, would have engaged the commonest humanity in the task; the country, besides being full of swamps and canals, and hundreds of uncovered wells, into which, in its headlong terror, it might plunge. My heart turned sick at the very thought, and made me the more eager to overtake the youngster, while fancy painted the delightful scene of restoring it uninjured to its distracted parents. But fear had lent wings to the little feet which I tracked, with Indian-like perseverance, by the prints in the mud and sand,-on, and on, and on, but alas! without a glimpse of the fugitive. Scared by the thunder of our artillery, it had probably flown for miles, and I had almost given up all hope, when the trail, as Cooper calls it, led me to the edge of a paddy-ground (or ricefield) where I caught sight of something crouching down amongst the herbage. You may guess with what eagerness I dashed in and made a grab at her blue-satin, when, suddenly jumping up' to bolt, the poor child turned out to be her own mother, or at least a full-sized Chinawoman, but with the little tiny feet of an English two-year-old. Still, being a female in distress, I tried to comfort and encourage her-no easy job for a foreign Barbarian, as black as a sweep with gunpowder, as ragged as a beggar with slashing and fencing and jabbering all his compliments and consolations in an unknown tongue. So as chaffing was of no use, I was compelled to active measures-but the more Ï tried to save her the more the little catty package clawed me with what I can only compare to human tenpenny nails. However, I made shift to carry her off to the nearest house, which proved to be either her own or a friend's; for she flung herself into the arms of a fat elderly Chinaman, who met us at the door. The old fellow, whether husband or father, was very civil, and seemed to twig my motives much better than the lady for after a little telegraphing, he politely set before me a regular Chinese feast, namely a saucer full of candied garden-worms, a cold boiled bird's-nest, and a basin of addled eggs, making signs besides, that if I would wait for one being killed, I should have a dish of dead dog. All being intended on his part to do the handsome and the grateful in return for my services-but which, as virtue is its own reward, I declined.

Our victory at Kow-Tan, it is thought, will end the war, so that before you are much older, you may look, my dear mother, to see Your affectionate son, AUGUSTUS BUDGE.

P.S.-I re-open my letter to say that a Treaty of Peace has been signed at Nankin. It remains to be seen whether the English nation will be satisfied with the terms, but they were the best we could getnamely, the Chinese are all to turn Christians, and to pay off our National Debt. Of course there will be Illuminations in London, and at Pekin there is to be a grand Feast of Lanterns, to which the Emperor has invited our Commander-in-chief, with such officers as he may name; and I am proud and happy to say I am set down rather high in the list. So to say nothing of promotion at home, which may be booked, I am sure of something handsome from the Brother of the Sun and Moon, who, like those celestial relatives, is famous for tipping with gold and silver. But a little of the ready, say fifty pounds at the very lowest, will be absolutely needful in the mean time, if I an to keep up my rank at the Chinese Court. In such a case I know you will grudge nothing, and perhaps Uncle Abel will come down, in whole or in part. But pray do remember that the money must be had, and may be forwarded through the same channel as the shirts.

In

Your last of the 17 Instant came duly to hand And am sorry to note you are too poorly for ill feeling which in course I can excuse. such a case being loath to agrivate, shall confine myself to Matters of Facts which being unanserable will save you the troubble of a Reply. Otherwise I should have considdered my deuty to set you to rites and partickly on the subjex of Trade and Tradesmen and their adulteratin and use of short waits. As to which a honest man, altho he is a grocer, may be a fare dealer and have as nice senses of honners in his trade, as a Lord or a Duke who has no Bisness whatever in the wurld. Thats my feeling, and on my own Private Account beg to say so fur from aproving of fraudulent Practises if so be I thought my Skales was cheatin I would kick the beam. Concerning which I may remark that some people who considder themselves Gentry such as Bankers toppin Merchants and the like contrive to have false Balances without any Skales at all. So much for your flings at trade tho I do not care a Fig, nor even a whole Drum of them for sich reflexions. Praps if my Nevy had been put erly in life to the same Bisness he mite by this time have been rollin' in Welth as well as his Uncle, which however I ant. The times is too up hill and money too scarse for any sich opperation. But at any rate he mite have reallized a little Mint instead of his Sprigs of Lawril of which I advise to inquire the vally at Common Garden. But that comes of your genteel notions of a polite bringin up and which nothin would satisfy more humbler then a Lord Chancellor, or a Bishop, or a Field Martial. In my yunger days the sons of limmitted Widders with narrer incums had no sich capital choices, or my own Muther would certanely have preferred me in a silk apon to a dowlus, and a clericle shovel hat to a shockin bad un with the brim turned up all round. Not to name a military hat on full cock and very full fledged with fethers. Also a fine scarlet or blew uniform with goold lace

