DECEMBER. 
367 
I should be glad if you can tell me something of Isabella Gray. 
We think the glorious Cloth of Gold to be the best yellow.” 
“The Cloth of Gold,” said he,—“ Phoo !” and he blew the Cloth of 
Gold •into the Lake Ontario; adding, “we have another yellow, 
Jane Hardy, that will lick all the yellows in England.” “Well, 
sir,” said I, “your’s is a great nation!” “Nation, sir,” said he, 
“why, there is no such nation. We have the biggest ships, the 
fastest sailers, the best and bravest soldiers in the world:”—(not 
being a clairvoyant, of Course I could know nothing of the future 
glorious battle of Bull’s Run, so worthy to be chronicled with 
Waterloo, Austerlitz, and Marengo)—“America, sir, can lick the 
whole world, English and French, and I would not mind throwing 
in the ‘Rooshians.’ We have the highest mountains, the largest 
rivers, and the noblest lakes in the world. Phoo 1 ” and he blew 
the Duke of Wellington into the vasty deep with an imaginary 
broadside from the Orinoco. Well, he talked without ceasing 
till we arrived at Southampton, and I got no sleep. I kept my 
gravity outwardly, but I laughed inwardly till my sides and gan¬ 
glions ached. At parting, I shook hands with him, and invited him 
to Rushton, if ever he should come that way. He replied, “When 
you come to ‘ Virginny,’ come and see me; I can’t stop, the ‘ tug ’ 
will be gone ! ” 
(2.) An Englishman—a very funny fdlow^ 
“ Will,” honourably noticed in your last, is a short, thickset 
man, about five feet six, and is an industrious fellow. With the help 
of sheets he will grow peaches out of doors by the rivulet side, in 
ground that was originally a swamp, with any man in the world. 
So persuaded is he that the blossoms must not be wetted, that, if 
the weather looks fickle, he will not go home to dinner without 
putting up the sheets. The result of the last four years is given 
correctly in your last. “Will” is very fond of going to rose 
exhibitions. When it gets near the time, he fishes to know 
whether he is to go with such questions as these, “ Had I better 
shave ? Must I put on my best clothes?” and no peace is there 
in him till I announce the fact that he is to go. I took him to 
Langport with me, and both forgot to take the keys of the boxes ; 
but with borrowed keys we unlocked our boxes, and won what he 
calls a “ Fust Prize.” He has a great horror of third and fourth 
prizes, and when we win a second prize, he says, “ I do not know 
how it is, but go where we will they always cheats ‘us,’ the 
nation gets wickeder and wickeder;” but if we win a “Fust,” he 
declares the nation is converted, and thinks that the millenium is 
set in. I sent him, solus, to Shepton Mallet, where he won a 
“Fust,” and on his return home in the night, in order that I 
might see the victory as soon as I was up, he stuck a notice on a 
stick opposite my door, which looked very like, “Fust Prize wind, 
holler agin.” 
His delight at winning a “Fust” in London was so great, that 
he tipped “Cabby” so handsomely, that “Cabby” hoped to have 
the honour of driving him and the winners next year. At the 
