terms of, "Would eighteen shillings be too
much payment for you to make, in the
present state of your means?"

I rather think the idea of a place where
one can repose, after the rude combat of daily
life, as well as the idea of strength and
security, is meant to be included in the
expression, that "an Englishman's house is his
castle." It is a mockery to tell me that
nobody has a right to attack my home,
to break open my door, to bore a hole in
my wall, to violate the sanctity of my hearth,
while they break my bell-wire, smear my
door-step, lift the ponderous iron ring in the
mouth of that animal on my door (who seems
to grin at me in derision every time I enter),
and give such single and double knocks as
"throb thunder through my castle floors," all
day, and especially in the morning. Any one
whose castle happens to be in the suburbs of
London, will know that I am no fighter of
shadows, no hypochondriacal writer of letters
to the newspapers; but a man with a genuine
grievance. I am not only attacked incessantly,
but subjected to insulting offers from
the enemy himself, to victual and furnish
me for the siege. It is nothing to me (I say
this with all respect to those public-spirited
men who have spoken before me) that these
grievances have been stated before in public
print. So long as the annoyance is allowed
to increase and continue in a rampant state,
I swear by the waters of Styx (lifting up my
right hand), and under the penalty of loss of
nectar, and forfeiture of one hundred years of
Elysian bliss, not to cease to raise my feeble
(though, I trust from the justice of my
complaint, strong) voice against it. If I were
practically, instead of theoretically, the lord
of a castle, or in any position that would
bear a comparison with the lord of a castle,
should I endure one of these annoyances for a
moment? Or should I not arise from my
slumber, and shake them off, as the lion
shakes the dew-drops from his mane? Should
I not, in the former case, rather cause to be
collared the first intruder, and should I not
have him brought before me, like a poacher
before a landlord? Should I not ask him,
in blank verse, or in recitative (like Duke
Borgia, at Her Majesty's Theatre), how he
dared to insult me in my castle-hall? And
waiting (for form's sake) his reply, should
I not immediately communicate to the Dutch-
clock man (supposing a Dutch-clock man
to be the first victim) that his hour was
come? Or to the onion man (with a like
supposition) that I was about to reciprocate his
officious offer of a rope? Should I not, in short,
have slung out one, at least, of my invaders—a
terrible example to the rest—upon the
top-most of my battlements, long ago?

I say, when we boast to the Frenchman
that we do not pile our houses one upon
another, to the eighth and ninth story, but
cut them into thin slices, and spread them
over the green fields to such a stretch, that
to say that "myself and friends reside in
London," does not mean that we are within
twelve cabman's miles of each other, when
half our days are wasted in walking from
place to place, and all for the sake of the
privilege of each of us having a kind of castle to
himself, with garden behind, and the water laid
on,—I say, when we are constantly flinging in
the Frenchman's teeth, oratorical sentences
about "domestic peace," "sacred hearthstone,"
"children climbing our knees," &c., it is
only fair that he should be informed of a few
of the drawbacks. Are we to be going on
forever, bragging of not being over-partial to
balls or theatres, disliking masquerades, liking
plain joints at home and detesting restaurants,
holding evenings at the café in detestation,
hating the click of dominoes, liking carpets,
and abominating wood fires, and saying not
a word about these things? Did I not,
conceited J.B.! who kept me awake, from Paris
to St. Ouen (you who have thrice appeared
to me since, in dreams, in very likeness of
Gog or Magog, I don't know which)—did
I not listen to you, for six mortal hours,
discoursing of England, glory, hearthstones,
and the like, to thy moustached neighbour, in
French less intelligible to him than to me;
till (out of sheer exhaustion) he admitted the
social degradation of his native land, and
dropped into slumber about twenty minutes
before a fresh smell of sea-weed and a
stentorian notice to prepare our billets came
in at our carriage window; and shall I not
introduce him to you beside that hearth,
in the centre of that castle, that he may
see your weakness, as the valet espies that
of his master, according to a proverb, which
cannot be unknown to that long-suffering
Gaul? Was it strange (I ask), when I had
taken a secret determination to arm him
against another such attack from one of my
countrymen, with a truer picture of the
interior of the Briton's castle, and had followed
him closely for that purpose, from the station
to the steamboat—was it to be wondered at
(I say), seeing my beardless chin, my un-
moustached lip, and hearing my cry "'hold
hard," to the Frenchman, who was letting go
the head-rope, before I had got aboard—was it
at all remarkable that he shrank from me; that
suddenly finding my eye fixed upon him, he
recoiled; that he resisted my attempt to
commence a conversation, with less politeness
than I had generally met with from his
compatriots; that on three several occasions he
adroitly went round the funnel to escape me;
and once fled to the forecastle, preferring its
inferior accommodation, for awhile (although
he had paid chief-cabin fare); that, when I
grew heated with the chase, and, determined
not to be baffled, I approached him, with the
intention of whispering in his ear, "Fear not, I
am your friend," he suddenly disappeared down
the companion-ladder; and retired to bed? If
this should meet the eye of J.B., he is earnestly
requested to answer this chain of questions in