614 Too Early. [Dec 



wrong-headedness as to forestal the household economy by quitting his 

 bed when none but chimney-sweepers, milkmen, and house-maids have 

 honest licence to be stirring. What does he take by his motion, as a lawyer 

 would say ? He tries one apartment, from which he is driven by the 

 cloud of dust that the busy broom is raising ; he seeks another, where 

 he is greeted by the fire-iron-rattle of the scullery-maid, who hates to 

 work — even at lighting a fire — without some sort of music as an accom- 

 paniment ; he attempts a third, which appears to offer a mock-repose, 

 if that can be called even so much as mock -repose, where all the windows 

 are set open to a mizzy north-easter, whei'e all in the neighbourhood of 

 the fire-grate is vacuity and dreariness, and where the ear-drum is well 

 nigh cracked at intervals — anything but " few and far between" — with 

 shrill or blustering vociferations of that sundry assortment which classes 

 under the general appellation of " London Cries." 



4th. It is impolitic. — This assertion is nearly self-evident, and hardly 

 requires a word to be said in its support ; for all mankind, through all 

 ages, have agreed that the really prudent man is he who steers the 

 middle course, neither diverging too much to the right-hand nor to the 

 left, or, in this instance, neither going to bed too late, nor getting up too 

 early. This is the judicious lie-a-bed's doctrine ; — nor only his doctrine, 

 but his practice too ; and, like Green's " jolly church-parson," he will 

 ever be found priding himself on holding that equable balance which 

 bringeth the wise man's conclusion—" 



" If you pity your soul, I pray listen to neithei- — 

 The first is in error, the last a deceiver : 

 That our's is the true church, the sense of our tribe is. 

 And surely in medio tutissimiis ibis." 



I never was more convinced of the truth of this principle than on hearing 

 a ludicrous anecdote that some years ago happened to a friend of my 

 own. Dick Lambert had but one hobby in the world — and that was 

 angling : — winter, spring, summer, autumn, — hail, rain, blow, snow, — 

 if Dick could but spare the time (and often, indeed, when he could not 

 spare it), away he would trudge, with a walking-stick rod in his hand, 

 and a large basket slung over his shoulder, in piu'suit of his favourite 

 pastime. At the time of which I am speaking, he had been obliged, on 

 account of IMrs. Lambert's state of health, to take a cottage for her at 

 the pretty village of Carshalton ; and, shortly after, he was fortunate 

 enough so to arrange his own affairs in town, that he was able to promise 

 himself a six weeks' residence at his new country abode. Every one who 

 knows Carshalton knows that there is a delightful little trout-stream 

 running through it as clear as crystal, and as richly stored with Dick's 

 speckled prey as the heart of angler could desire ; and it therefore need 

 be no matter of wondei when I tell that every morning regularly, at four 

 o'clock, Dick was stirring before the sun, and might be seen through 

 the first break of the morning wending his way to the brook. Now if 

 ever there was a simple-hearted fellow in this world, it was Dick Lam- 

 bert; and, as the prejudice goes, if ever there was a simple sport in this 

 world, it is angling. Yet, with all this simplicity on his side, Dick's 

 bad (early) hours brought him into suspicion. Fortune so willed it that 

 next door to Dick's cottage lived the very Paul Pry of the place. For 

 the first week or two, when no one but sick Mrs. Lambert and her maid 

 were the inmates of the newly-occupied cottage, jNIr. Paul thought it 



