Journeying still onwards, our vehicle took an easterly direction, and leaving Middle Row on our right, we found ourselves at Holborn Bars, which are something like the North Pole, inasmuch as the pole and the bars are neither of them actual substances, but certain landmarks for the guidance of travellers.

We soon commenced the perilous descent of Holborn Hill, which was achieved without any calamitous result; and, while the drag was being taken off, we had an opportunity of observing the awful steep of Snow, and caught a glimpse of the celebrated picture of the Saracen's Head as we turned off by the street of Farringdon. Here the route became extremely interesting, for on one side is the market, and on the other is the prison, reminding the poetical reader of Byron's beautiful lines :

"I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,

A prison and a palace on each hand."

The imagination has only to picture the omnibus on which we were travelling as the Bridge of Sighs, and indeed in size it would pretty well correspond,-while fancy might easily regard the market as a palace; and there, on your left, is the prison, to complete the illusion. In dreams like these I was almost beginning to forget where I was, when a shout from behind of " The Celerity's coming, Bob !" produced a frightful effect upon the conduct of our driver. With one hand he plied the whip, with the other he tugged at the reins, and we literally galloped up Bridge Street, at a pace which made me fancy I was in the position of Mazeppa, while my companion became so alarmed that he looked like Death upon the pale horse, himself being whiter than the colourless animal. Nothing could now exceed the exciting nature of my position. Placed by the side of a driver, who was belabouring his team with fearful energy, while the cattle snorted in the breeze, and clattered through the dust; a cad clamouring behind me, and a timid companion shivering at my elbow, it will be allowed that my situation was very distressing. In the midst of all this a woman was seen on the pavement,-there was a shout from the cad, a sudden pull up by the driver; the omnibus behind us did the same thing. Two men were seen struggling with one female; now she is led to the left, now dragged to the right; she asks a question; her bundle is snatched from her hand, and she clings to her umbrella (upon which a similar attempt is made) with desperate energy. The trio fell a little into our rear; there is the loud talking of two men, amid which is indistinctly heard the shrill expostulations of one woman; awful oaths are exchanged; there is a scream, a yell, a slam of the door, and all is over, we are on our road to the Elephant.

Having waited a few minutes at this place, I am enabled to say from what I had time to observe, that the Elephant and Castle might probably have derived its name from an old castle, which formed, perhaps, the fortification of the Old Kent Road, by which Cæsar is said to have entered London. If any castle stood there, it is not unlikely to have been placed on an elephant's back; and if this notion be correct, the elephant and the castle are at once accounted for.

We now passed onwards at a good pace, and presently found ourselves at the Horns, an inn of some repute, which is flanked on the west by a cab-stand. Here we alighted, and set off towards the common, it being our intention to make some geological researches into the soil in the neighbourhood.

We found it to consist of a grassy substance, which had been much worn by people passing over it. Having removed a little of the vegetation, we came to a muddy material, which we had no hesitation in pronouncing to be of the same quality as the earth in the neighbourhood of Islington, which had been the scene of all our previous researches. Having satisfied our curiosity, and completed the object of our journey, we got into the same omnibus that brought us, and ultimately reached King's Cross, fatigued in body and in mind by the various exciting incidents that occurred on our way to and from Kennington.

EXCELSIOR.

BY W. H. LONGFELLOW.

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'midst snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device-Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue-Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light

Of household fires gleam clear and bright;

Above the spectral glaciers shone,

And from his lips escaped a groan-Excelsior!

"Try not the pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead;
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion-voice replied-Excelsior!

"O stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!”
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,

But still he answered with a sigh-Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night;

A voice replied, far up the height-Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward

The pious monks of Saint Bernard

Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

A voice cried through the frosty air-Excelsior !

A traveller, by the faithful hound,

Half-buried in the snow was found,

Still grasping in his hand of ice

That banner with the strange device-Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and grey,

Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

And from the sky, serene and far,

A voice fell, like a falling star-Excelsior!

THE BARBER OF BEAULIEU.

BY MASK.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

On the skirts of the New Forest, and deeply embosomed in groves and orchards, stands the little village of Beaulieu, a name it richly merits, though the inhabitants have been pleased to vulgarize this descriptive appellation into the unmeaning sound of Bewley. The ground, in fact, may be called a circular valley, of considerable extent, and is surrounded by well-wooded hills, through the middle of which runs a forest-stream to the extent of nearly two miles above the village. Here, however, it swells into an ample lake, which meets the tide from Southton Water, ebbing and flowing with it,beneath all that remains of the ancient abbey. These ruins, which form the present church, were, in olden time-alas for the days gone by!the refectorium of the monks who belonged to the order of Benedictines.

In this quiet nook dwelt, some few years ago, Master Nicodemus Bibbet, who throughout all the villages of the New Forest was popularly known under the sobriquet of the Barber of Beaulieu, he being, in fact, the recognised lion of the district. And a very rare specimen of the genus HOMO was this same Barber of Beaulieu. It was generally held that he bore a striking likeness to that remarkable character in quadruped history, called Puss in Boots, his face being manifestly formed on the feline model.

Now, it must be obvious to the discerning reader that Nature, who in all things studies a certain fitness and proportion of means to ends, would never have dreamt of lodging any particularly good qualities of head or heart in such an uncouth tenement. To have vested either genius or philosophy in a form like this would indeed have been to hide her candle under a bushel, and accordingly the thrifty dame had animated this feline case with a soul that by no means deserved a better garment. Like George Selwyn, of gallows-loving memory, the supreme delight of our Barber was in witnessing the infliction of death either on man or animal, but more particularly the former. Yet Master Nicodemus had a crook in his lot:-it had never been his good hap to see a man strangled on the gallows. On this score, fate seemed to owe him a decided grudge; for though he extended his range of travel for that purpose even up to fifty miles, and executions had occurred over and over again within that limit, still, by some unaccountable chance, he had invariably been disappointed.

At length the annual assize came round again, and again the net of the law had caught a victim in its meshes. This time it was a woman, a poor servant-girl, who had been accused of attempting to poison her master and all his family, and was actually condemned upon the evidence of the very scoundrel that had himself mixed the arsenic in the oatmeal. Upon these glad tidings, our barber resolved not to give a chance away; but, taking occasion by the forelock, he set out for Winchester two days previous to the appointed morning of execution. Even then how slowly did the time creep on! To his eager fancy it seemed as if the long minute-hand of the town-clock had been struck with palsy, and, instead of taking huge hops, as it did at other times, was moving along at the more deliberate pace of the hourhand. At length, however, the blissful moment did actually arrive,