82 THE PHILADELPH IA FLOR IST. [July 



Beer, Dickens says, "when taken in moderation, is wholesome andCV 

 refreshing — stupifying and to station-house leading, when taken to \p 

 excess." We are glad to hear him come out on Beer as follows, he 

 takes for his vehicle a Beer dray, and with the Beer deliverer* visits 

 the Taps of old London. 



"That oblong board, all blue and gold, I have spoken of as visible 

 from my parlor window, has no mystery for me. Plainly, unmis- 

 takeably, it says Beer ; a good tap; fourpence a pot in the pewter; 

 threepence per ditto if sent for in your own jug. 



And if you admit (and you will admit, or you are no true English- 

 man) that beer be good — and, being good, that we should be thank- 

 ful for it — can you tell me any valid reason why I should not w T rite 

 on the subject of Beerl Seeing how many thousands of reputable 

 persons there are throughout the country who live by the sale of beer, 

 and how many millions drink it, seeing that beer is literally in every- 

 body's mouth, it strikes me that we should not ignore beer taken in 

 its relation towards belles lettres. Tarry with me, then, while I dis- 

 course on Beer — on the sellers and the buyers thereof — and of their 

 habitations. 1 will essay to navigate my little bark down a river of 

 beer, touching, perchance, at some little spirit-creek, or gently mean- 

 dering through the "back-waters" of neat wines. 



When the Spanish student — immortalised by Le Sage — was in- 

 ducted into the mysteries of the private life of Madrid, he availed 

 himself of a temporary aerial machine, in a person of diabolical ex- 

 traction, called Asmodeous — who further assisted him in his bird's- 

 eye inspection, by taking the roofs oft the houses. When the nobili- 

 ty and gentry frequenting the fashionable circles of the Arabian 

 Nights, were desirous of travelling with extraordinary rapidity, they 

 were sure to be accommodated with magical carpels, or swift-flying 

 eagles, or winged horses. Then they could be rendered invisible, or 

 provided with telescopes, enabling them to see through every obsta- 

 cle, from stone walls to steel castles; but things are changed, and 

 times are altered now. One can't go from London to Liverpool 

 without buying a railway-ricket, and being importuned to show it 

 half-a dozen times in the course of the journey. If you want to study 

 character in the Stock Exchange, you can get no more invisible suit 

 to do it in than a suit of invisible green, and run, moreover, the risk 

 of hearing a howl of "201 !" and feeling two hundred pair of hands, 

 and two hundred pair feet to match, bonnetting, bufFetting, hustling, 

 aud kicking you from the high place of Mammon. 



The heavy wheels of our chariot have been rumbling, while I 

 spoke, through the great thoroughfare which commences at Charing 

 Cross, and ends at Mile End — somewhere about where there was, 

 once on a time, a Maypole. It diverges, going westward ; and we 

 are in a trice in a street, in which I never was in a vehicle in my life 

 without being blocked up, and in which, in the present instance, we 

 are comfortably wedged with a timber-laden w r aggon, a hearse, and 

 an advertising-van in front, and a Hansom cab or two, a mail-phaeton, 

 and Mr. Ex-Sheriff Pickle's elegant chariot behind. Leaving the re- 

 spective drivers to exchange compliments, couched in language more ( 

 or less parliamentary, we will descend for a moment — for the neigh- ( 