down my unexpresibles, in loo of a pair of cordray Shorts meant for longs, as well as shabby, with a scrimp Jackit that praps objected to meet them on that account. As for linnin, its enuff to say my Muther hardly thort it wurth markin, and never numbered it at all. As regards which its my opinnion if you ever see dear Gus again you are more likely to see a shurt without a General than a General without a shurt. But its the prevailing fashion nowadays for every Boddy to aspire above their stashuns, or at any rate to pass off their humbleness under some high flown name. For exampel John Burril of our place, who I overheard the other day calling himself the Architect of his own fortune, and he's only a little Bilder.

But as I said above I am not going pint by pint through your faver, but to convey certain perticlurs as follows. When I received yours of said date I was jist on the eve of startin off by the railway on urgent business to the metropulus. So I had only time to put your letter in my pockit-book, which will explane my ansering it from this place, namely the Gorge and Vulture, High Holborn-N.B. and prepaid beforehand. Being seven year since my last visit to London and my first regular holliday, it apeared not altogether incumpatible to treat myself for once to the play, which was Theatre Royal Drury Lane, at three shillings ahead to the pit, the front row next the Musick. The peace was King John, another exampel you will say of a hard harted Uncle and a neglected Nevy, and as such a theatricle slap in somebody's face. But beggin pardon it seams to me that the account between such relashunships have never been correctly stated nor the claims of the junior party fairly made out. A Father is a father with his own consent and concurrants and therefore only responsibel as I may say for his own Acceptance-but an Unkle is made such willy nilly whether he's agreeable or not, as is partickly hard on a single Batcheler who not wanting children at all, is obligated to have them at second hand in the shapes of Nevies and Neeces. As such I could not help simperthisin with King John, with a plaguy Nevy of a Prince Arthur, and an unreasonable Muther, always harping, like somebody else on her son, her son, her son, and to be sure when she did kick up a dust it was a hot one, like ground pepper and ginger! However the second act being over, I stud up and looked round, as usual, to have a survey of the House and the cumpany when lo and behold whom should I see about three rows off in the pit, whom but dear Gus himself!—your preshus Son and my identical Nevy,-who ought by rites at that very moment to have been at Canton in Chiney! What I said or did in my surprise I don't know, but the hole House, Boxes Pit and Gallery, bust out in a loud roar of horse lauffing which to my humbel capacity was any thing but a propper display of feelin at such juvenile dpravity. However I scrambled over the Benshes without ceremunny and had well nigh apprehendid him when a genteel blaggard thumpt down my bran new bever right over my bridge of my Nose and afore I could get it up agin, both scoundrils includin dear Gus had made off. Still I mite praps have ketchd him except for a new Police but more like an old Fool, who insistid on detainin me to know my particklers of my Loss. Why then says I it's 30 pound, a new hat and a nevy, but as he had seen none of them took he declined to interfere. I mite have added to my minuses the best part of the Play, which of course I could not set out

but returned to the Gorge and Vulter to engage a sleepless bed for the night. But not being bed time I set down to anser your faver, on referring to which put me in mind to inquire of his frend sum Reprobate of course at the Coffee shop in Drury Lane and the same being handy instead of the letter I posted off myself and asked if Mr. Shearing was known at the House. Which he was. So I was showed into the Coffee room, into a privit box and sure enuf there he were not his frend but himself, havin only used the other name for an Alibi. However there he were, with a siggar in his mouth and a glass of Negus afore him which I indignently drunk up myself and then demandid an account of his misconduct, Errers not Excepted. Which he give. So the long and the short is he made a full Confession whereby it apears insted of goin abroad he was never out of London at least not further then Hide Park Corner to a Chinees Exibition and where he pickt up his confounded Long Tungs and Slang Wangs and Swan Pans and every attum he knows of them infurnal Celestials.

