knocked, entered, and saw the architect (whose
name, I have before said, I am not at liberty
to publish); the apartments were taken,
references were given; two months' trial showed
the lodger to be a man of quiet habits; and
subsequently the architect's first floor was let
to the foreigner (who, by the way, was said
to be a nobleman in his own country) for a
term of three years certain. Up to this point
there is every reason to believe that the
proceedings of the foreigner were taken in
boná fide spirit. Time rolled on. They were
now at the end of June, in the same year, a
period at which an unsuccessful insurrection
in the French capital, besides certain
reactionary measures in other parts of the
Continent, had sent another wave of foreign
immigration to break upon our shores. One
afternoon another foreigner knocked at the
architect's door; he was enveloped in a singular
garment, which appeared to the English
eye to partake equally of the natures of a coat
and a cloak, being fantastically braided in
front, and ornamented behind with a large
hood, shaped like a heart, and lined with
crimson. A tall man, bearing a case, which
appeared to contain a violoncello, or some
other bulky musical instrument, was beside
him. The foreign nobleman met him upon
the threshold, uttered a cry of mingled
surprise and delight, flung himself into his arms,
and embraced him with fervour, to the great
astonishment of an unmarried lady, who
resided, with a parrot, in the parlours of the
opposite house. The rest is easily narrated—
it is an oft-repeated tale. The first floor of
the architect's (hitherto) unassuming home
was brilliantly illuminated every evening;
numbers of foreigners passed up the stairs,
and were never seen to come down again
by the last person retiring to bed in the
architect's family. Mingled sounds of many
voices and instruments (in which the deep
tones of the violoncello were always
predominant) were heard by the architect, his
family, and every one else in the street. The
architect remonstrated with the foreign nobleman;
who declined to restrict the amusements
of his friend, to whom, he said, he was
indebted for the life of an only sister, once
saved by his intrepidity in stopping the horses
of her carriage, which were fast hurrying her
towards a precipice. The landlord offered a
compromise, in vain; wrote to the "Times"
newspaper, and applied to a magistrate. The
latter told him there was no remedy, and the
proverb about an Englishman's castle, turned
out to be "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare."

The story may be a trite one; but it is
only the more powerful against the proverb.
I could multiply instances of a less adventitious
character. Moreover, it is not because
the Englishman does not live in a great house,
with a hundred other people, and consign the
key of his chamber to the hands of a prying
porter, that he enjoys more privacy or
tranquillity than the Frenchman. It is not
because the Englishman has a street door, and
the Frenchman has none, that the former is
more free from disturbance and annoyance.
Nay, the street door is itself, instead of being
a protection, a positive source of annoyance.
If I had no street door, could people come
knocking and kicking against it all day to
know if I want a door-mat, a rope of onions,
a "History of England," a "Family Devotion,"
"Views of Palestine," coming out in
sixpenny parts, specimens of drapery which
"I needn't pay for, at present," crockery,
a box of steel-pens, matches, a Dutch clock,
a paper of needles; or to know whether I
have any old clothes to exchange for money, or
plates and dishes, or geraniums (with no
roots to them); or any old umbrellas, or bottles,
or bones? If I had any rags to sell; or knives
or scissors to grind? There is a good deal of
timber about my house, which conducts the
sound, and my hearing is painfully acute.
No part of my premises is sufficiently remote
from the street door to protect me from these
noises. I sit up stairs, and hear these calls:
many a time clenching my teeth, and muttering
bitter things of my disturbers—things which,
methinks, they would hardly like to hear.

H. (whose case lately came under my
notice) has to thank his living in an English
Castle, with a massive knocker, for being
disturbed at his studies the other night, while
his servant had gone for the trimestrial holiday.
Now if he had lived in France, and instead
of enjoying the hollow boast of being the
master of the house, he had been content to
merge his individuality in the joint-tenantship
of something like a castle, with a porter to
guard the gate, and to hold a preliminary
parley with all intruders, he would not have been
tempted to indulge in that hasty exclamation
upon throwing down his book: he would have
been spared the humiliation of answering, in
person, a summons at his own street door:
he would not have been startled by a blackened
face, asking, in a hoarse mysterious
whisper, the singular question "whether the
master wanted such a thing as a tun o' coals:"
he would not have had the trouble of explaining,
in his own good-tempered manner (which
has endeared him to all who know him), that
the purchase of a ton of coals is a grave
matter, and not usually negotiated with a
stranger who knocks at your door at an
unseasonable hour: he would not have been
tormented with the information that "the
cart was jist round the corner," and that
they could be put in, within five minutes, for
twenty-one and six. He would not have been
provoked to shut the door in the intruder's
face: to force his foot from the threshold,
where he kept it to prevent the shutting of
the door: he would not have been compelled
to hear such language as "Would eighteen
bob break your back?" howled several times
through his keyhole; which vulgar idiom has
been kindly translated for me by young Mr.
Phast, of Somerset-house, into the politer