ny debating halls, where, over beer and baccy, orators, great in
their own estimation, settled the affairs of the nation, at any rate, let
us hope, according to their own estimation, in a very satisfactory
manner. In Fleet Street there was the Temple Forum, and at the end, just
out of it, was the Codgers' Hall, both famous for debates, which have
long ceased to exist. A glance at the modern music-hall will show us
whether we have much improved of late. It is more showy, more
attractive, more stylish in appearance than its predecessors, but in one
respect it is unchanged. Primarily it is a place in which men and women
are expected to drink. The music is an afterthought, and when given, is
done with the view to keep the people longer in their places, and to make
them drink more. "Don't you think," said the manager of one of the
theatres most warmly patronised by the working classes, to a clerical
friend of mine--"don't you think that I am doing good in keeping these
people out of the public-house all night?" and my friend was compelled to
yield a very reluctant consent. When I first knew London the music-hall
was an unmitigated evil. It was there the greenhorn from the country
took his first steps in the road to ruin.

CHAPTER VIII.
MY LITERARY CAREER.

I drifted into literature when I was a boy. I always felt that I would
like to be an author, and, arrived at man's estate, it seemed to me
easier to reach the public mind by the press than by the pulpit. I could
not exactly come down to the level of the pulpit probationer. I found no
sympathetic deacons, and I heard church members talk a good deal of
nonsense for which I had no hearty respect. Perhaps what is called the
root of the matter was in me conspicuous by its absence. I preached, but
I got no call, nor did I care for one, as I felt increasingly the
difference between the pulpit and the pew. Now I might use language in
one sense, which would be--and I found really was--understood in quite an
opposite sense in the pew. My revered parent had set his heart on seeing
me a faithful minister of Jesus Christ; and none can tell what, under
such circumstances, was the hardness of my lot, but gradually the
struggle ceased, and I became a literary man--when literary men abode
chiefly in Bohemia, and grew to fancy themselves men of genius in the low
companionship of the barroom. Fielding got to a phase of life when he
found he had either to write or get