Old Too Early. [Dec. 



hold of Mr. Paul at the Greyhound to-night, my name's not Snookley 

 if I don't physic his ale." 



From that day down to the present, honest Dick Lambert never goes 

 fishing till the afternoon ; and if you should ever meet him at Amwell 

 Hill, or Carshalton Brook, or Dagenham Breach, it will go hard if he 

 does not convince you that the fish bite much better in the evening than 

 the morning. 



5th. It is unwise. And in support of this assertion, it might be suf- 

 ficient to refer to what has already been said under the first four heads, 

 but that I have one little anecdote which will well enough illustrate the 

 point without being at the pains to borrow from its neighbours. A 

 somewhat economical friend of mine was on a visit at Canterbury some 

 time ago, from which place he was suddenly recalled by urgent business 

 demanding his presence in London ; the hour at which he was required 

 to be in town was four o'clock, and having a nicely-calculating head 

 when it was a few shillings that were to be saved, he discovered that if 

 he rose at six o'clock, he might safely walk as far as Sittingbourne — the 

 first sixteen miles of the journey — and there avail himself of the earliest 

 coach that should overtake him : he did this ; but by being " too early" 

 at Sittingbourne, it was his ill-luck to engage a seat on the top of a 

 Faversham coach, which was the first that made its appearance ; and the 

 consequence was, that before he got to town he had the annoyance of 

 seeing himself passed by three or four others that would have conveyed 

 liira to town half an hour earlier, if he had been half an hour later ; the 

 coach which he patronised being one of those which, aware of their own 

 awful solemnity of motion, endeavours to make up for the passengers, 

 which their slowness deprives them of, by being the first on the road to 

 pick up the stragglers and the unwary. 



These, then, are five arguments in support of five assertions on the 

 impropriety of rising too early. But the mischief is not confined alone 

 to the act of rising; for I have known men who seemed to be inflicted 

 by their evil genius with a too-early-mania in whatever they did — 

 whether by night or by day. Such a one was Master Henry Purvis. 



Purvis, who had been born and bred in some uncivilized place in the 

 north of England, had so often had drilled into him the merit of " being 

 in time," that wlien he came to town for a week's visit, and with a letter 

 of introduction from his father to Lord Spanker, on the strength of two 

 or three mortgages which he held on his lordship's estates, he resolved 

 that if early hours could insure sight-seeing, he would be the first to 

 seize time by the forelock. Full of the pungency of this resolution he 

 took possession of the bed that he had secured for himself in the classic 

 hotel of the Swan-with-two-necks, Lad Lane, with the determination of 

 being up with the lark. So he was sure enough ! and infinitely to the 

 annoyance of a choleric West Indian, per the Bristol coach, Avho was 

 ready to fall into an epileptic fit at the thought of rising before twelve, 

 and who about four was favoured by Purvis with an admirable oppor- 

 tunity of counting his stump — stump — stumps, as he stalked about over 

 his head in the act of dressing. His toilette completed, and little dream- 

 ing of the anathemas that had been launched against him by his peppery 

 fellow-lodger below, IMaster Henry Purvis bustled down stairs, delighted 

 at the thought of taking a ramble all by himself " through Lunnon ;" 

 but just as he was preparing to make his exit, he was stopped by 

 the Boots, who had heard him come tramping down stairs, and was 



