CORNELIUS WEIIBE'S GLANCES AT LIFE.
THE cause of the collected publication of part of these papers is a tolerable guarantee of an amusing merit. On their appearance in a fugitive shape, they seem to have attracted so much of attention as to have been deemed worthy of appropriation. One gentleman, the author tells us, took the greater part of a sketch, and, by adding a few introductory paragraphs, passed off the whole as his own. An- other borrowed "nearly the whole of a second paper verbatim, in- troduced the character it paints into one of the chapters of a novel, rechristened the hero, and exhibited him as one of those tame lions which, unhandsomely neglected by the Zoological Society, are only to be seen when it is feeding-time, in private menageries." Under these circumstances, Mr. WEBBE thought he had better collect his scattered progeny, and, by means of some new additions, render the whole fit for public presentation. As regards the contents of the volume, its title of Glances at Life is aptly descriptive of its character. The subjects are such as may be found without any long or deep search, by one who passes through the scenes and mixes with the characters of Lon- don. Their points are such as may be seen at a glance ; and are rather dependent upon a pleasant skill in bringing them out, for the effect they produce, than on any close observation in discover- ins, them. In manner and style, Mr. WEBBE resembles the writers of that class who have been disparagingly termed the Cockney school. He is, however, a free imitator, not a servile copyist. The influence of LEIGH HUNT, Hazeirr, and CHARLES LAMB, is seen in his selection of subjects and his mode of handling them; but, although travelling their way, CORNELIUS WEBER does not confine himself to treading in their footsteps. His mind, though inferior in power and originality, is of a kindred nature to theirs. Had they never written, WEBBE would still have de- scribed the scenes and occurrences of daily life with a considerable degree of happy literalness, and have occasionally blended humour and tenderness pleasingly together in his sketches of character.
To give a descriptive enumeration of each paper in the volume, would require a good deal of room, for there are nineteen of them. Instead of this, we will give one specimen. The truth of the fol- lowing passage from a paper on "A London Sunday," will be re- cognized by all who have been familiar with the original.
A London Sunday is not what it was. Any one who remembers Londoo thirty years ago, must see, and if candid, will acknowledge, that the external decencies of life are now more general-that there is more self-restraint, less drunkenness, riot, and debauchery, though perhaps as much comparative poverty as ever, even among the most unenlightened classes in the lowest and humblest neighbourhoods. Thirty years since, such alively locality as Drury Lane was, on a Sunday, from daybreak till long after (link, one carnival of revelry. from the South end of it even to the North end thereof; for who was to put it down ice those days? The two or three parish beadles and "constables serving. in their o right" could not take up the five or six hundred reeling or wallowing swine of a swinishly-inclined multitude ; and as for the Bow Street officers, they were better employed than in picking up the "dirty spalpeens " who were sprawling in the glitter, and soaked inside and out with puddle-water and " Hodges's best." Besides, Pat would have thought it mighty hard, after running up and down perpendicular ladders during six days, to be debarred from an hour or two's " horizontal refreshment " on Sunday. It was, no doubt, very shocking to witness such scenes : they are past ; and it is something to have lived long enough to see that they are no more ; thanks to a better knowledge among the many, and a better police where the few are still inclined to indulge in the old familiar vices.
But Drury Lane had not all the indecorous to itself; other low neighbour- hoods disgorged their dirtyand debauched, who carried their depravities out of town with them, instead of exhibiting them in the streets ; and accordingly, the roads and the fields in the suburbs were covered with born blackguards, some leading home bull-dogs, bitten, torn, mangled, and bleeding, who had had their bellies-fail of fighting ; others were going to more distant fighting-places. Dustmen, eostermougers, draymen, coalheavers with their beards newly mowed, but the upper parts of their faces still covered with an incrustation of coal-dust, hackneymen, butchers' men and boys-in short, all the lower and worst classes of London, seemed smitten with a sort of tarantula dance, and toe. and-heeled it out of town. The green suburbs were reached sooner in those days, before London had outgrown itself ; and to these inviting spots accordingly such motley groups as we have named bent their steps, not always of the steadiest. In one corner of a cow-pasture you beheld a group engaged at pitch- :mil-hustle ; in another a pitched battle was going on for seven shillings aside, or a leg of mutton and trimmings. Now end then you might hear some respect- able-looking person exclaim, " Zoinals, I've lost my watch ! " " No !" cried a hundred voices, " It vozn't wallible, voz it ? " " Yes, worth ten guineas," groaned the bereaved of Tompion. A shout of laughter testified how much they pitied him. Shortly afterwards, perhaps, another respectable found that he had lost his purse with twenty guineas in it ; whereupon louder shouts of laughter shook the welkin, these fellows having a peculiar relish for such happy strokes of practical humour. If the loser could be restored to good-humour by the good-humour of the blackguards about him, he lacked not such consolement ; he was told that money generally changed hands at a fight ; and was advised to offer thirty guineas reward, and he would be sure to get his twenty again, &a. Sec. It the field had a pond in it, a duck-hunt was exciting shrieks of cruel laughter ; or perhaps a cat of superhuman powers was supposed to be in the act of drawing some full-grown fool from one side of the pond to the other for a wager,-he being placed blindfold with his back to the water, the rope which drew him through, though fastened to the cat, was pulled by the knowing ones on the opposite side ; and yet, though the trick was so manifest, sufficient flats were found to go through this ordeal, acknowledge the wonderful strength of cats, and pay their forfeits like well-juggled fools.
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