possible to go a degree further, and, with hushed
breath and trembling knees, to mount a step
higher. Here is the long-lost monarch with a
crown on, whom we have been, looking for all
our lives. The bitter disappointment we all feel,
at seeing a queen in a Paris bonnet, or an emperor
in a glossy hat, does not await us here, where
sceptres, and maces, and gold sticks, and state
swords are in every hand that has a right to
hold them.

But what place, then, is this? Where is this
spacious hall in close contiguity to a Cattle
Show and Baker-street, where yet we may
mix in such good society, and bask in the
sunshine of aristocracy to such a blissful
extent?

The Eye-witness has passed from the Cattle
Show, into the waxwork department attached
to the Baker-street Bazaar, or, in other words,
he—is at Madame Tussaud's.

Madame Tussaud's—or, as it is rendered in our
ordinary vernacular, Tissard's—is, with the whole
population of this country, metropolitan or
provincial, something more than an exhibition; it
is an institution. Whether it is from the
circumstance touched on above the good
company into which the visitor to this establishment
is introduced or from the profound and awful
misery of the place which provides the Englishman
with an entertainment which does not make
him happy from which of these two causes the
popularity of this exhibition arises, the
Eye-witness is unable with certainty to state. As far
as an opinion goes, however, he begs to express
his own personal belief that the last-named of
these two attractive elements has the most to
do with the inconceivably great success of
Madame Tussaud's. At all events, the fact is
so. Visitors from the country go to see these
waxworks if they go nowhere else; tradesmen
living in the neighbourhood put "Near Madame
Tussaud's" on their cards; the omnibuses which
run down Baker-street announce that they pass
that deceased lady's door, as a means of getting
customers; and there is scarcely a cab-horse in
London but would make an instinctive "offer"
to stop as he went by the well-known entrance
to "Tissard's."

The remarkable woman with whom this
exhibition originated, was born as long ago as in
1760. The present writer remembers her well,
sitting at the entrance of her own show, and
receiving the shillings which poured into her
exchequer. She was evidently a person of
marked abilities, and of a shrewd and strong
character. The establishment is kept up by
her successors, "whose chief aim," we are told
in the catalogue, "has always been to
combine amusement with instruction." From
this catalogue we gain a world of useful
and interesting information, and many new
views on general subjects. Taking, for
instance, the really handsome room called the
Hall of Kings, we find that it is "so named from
containing several portraits in oil by eminent
artists;" but whether it is from the fact that the
portraits are "in oil," or from the eminence of
the artists by whom they have been executed,
that this apartment has been called the Hall of
Kings, it is difficult to understand.

The Eye-witness finds a difficulty in stirring
from this Hall of Kings, and is especially drawn
to a consideration of the effigy of His Majesty
William the Fourth. The group in which this
prince is placed is (chronologically) calculated to
produce temporary insanity in all beholders. The
E.-W. has sent for an eminent mad-doctor,
and, pending his arrival, will endeavour to
arrange his ideas on the subject of this bewildering
assembly.

The central feature of it, is our lamented
king, George the Fourth, standing with one
leg bent, and with beautifully curling hair,
smiling in an insulting manner at his father,
who is not allowed to be on the dais at all, but
is placed aloof at a respectful distance. The
finest gentleman in Europe wears his real
coronation robes—and here the writer would meekly
ask whether there is not something
compromising to the dignity of royalty in the sale of
such wares, and their exhibition in this place?
and whether, if this finery must be sold at all,
it would not be better to divide it into small
parcels, or lots, and let it be privately disposed
of, to be worked up in mantles for our
shopwindows, or properties for the Alhambra Circus?
Round about the dais are grouped many
illustrious noblemen, statesmen, and prelates,
of all periods of English history, including
the present Bishop of Exeter and the late
Lord Nelson. But this anachronistic
arrangement is so little to the taste of
the great admiral last mentioned, that he is
represented with his back to his sovereign,
descending the steps of the throne, and
evidently about to leave a court of which no good
is to be expected. Before, however, he can get
away, he will have to pass through a group which
is hardly more promising in a chronological
point of view. It consists of four persons
seated in a circle. The first is Charlotte, the
wife of George the Third; the second, Queen
Caroline; the third, the Princess Charlotte,
daughter, as every body knows, to the finest
gentleman in Europe; the remaining chair is
occupied by our before-mentioned favourite,
William the Fourth. He is evidently
bewildered and disheartened by the presence of
the three ladies just alluded to, and, pointing
them out in a demonstrative manner with his
open hand, is obviously saying, "Bless my life
and soul, I thought all these women were dead
and gone long ago! Yet here they are, come to
court, and sitting down, as if they meant to
stop."

What wonder that a family of four sisters,
fresh from the Cattle Show, and who had
established themselves for a good afternoon with
British History in the Hall of Kings—what
wonder that these honest persons were a little
mystified, and disposed, to a certain extent, to
quarrel with each other as to who was who, in
this royal assembly. Their conversation was of
this sort