"Pitt during his
journey to Brighton, in the previous week, had some experience of
popular feeling in respect of the obnoxious Window Tax. Whilst horses
were being changed at Horsham, he ordered _lights_ for his carriage; and
the persons assembled, learning who was within, indulged pretty freely
in ironical remarks on _light_ and _darkness_. The only effect upon the
Minister was, that he often laughed heartily. Whilst in Brighton, a
country glove-maker hung about the door of his house on the Steyne; and
when the Minister came out, showed him a _hedger's cuff_, which he held
in one hand, and a _bush_ in the other, to explain the use of it, and
asked him if the former, being an article he made and sold, was subject
to a _Stamp Duty_? Mr. Pitt appeared rather struck with the oddity and
bluntness of the man's question, and, mounting his horse, waived a
satisfactory answer by referring him to the _Stamp Office_ for
information."

[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON IN THE SEA]

Brighton's place in literature makes up for her historical poverty. Dr.
Johnson was the first great man of letters to visit the town. He stayed
in West Street with the Thrales, rode on the Downs and, after his wont,
abused their bareness, making a joke about our dearth of trees similar
to one on the same topic in Scotland. The Doctor also bathed. Mrs.
Piozzi relates that one of the bathing men, seeing him swim, remarked,
"Why, sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years
ago!"--much to the Doctor's satisfaction.

[Sidenote: MRS. PIPCHIN'S CASTLE]

It was, I always think, in Hampton Place that Mrs. Pipchin, whose
husband broke his heart in the Peruvian mines, kept her establishment
for children and did her best to discourage Paul Dombey. How does the
description run?

This celebrated Mrs. Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured,
ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled
face, like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that
looked as if it might have been hammered at on an anvil without
sustaining any injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the
Peruvian mines had been the death of Mr. Pipchin; but his relict
still wore black bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead,
sombre shade, that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and
her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. She was
generally spoken of as "a great manager" of children; and the