music," sang in a failing voice, frequently interrupted by a deep, hollow cough

"My lodging is on the cold ground."

But her poor attempts at pleasing are interrupted by a jovial trio at the opposite corner, who shouted rather than sang to a noisy accompaniment of a fiddle, a drum, and a French horn

"When Vulcan forged the bolts of Jove
In Etna's roaring glow,
Neptune petitioned he might prove
Their use and power below:
But finding in the boundless deep
Such thunders would but idly sleep,
He with them armed Britannia's hand,
To guard from foes our native land.
Long may she hold this awful right,
And when through circling flame
She darts her vengeance in the fight,
May Justice guide her aim.
If foes assail, in future wars,
Our soldiers brave, and gallant tars,
Shall hurl their fires from every hand
On every foe to Britain's land."

We have transcribed the whole of these lines, to show the kind of lyric then popular. Dibdin was the war poet of the age, and well did his honest, downright genius, stir up his countrymen to resist the common enemy, by saying emphatically from their lips

"We always are ready,

Steady boys, steady,

To fight and to conquer, again and again."

At the foot of Holborn-hill a songster revelled in~

"A frog he would a-wooing go,

Whether his mother would let him or no."

Within a few houses, and apparently watching the pro

ceedings at a cook's shop, a melancholy specimen of womankind chanted, in a dolorous voice, "Poor Mary Anne!"-though this dismal strain was in some degree qualified by a one-legged individual, in the militia dress, roaring forth his version of the "British Grenadiers."

Let us mount the hill, and take our chance for something fresh at Newgate and Giltspur-street Compter. A pair of masquerading sailors hold those posts, and are violently rendering in harsh accents-which are neither speaking or singing "The Bay of Biscay," and "The Storm "-then immensely relished by the London operatives, and as often whistled at their work as "Black-eyed Susan " 66 or Sally in our Alley."

There has been a wedding in Milk-street, and Cheapside is alive with the marrow-bones and cleavers, as they pass in procession to serenade the bride and bridegroom. A slight variety is offered at the Mansion House; a man in a tattered red coat, with a velvet skull-cap, and a huntingwhip, is ruthlessly caricaturing a master of the hounds, as he sings

"Shrill chanticleer proclaims the morn,

And spangles deck the thorn;

The lowing herds now quit the lea,

The lark springs from the corn.

The hunt is up, the hounds are nigh;

The huntsman blows his horn.

With a heigh ho, tantivy!

Hark forward, hark forward, tantivy!
Awake the burden of my song,

This day a stag must die!"

As we approach Leadenhall-street, a graver and more instructive line of business is taken up by the City minstrels. A tall lean ancient, who might have done duty for Justice Shallow's bull-calf, is singing

'Behold the man that is unlucky,

Not by his faults but fate worn poor!"

A tar, with only a left arm, is rehearsing the praises of "Poor Tom Bowling;" while a full and particular account of the "Death of Tom Moody" rises drearily from the depths of St. Mary Axe-lane. And, to conclude, a dense assembly surrounds the pump at Aldgate, while four choristers and three instrumentalists (including a fiddle, two Jews'-harps, and a bassoon) are murdering in the most cold-blooded manner "God save great George our King" and "Rule Britannia."

But the ballads are all sung, and the tunes all played. I shall hear them no more in this fashion; still, there is a chastened pleasure in listening, though only in fancy, to the faint, ghost-like sounds, and the thin, distant voices of fifty years since.

THE HEART OF LONDON.

WHERE does it beat most audibly ?—where are its mighty pulsations most felt? The human heart, during its few or many years of activity, can never for a single moment rest from its work; and even so the heart of our City can never subside into peace, nor be tranquillized after its long labours. We hear its thrilling pulses from Temple Bar to St. Paul's-from the great Cathedral to the busy Exchange -from the mart of a world's commerce through the gorged thoroughfares of Thames-street-in the Pool thronged with the ships of all nations-and at the Custom House, with its many-languaged tributaries. Where, indeed, is its incessant motion not distinguishable? In the comparative quiet of suburban streets, where town begins to melt into country, the distant stir of London life is distinctly heard. When the roar of its grand vital current is accelerated by any fresh excitement-a crisis of over-trading, or its necessary sequel a commercial panic-the inmates of countless homes, miles away from the turbid stream of business, listen in alarm or hope to the far-off echoes. Mothers, as they rock their infant charge, unbreeched boys, and girls blushing in early teenhood, pause from their play, or the labour which is dearer than pleasure, to speculate on papa's City doings, his profits and losses, anxiously looking for his return, and praying for his success.

Wonderful London heart! thou wert beating in the ear of old King Lud, and thy loyal vibrations are soothing to Queen Victoria in her sorrow. The ancient Briton in his painted skin-Roman, Saxon, Dane, Norman-were all interested in thy endless movements. Caractacus and Boadicea were as intent on thy unceasing activity as the merchants, bankers, and traders of the nineteenth century. Even at deep night, when the footfalls of the police on the deserted pavement may be counted, there is a mysterious undercurrent of sound, awaking a thousand reflections, and suggestive of innumerable visionary forms, all dependent on and proceeding from the throbs of the metropolitan heart. Stealthy night-wanderers call before us the crowds of the day. The squalid female, guilty, and therefore fearful, changes, while we regard her, to the happy maiden

"Who once, perhaps, in village splendour dressed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;"

and the houseless outcast, of whom we feel that

"The world is not his friend, nor the world's law,"

changes, under the magic of our thoughts, into the hale, joyous lad, recent from the benediction of country parents, on his undoubting errand to pick precious stones from the gold-paved streets of London.

How drearily the City heart beats to the ears of the unfortunate, and how strangely in contrast with the strong, well-sustained pulse heard in every nook and corner of midday London! How they rush along, everadvancing moral waves of eager citizens, each on fire with some pet project-some alluring scheme! Each step is made in confidence and hope. No misgivings, no fears of business reverses; all is at a premium, and fancies of coming discounts are dismissed as mere improbabilities.