e parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may always know
them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners round their necks, their
hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false shoulders, hips and
haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins, colour of veal
kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with dirty
dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very fine
figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The
houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and
bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this
to be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the
open sea on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no
swamps.--I have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of
reformers, who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite
satisfied more about the questions that agitate the country than any
equal number of lords.

_William Cobbett._

THE MAN IN BLACK

_1._

Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with a
few. The man in black whom I have often mentioned is one whose
friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem.
His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange
inconsistencies; and he may be justly termed an humourist in a nation
of humourists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to
be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his
conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his
heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known him
profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with
compassion; and while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard
him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect
humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from
nature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his
natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as
any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every
unguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the most
superficial observer.

In one of our late excursions into the country, happening to discourse
upon the provision that was made for the poor in England, he seemed
amazed how any of his countrymen could be so foolishly weak as to
relieve occasional objects of charity, when the laws had made such
ample provision