1828.] Notes for the Month. 63 



marked upon their countenances. The first wry face is at the smell of 

 the mud that lies so beautifully under your window whichever house 

 you go to in the dock ; and the first inquiry at what time the steam 

 packet is to sail ? " Then comes the conception, to " go to bed for an 

 hour or so " met by a blunt intimation on the part of the chambermaid, 

 (if she happens to be visible so early as six o'clock,) " that there is not 

 a bed in all the house vacant." There are, however, " several gentlemen 

 just then getting up," and " you shall have the reversion of the t first that 

 is to spare !" Then, while you wait for this horrible result which your 

 common brains (if you have any) " hanging about the neck " of your 

 hope, and asking " what possible purpose any person that has a bed, 

 can be getting up out of it, at such an hour as that for !" convince you 

 is a delusion you walk still in the hat and great coat up and down the 

 cold, fireless, coffee-room, littered with the crumbs and debris of last 

 night's supper, and poisonous with the scent of stale brandy and water, 

 and half-smoked segars a sitting room being more hopeless, incompa- 

 rably, even than a chamber ! and suddenly, tumbling over a lump of 

 something rolled in a rug, which you took to be the fender and fire irons, 

 unkennel " Mr. O'Shooteasy, from Tipperary" who arrived two hours 

 earlier than yourself; and for fault of better, took that mode of disposing 

 himself till morning! Still call any thing "pleasure," and men are 

 satisfied. At every packet that approaches Calais Pier, the cry is still 

 " they come !" Moreover, it is pleasant to be abroad : your puppy, 

 like your prophet, (< is little honoured in his own country." In France, the 

 Englishman who appears, comes as a stranger, and meets, accordingly,, 

 with deference and respect : at home he is an old acquaintance, and we 

 treat him accordingly that is, with no respect at all : and if we know 

 any thing that will mortify him, we take care to say it. In England, if 

 a tailor tried to travel as a ' ' gentleman," though he paid like six gen- 

 tlemen, the first "boots" at a coffee-house, that knew his calling, would 

 fling it in his teeth. In France, the man who " pays " " has reason ;" 

 they demand no more : he deceives himself fancies that he deceives 

 others and is happy." 



A " Nice Point for the Judges." A beautiful little question, for the 

 people of form and precedent, arose, a few days since, in the court of 

 Common Pleas, in the course of an action for trespass, entitled Goodman 

 v. Kennell. The actual offence committed like the sin in the story of 

 the abbess of Andouillet seems to be divided between so many persons, 

 that it is difficult to determine which ought to bear the blame of it. 

 The facts of the case stood thus. 



The defendant, Mr. Kennell, who resides in the neighbourhood of 

 Lambeth, on the particular day stated in the pleadings, sent a jobbing 

 non-descript, named Cockings, who occasionally acted as his servant, 

 with a message to Furnival's inn. Mr. Cockings, having taken an oath 

 never to walk when he might ride unless he liked walking best which 

 did not happen to be the case in the present instance took the horse of 

 a Mr. Freshfield, for whom also he sometimes worked as a servant, (and 

 who had desired him occasionally to " exercise " that quadruped,) to 

 perform the journey. But on his way home to omit details which are 

 not material he contrived to run over the plaintiff in the action, Mr. 

 Goodman. The mischief then stood thus Cockings, going on Kennell's 

 business, mounted on Freshfield's horse, ran over Goodman : and with 



