affairs, and quite up to stable management.

When the life and animation of the crowded river is passed, how
vexatious it is to hear for the thousandth time the dissertation's
on English habits, customs, and constitution, delivered by some
ill-informed, underbred fellow or other, to some eager German--a
Frenchman happily is too self-sufficient ever to listen--who greedily
swallows the farrago of absurdity, which, according to the politics of
his informant, represents the nation in a plethora of prosperity, or the
last stage of inevitable ruin. I scarcely know which I detest the
more: the insane toryism of the one, is about as sickening as the
rabid radicalism of the other. The absurd misapprehensions foreigners
entertain about us, are, in nine cases out of ten, communicated by our
own people; and in this way, I have always remarked a far greater degree
of ignorance about England and the English, to prevail among those who
have passed some weeks in the country, than, among such, as had never
visited our shores. With the former the Thames Tunnel is our national
boast; raw beef and boxing our national predilections; the public sale
of our wives a national practice.

"But what's this? our paddles are backed. Anything wrong, steward?"

"No, sir, only another passenger coming aboard." "How they pull, and
there's a stiff sea tunning too. A queer figure that is in the stern
sheets; what a beard he has!"

I had just time for the observation, when a tall, athletic man, wrapped
in a wide blue cloak, sprang on the deck--his eyes were shaded by large
green spectacles and the broad brim of a very projecting hat; a black
beard, a rabbi might have envied, descended from his chin, and hung down
upon his bosom; he chucked a crown-piece to the boatman as he leaned
over the bulwark, and then turning to the steward, called out--"Eh, Jem!
all right?"

"Yes, sir, all right," said the man, touching his hat respectfully! The
tall figure immediately disappeared down the companion-ladder, leaving
me in the most puzzling state of doubt as to what manner of man he
could possibly be. Had the problem been more easy of solution I should
scarcely have resolved it when he again emerged--but how changed! The
broad beaver had given place to a blue cloth foraging cap with a gold
band around it; the beard had disappeared totally, and left no successor
save a well-rounded chin; the spectacles also had vanished, and a
pair of sharp, intelligent, grey ey