As mite be expected his Cash including my £30 was all squandered mostly I suppose for bottles of wine and smoke,-and such little desideratums. His goold watch went a month ago—and the bullocks trunks as I predicted grew out of his own Head. So much for a shinin caracter and a Genus above the common. As such you will soon have dear Gus on your own hands agin, at Wisbech, where if Uncles may advise as well as contribit he will be placed with some steddy tradesman to lern a bisness, Unless praps you prefer him to have an Appintment in the next Expedition to Bottany Bay. With which I remain, dear Sister, Your loving Brother,

London. November the 28th, 1842.

ABEL DOTTIN.

P.S. I did hope to save the new Shurts, out of the fire. But to use his own words they are Spouted and he have lost the Ticket.

URNER & LIBRARY

A LATE TOUR IN SEARCH OF THE PICTURESQUE.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ.

"THEY are, indeed, a lovely pair," said I, when the dining-room door had closed upon good, quiet Mrs. Sharpson and her elderly maiden sister, and with the intimation that coffee would be ready in half an hour, we had been left alone with our glasses and nutcrackers.

"Yes, they are, indeed, a most lovely pair!"

But the rapturous remark was not applied (I am ashamed to say) to the two reserved and respectable ladies who had just quitted the room. It was addressed, with considerable fervour of emphasis, to a pair of small pictures which smiled upon me in a favourable light from the opposite wall, as I drew my chair to the left-side of the fire to match the position of Sharpson on the right.

"You were devouring them all dinner-time," said he, "and your hunger doesn't appear to be in the least abated. What is it you see in them? They are but sketches, you know."

"What do I see in them? Form, colour, elevated grace, ideal beauty, sublime simplicity, and power. The girl there, with her patches of loose drapery which the wandering air of heaven might blow about as it listeth, was born under a loftier and lovelier star than the conscious wearer of the rarest laces and satins which Chalon ever took pains to paint. The old woman, on the other bit of canvass, may have been Phocion's mother, or a sibyl, or an empress by divine right. There she sits; whether on an old oak-tree root, or in a carved-chair, or on a broken column amidst the ruins of an empire, I can't make out; the scene may be a tangled wood, a wild moor, or a castle hall; but she is sitting on a throne braver than Cleopatra's. What wondrous riches may not the fancy work out of that endless mine, the Obscure! How captivating and ethereal are the beauties which art, pausing in her elaborate work, only ventures to indicate by a magic touch!

"Sketches!" I continued-" yes, verily as you say, these things before us are but sketches-yet they are perfection. The imagination of the painter has outstripped his hand--the genius has been too quick and subtle for the mechanical process-a grand effect flashes out of utter darkness upon the searching eye, kindling and rewarding the sensibilities of the inquirer-and art, not satisfied indeed, yet charmed, hazarded no further effort, but dropped her useless tools. Wise distrust, or if you will inspired laziness, of the painter, that refused to finish the designs! Great master of the rare art to forbear! Here, in this splendid smear, and again in that dazzling smudge, we discern all that his soul contemplated, and possibly much more than his skill, exercised for half an age, could have expressed."

"Ay, ay," said Sharpson, quietly cracking a walnut, " you needn't tell me, I know all about it. Times and places are every thing to people who set themselves up as oracles upon art. The things they were in raptures with yesterday, are daubs to-day; and the same picture which if sold as trash amidst the lumber of an old farmhouse, or the rubbish of a country-inn, they wouldn't bid three-farthings for, they would hold to be deuced fine and cheap at three hundred pounds if they saw it in the Grosvenor collection! I know all about it. Take some wine, and then push it this way."

As I well knew my old companion was always a little sarcastic upon any exhibition of enthusiasm for this reason, perhaps, that he had himself, between the ages of fifteen and fifty, experienced at least a dozen fits of enthusiasm in relation to as many arts or pursuits-bookcollecting at one time, picture-seeking at another, and moth-catching at a third,-learned in horses now, deep in experimental chemistry next year, and then engineering more eagerly still,-over the ankles in gardening to-day, and up to the neck in farming to-morrow; aware, I say, that his life had been one successive scene of enthusiastic fits, and that his present cue was to deride enthusiasm and to doubt its sincerity, I was not in the least offended at his sarcastic tone, and the smile delicately edged with a sneer that followed his remark.

"What!" I exclaimed; "you astonish me beyond expression. You, the possessor of those masterly sketches, to disparage them! to doubt their effects! to suppose their beauty may be before the eye and not seen, presented to the sense and not felt! For my own part, had I met them on the plains of Hindostan, I had worshipped them."