nd beer-drinking, but no drunkenness and no
quarrelling. The people were saucy, but good-natured, like the Italian
rabble, with their plaster confectionery, at a carnival. Women and girls
would run down the long green slope together, which it is said the
cockneys believe to be the highest land in the world, after Richmond
Hill; and many of them stumble and slip and roll to the bottom,
screaming and laughing as they go. This I understand to be a favorite
pastime with people who are big enough to know better; for a part of the
fun, and that which all seem to enjoy most, is in tripping one another
up. Plenty of giants and dwarfs to be seen for a penny, with white
Circassians, silver-haired, and actors of all sorts and sizes. "Walk in,
ladies and gentlemen! walk in! Here's the rope-dancing and juggling,
with lots of gilt gingerbread,--and all for sixpence! Here is the great
Numidian lion!"--leading forth a creature not larger than a
moderate-sized English mastiff,--"with a throat like a turnpike gate,
and teeth like mile-stones, and every hair on his mane as big as a
broomstick!" It was worth sixpence to see the fellow's face when he said
this; but most of the people round me seemed to believe what they heard
rather than what they saw. Actors and actresses turn out and dance and
strut before the curtain.

Went into the Hospital, of which we have all heard so much, and into the
Chapel. Here is the best picture West ever painted, I think. It is the
shipwreck of St. Paul, with the viper and the fire: rocks rather crowded
and confused; on the right are two figures, frequently, I had almost
said always, to be found in his pictures, and always together. Old man
on the right, capital!--Roof of the Hospital highly ornamented, though
chaste, with painted pilasters, fluted; ceiling done by Sir James
Thornhill, and is really a grand affair, not only for coloring and
drawing, but for composition and general treatment. Architecture of the
building, once a palace, worthy of the highest commendation, though it
needs a back part to correspond with the two wings. Cupolas made to
correspond, but seem rather out of place,--not wanted.

Had quite an adventure before I got away. I saw a young girl running
down hill by herself. She fell, and stained her white frock all over one
hip of a grass-green. She seemed to be much hurt and near fainting. I
found her young, pretty, and modest, as you may readily infer from what
follows,--usually if you he