nance, seems very piously
considering how she can contrive to pick the embroidered beau's pocket.
Two old sybils joining their withered lips in a chaste salute, is
nauseous enough, but, being a national custom, must be forgiven. The
divine seems to have resided in this kingdom long enough to acquire a
roast-beef countenance. A little boy, whose woollen nightcap is pressed
over a most venerable flowing periwig, and the decrepit old man, leaning
upon a crutch-stick, who is walking before him, "I once considered,"
says Mr. Ireland, "as two vile caricatures, out of nature, and unworthy
the artist. Since I have seen the peasantry of Flanders, and the
plebeian youth of France, I have in some degree changed my opinion, but
still think them rather _outre_."

Under a sign of the Baptist's Head is written, Good Eating; and on each
side of the inscription is a mutton chop. In opposition to this head
without a body, unaccountably displayed as a sign at an eating-house,
there is a body without a head, hanging out as the sign of a
distiller's. This, by common consent, has been quaintly denominated the
good woman. At a window above, one of the softer sex proves her
indisputable right to the title by her temperate conduct to her husband,
with whom having had a little disagreement, she throws their Sunday's
dinner into the street.

A girl, bringing a pie from the bakehouse, is stopped in her career by
the rude embraces of a blackamoor, who eagerly rubs his sable visage
against her blooming cheek.

Good eating is carried on to the lower part of the picture. A boy,
placing a baked pudding upon a post, with rather too violent an action,
the dish breaks, the fragments fall to the ground, and while he is
loudly lamenting his misfortune, and with tears anticipating his
punishment, the smoking remnants are eagerly snatched up by a poor girl.
Not educated according to the system of Jean Jacques Rousseau, she feels
no qualms of conscience about the original proprietor, and, destitute of
that fastidious delicacy which destroys the relish of many a fine lady,
eagerly swallows the hot and delicious morsels, with all the
concomitants.

The scene is laid at the door of a French chapel in Hog-lane; a part of
the town at that time almost wholly peopled by French refugees, or their
descendants.

By the dial of St. Giles's church, in the distance, we see that it is
only half past eleven. At this early hour, in those good times, there
was as much g