discourse on the crimes of a
rapacious aristocracy, or warns of the imminent peril of their own
souls. Sometimes this orator is made to "move on" by brutal policemen.
Sometimes, on a Sunday, he points to a white head or two visible in
the windows of the Clubs to the right and left of him, and volunteers a
statement that those quiet and elderly Sabbath-breakers will very soon
be called from this world to another, where their lot will by no means
be so comfortable as that which the reprobates enjoy here, in their
arm-chairs by their snug fires.

At the end of last month, had I been a Pall Mall preacher, I would have
liked to send a whip round to all the Clubs in St. James's, and convoke
the few members remaining in London to hear a discourse sub Dio on a
text from the Observer newspaper. I would have taken post under the
statue of Fame, say, where she stands distributing wreaths to the three
Crimean Guardsmen. (The crossing-sweeper does not obstruct the path, and
I suppose is away at his villa on Sundays.) And, when the congregation
was pretty quiet, I would have begun:--

In the Observer of the 27th September, 1863, in the fifth page and the
fourth column, it is thus written:--

"The codicil appended to the will of the late Lord Clyde, executed at
Chatham, and bearing the signature of Clyde, F. M., is written, strange
to say, on a sheet of paper BEARING THE 'ATHENAEUM CLUB' MARK."

What the codicil is, my dear brethren, it is not our business to
inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faithful and attached friend of
the good Field-Marshal. The gift may be a lakh of rupees, or it may be a
house and its contents--furniture, plate, and wine-cellar. My friends, I
know the wine-merchant, and, for the sake of the legatee, hope heartily
that the stock is large.

Am I wrong, dear brethren, in supposing that you expect a preacher to
say a seasonable word on death here? If you don't, I fear you are but
little familiar with the habits of preachers, and are but lax hearers
of sermons. We might contrast the vault where the warrior's remains lie
shrouded and coffined, with that in which his worldly provision of
wine is stowed away. Spain and Portugal and France--all the lands
which supplied his store--as hardy and obedient subaltern, as resolute
captain, as colonel daring but prudent--he has visited the fields of
all. In India and China he marches always unconquered; or at the head of
his dauntless Highland brigade he treads the C