Let us wind up the feast with a cup of
"jolly Hippocras." If you would brew this
incomparable beverage at home, you must mind
that the wine be of the best quality, and well
mixed with cardomums, ginger, cloves,
marjoram, and Spanish spikenard.

INCONVENIENCES OF BEING A
CORNISHMAN.

I AM a Cornishman, and I am sorry for
it. I began my misfortunes early, by being
placed at a school in a kind of debatable
land on the borders of Devonshire. I have
visions of my life at that place, visions of fierce
feuds, of stubborn strifes, carried on, like the
French wars, solely for the sake of an idea, that
idea being a belief in the superiority of Cornish
pluck and muscle. I remember that in all these
wars I was generally pushed into glory. Why
did I fight Coombes in the quarries? Had
I any mortal spite against that young
Devonshire giant? Nothing of the kind; I was
simply brought up, nolens volens, as a kind of
reserve. There had been, I believe, a row at
football, and I fear it had been going rather
against the " one and all," when our respective
friends very kindly decided that Coombes and I,
who had not been present, should finish the
matter by ourselves. We had not been present,
we had not commenced the quarrel, therefore
we should finish it; and finish it we did,
after a fight which deserved to be immortalised
in an epic poem. That was Jorkind's opinion
of that great encounter. Jorkind, who was
of no county in particular, and therefore
had an easy time of it, passed amongst us
as a first-rate classic poet, and as he always
got the prize for Greek and Latin verse, I
dare say he was a competent judge; but I
should like to see the poem, epic or otherwise,
which could do justice to my feelings before I
got my second wind, or could describe,
properly, my sensations during the last ten minutes
of that weary struggle. I don't mind
confessing to Coombes now, that two minutes' more
fight would have made an end of me, and that
when he declined to come on again at, what
would certainly have been with me, the last
"round," I felt bound to him by ties of eternal
gratitude.

But fighting was not the only misery which
this spirit of Cornish clanship brought upon
me. Why did I receive that awful thrashing
from old Fortywhacks? Did I really care one
rush for the confounded little imp Polglaze,
who brought that retribution upon me?
Polglaze was in durance vile, and I am certain now
that he well deserved it. He had headed a
revolutionary deputation on the subject of the
mild beer, and had been first well flogged, and
then locked up for his pains. But this result
did not satisfy the " one and all." Whatever
Polglaze may have been, he was at any rate
Cornish, and was therefore to be rescued from
imprisonment at all cost. A " forlorn hope"
was raised, and lots were drawn as to who
should have the honour of leading it, and of
course that honour fell upon me. There is an
old Cornish song which we often sang in those
days, and it was to the tune of it that we made
our assault upon the place of Polglaze's captivity.
I have the scene before me now, as we marched
up the staircase bidding defiance to the powers
that be : " And shall Trelawny die ? forty
thousand Cornishmen shall know the reason why."
"Trelawny" was Polglaze. The great thing
was to rescue him if possible before
Fortywhacks appeared. What a tough door that
was to get open ! I don't believe we should
ever have opened it at all, if it had not been
for Handy Bob, a boy of a mechanical turn of
mind, and who acted as " sapper and miner"
on the occasion. Under his directions, the
thing was done, and we burst, one and all, into
Polglaze's prison-house. At this point, I
remember, our excitement seemed to cool down a
little, and a kind of feeling came over us that
we had got Polglaze, but didn't know what to
do with him. It was one of those trying
moments when a leader of some genius is required,
and we found such a person in Handy Bob, who,
encouraged by his late success, now tacitly took
the command, and hoisting Polglaze upon my
shoulder, re-formed us in procession, and marched
us down stairs. I wished Polglaze to the four
winds. The young wretch, in his excitement,
was pulling out my hair by handfuls, and I was
thinking seriously about dropping him over the
banisters, when I was suddenly staggered by
the appearance of Fortywhacks.

"Pendraggles," said he, "I wish you joy of
your prize ;" and he smiled one of those smiles of
his which betokened bitter things.

And bitter things followed. When Jorkind
came to me afterwards, and congratulated me
on what he was pleased to call my Spartan
endurance, comparing me to Mutius Scævola,
and declaring that it required a modern Livy to
tell forth my fame, I have a distinct
remembrance of telling him to go and be hanged; also,
of having very severely punched young Polglaze's
head on the first opportunity.

Would that my miseries as a Cornishman, and
because I am a Cornishman, had left me when I
left school! No such good fortune; I may say
that I am at all times being offered up on the
altar of my country. My trials, however, have
now taken a new turn, for whereas they may be
said to have brought me formerly into collisions
with my enemies, they may now with equal truth
be described as proceeding entirely from my
friends. I am persuaded that if I had not been a
Cornishman, I should have expanded into a hearty
good fellow, and that a certain genial humour,
which I am conscious of possessing, au fond,
would have made me a most desirable companion
for all pleasant company. If, for example, I had
been simply by birth an Aztec or an Earthman,
or if I had been rescued when young from the
worshippers of Mumbo Jumbo in the Lunar
Mountains, I am convinced that I should have
got over the disadvantages of my birthplace,
and should have succeeded in getting myself