Correspondent" gossiping with the door-keepers, attacking every member with whom he is on speaking terms, in order that he may concoct the luminous epistles which form the attraction of the paper whose columns he adorns. This man is a spouter at public-house discussion clubs, and fancies himself, as he stands surrounded by M.P.'s, almost an M.P. himself. What does he here? I know not, except waste his time. A grand debate is coming on; a ministerial crisis is imminent. How full the Lobby gets; and how scrutinised is every action of hon. gentlemen as they take a turn, as they all do in the course of the evening, in the Lobby! There is the leader of the Opposition; he meets his bitterest foe, and bows to him and smiles. In what agony are the quidnuncs to know the hidden meaning of that bow and smile! The Ministerialist Whipper-in has a little book in his hand, and is busy in his calculation. By the twinkle in his eye I fancy it is all right; and now he may whistle " Begone, dull care, I prythee begone from me." He need not fear next quarter-day. Ah! that cheer which comes sounding to us through the glass doors denotes that the Premier has concluded his defence, and that the House is on his side. But out rushes the Sergeant-at-Arms. "Clear the Lobby

for a division," exclaim the door-keepers. The police point us the door: we take the hint while all the bells are tinkling, and all the members are rushing from every quarter, through the Lobby to the House, as if members and bells were alike mad. We wait outside. By the clock nearly a half-hour is gone. Hark, what a cheer! By Jove! the division is taken, and the ministry are saved. It is midnight; yet the Lobby is full and gay. We won't go home yet. Just behind is the bar, and members are drinking pale ale and sherry, and soda with a little brandy in it, and the whole place begins to have the air of the London Tavern after an anniversary dinner on behalf of the Indignant Blind. Look at those swells just entering the House: evidently they have been dining out, and presently one of them will speak, and the whole House will be in a roar at his vinous oratory; out in the Lobby we catch faint echoes of the mirth. The House is in committee on the Cab Act, and are now enacting a clause relative to drunken and disorderly cabmen. Our friend is vehement, inconclusive, and indistinct. Happily the reporters will merely mention that he addressed the House amidst consider- . able laughter. As we leave the Lobby, we hear hints about "physician, heal thyself.”

OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

WHERE'S Eliza? Who was the man in the iron mask? Who was Junius? Whose were the bones discovered last year in a carpet-bag under Waterloo-bridge? You cannot tell. Neither can I tell you who is our London Correspondent. Yet he exists. I find traces of him in the most Boeotian districts of England.

"Caledonia, stern and wild,

Fit nurse for a poetic child,"

knows him. In "Tara's halls" he has superseded the harp, and is a presence and a power. Before newspapers were, when Addison was writing the "Spectator," and Dick Steele "Tatlers "innumerable, and De Foe his Review and all sorts of romances, in Grub-street there was an immense deal of activity in the way of letter writing. Country gentlemen wanted news, and were willing to pay for it. When there was a frost or when it was wet, when the nights were long or amusements few, when the squire was laid up with the

gout or when my lady had the vapours, it was pleasant to read who ate cheesecakes and syllabubs at Spring Gardens, who drank coffee at Button's or chocolate at the Cocoa Tree, what was the gossip of the October or Kit Kat clubs, what had become of Mrs. Bracegirdle, and how Mrs. Oldfield triumphed on the stage. Nor did the letter-writer stop here. In those days courtiers had two faces. There was one King de facto, and another de jure divino. There was a Court at St. Germains as well as at St. James's. There were Jacobites as well as Hanoverians. There were plots and intrigues-Popish and Protestant-and in the dark days before Christmas, in old country houses, letters full of all the rumours thus created were welcomed. But the age made progress. Newspapers were established in all the leading towns of the country, and the need of the letter-writer vanished, but only for a while. In his desire to cater for the public, and to outbid his competitors, the country newspaper revived the London correspondent, but on an extended scale. Now scarce a country newspaper exists that does not avail itself of his services.

But from the general let me descend to the particular. I take up the "Little Pedlington

Gazette," and I find our London Correspondent dates from Club, St James's-square. Of course, in a free country, a man may date his letters where he likes; but I'll be bound to say the letter is written in a cheap coffee-house in Chancery-lane, and all its contents are culled from that day's papers. From the letter, however, I am led to suppose that the writer is a

member of the House of Commons-that he has the run of the clubs-that royal personages are not unfamiliar with him-and that his intimacy with Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli is only equalled by his friendship with Palmerston and Russell. Our London Correspondent has very wonderful eyes, and I am sure his ears must be longer than those of any other animal extant. I have tried the Strangers' Gallery in the House of Commons, and the Speaker's, and the Reporters', and in all I have the utmost difficulty in distinguishing emotions which an animated debate must excite in the disputants. The Parliamentary fashion is for a minister, when attacked, to sit with his hat so pulled down over his eyes that you can scarce see a feature. Lord John always sits in this way, so does Lord Palmerston. Our London Correspondent can see what no one else can, and there