538 Prose by a Versifier, and Verse hy a Proser : (^Nov. 



full-grown trees, with real leaves : I ascertained that fact beyond a 

 doubt, for I plucked some of them ; but they are no more like country 

 leaves than their rivals at Sadler's Wells or the Cobourg. They have 

 a plethoric, over-fed look about them ; they are redolent of the rank 

 city ; their dark, unhealthy green is as like the verdure of the grove 

 as the purple of an alderman's cheek is to the rosy bloom of Cicely, 

 when she sees " Tummas" peeping through the honeysuckle-shaded 

 lattice. But they are real, live trees. How they got into the city, poor 

 things ! I knoAv not : at all events, there they are, fairly caught, planted, 

 and built about ; and they will never get out, that is certain. Do not 

 fancy them drooping with heat, and covered with dust, — no such thing ; 

 the sun never shines in the city, and I am credibly informed that it rains 

 therefor nine months out of the twelve; so that there is no indigenous 

 dust. I once saw something which I mistook for it ; but it was partly 

 imported by carriers, who came from some distant region of sun and 

 wind — partly the sweeping of warehouses. 



Every thing in the City is reduced to an unalterable system — a matter 

 of business, travelling in a regular routine. I do not mean buying and 

 selling, manufacturing, settling accounts, and such like ; no, — eating, 

 drinking, sleeping, marrj'ing, dying, and getting buried. For instance, 

 if you, a stranger, should think fit, out of caprice, to select your own 

 day for slipping out of the world — thinking thereby, perhaps, to disturb 

 the settled course of City business, by having a funeral day of your own 

 — you will find, to your cost, that you might as well have waited quietly 

 for the regular dying-day ; you do not get to your grave one whit the 

 sooner, — no, no, you must lie still until your neighbours are ready — until 

 the appointed day arrives in the unchangeable cycle of the civic system ; 

 and then you will be buried with the other defunct people of the Ward. 



For the accommodation of the denizens of this realm of rule, there are 

 eating-houses distributed at proper distances ; as soon as you enter one 

 of these, it is taken for granted that you dome prepared to submit to 

 the established forms of the place ; for, as for asking for this, or that, or 

 attempting to order the people about, as if you were in a tavern, you 

 would assuredly be taken for a madman if you offered to do anything of 

 the kind. Under this pre-supposition a waiter walks up to you, and as 

 soon as he has reached the regulation distance, which b)' the way varies 

 somewhat — in some establishments it is three feet seven inches, in others 

 three feet four and a half, while I have found places in which it was not 

 more than three feet, but these were probably for the deaf; having, 

 however, reached the prescribed spot, he immediately commences 

 repeating the following form of carte — roast beef; roast mutton; roast 

 veal, and ham ; boil ad beef; boiled mutton ; boiled veal ; pausing the 

 time of a semi-colon after each item, that you may naake your selection. 

 In case you suffer him to conclude without interruption, as soon as he 

 has pronounced the words " boiled veal," away he walks, without the 

 slightest alteration of face, or manner, like a herald who has finished 

 reciting a proclamation ; and when you recall him, he again advances 

 to the appointed spot, and commences his enumeration, proceeding as 

 before, until you stop him by making a choice. When you have chosen 

 your meat, the power of speech is restored to him, and with the same 

 praeconism of manner as before, he announces — cauliflowers ; peas ; 

 cabbage ; teters, as potatos are abbreviated in the dialect of Cockaigne ; 

 and having taken your will as to vegetables, disappears, first having 



