s told nothing but glad tidings, as the history of Whittington
and his Cat bears witness.

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheesemonger,
who lives in a fragment of one of the old family mansions, and is as
magnificently lodged as a round-bellied mite in the midst of one of his
own Cheshires. Indeed, he is a man of no little standing and importance;
and his renown extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even unto
Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of state, having
read the Sunday papers for the last half century, together with the
"Gentleman's Magazine," Rapin's "History of England," and the "Naval
Chronicle." His head is stored with invaluable maxims which have borne
the test of time and use for centuries. It is his firm opinion that
"it is a moral impossible," so long as England is true to herself, that
anything can shake her; and he has much to say on the subject of the
national debt, which, somehow or other, he proves to be a great national
bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part of his life in the
purlieus of Little Britain, until of late years, when, having become
rich, and grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he begins to take his
pleasure and see the world. He has therefore made several excursions to
Hampstead, Highgate, and other neighboring towns, where he has
passed whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through a
telescope, and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's.
Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his hat as he
passes; and he is considered quite a patron at the coach-office of the
Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very
urgent for him to make an expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts
of those new gimcracks, the steamboats, and indeed thinks himself too
advanced in life to undertake sea-voyages.

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, and party
spirit ran very high at one time in consequence of two rival "Burial
Societies" being set up in the place. One held its meeting at the Swan
and Horse Shoe, and was patronized by the cheesemonger; the other at the
Cock and Crown, under the auspices of the apothecary; it is needless to
say that the latter was the most flourishing. I have passed an evening
or two at each, and have acquired much valuable information, as to
the best mode of being buried, the comparative merits of churchyards,
together