IT IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN.

ALL newspaper-readers are probably on
familiar terms with this phrase. It is
not generally known that her Majesty's
screw line-of-battle ship HOGARTH, one
hundred and twenty, was precisely seven years,
seven months, seven days, seven hours,
and seven minutes, on the stocks in Portsmouth
Yard. It is not generally known
that there is now in the garden of Mr. Pips,
of Camberwell, a gooseberry weighing
upwards of three ounces, the growth of a tree
which Mr. Pips has reared entirely on warm
toast and water. It is not generally known
that on the last rent day of the estates of the
Earl of Boozle, of Castle Boozle, his lordship
remitted to his tenants five per cent on all
the amounts then paid up, and afterwards
regaled them on the good old English cheer
of roast beef and humming ale. (It is not
generally known that ale in this connection
always hums.) It is not generally known
that a testimonial in the form of a
magnificent silver centre-piece and candelabra,
weighing five hundred ounces, was on
Tuesday last presented to Cocker Doodle,
Enquire, F.S.A., at a splendid banquet given
him by a brilliant circle of his friends and
admirers, in testimony, no less of their
admiration of his qualities as a man, than of
anything else you like to fill up the blank with.
It is not generally known that when Admiral
Sir Charles Napier was junior post-captain
on the African station, looking out for
slavers, his ship was one day boarded by a
strange craft, in the stern sheets of which
sat a genuine specimen of the true British
seaman, who, as he dropped alongside,
exclaimed in the voice of a Stentor, " Avast
heaving! Old Charley, ahoy!" Upon this, the
admiral, then post-captain, who chanced at
the moment to be pacing the quarter-deck
with his telescope at his eye (which it is not
generally known he never removes, except at
meals and when asleep) looked good-
humouredly over the starboard bulwarks, and
responded, waving his cocked hat, "Tom Gaff,
ahoy, and I am glad to see you, my lad!"
They had never met since the year eighteen
hundred and fourteen, but Tom Gaff, like a
true fok'sle salt, had never forgotten his old
rough and tough first luff (as he characteristically
called him) and had now come from
another part of the station on leave of
absence, two hundred and fifty miles in an
open boat, expressly to get a glimpse of his
former officer, of whose brilliant career he
was justly proud. It is needless to add that
all hand were piped to grog, and that Tom
and Old Charley were mutually pleased. But
it is not generally known that they exchanged
tobacco boxes, and that if when "Old
Charley" hoisted his broad pennant in proud
command of the Baltic fleet, his gallant heart
beat higher than usual, it pressed, as if for
sympathy, against Tom Gaff's tobacco-box, to
which his left-hand-waistcoat pocket is on
all occasions devoted. Similarly, many other
choice events, chiefly reserved for the special
London correspondents of country
newspapers, are not generally known: including
gifts of various ten-pound notes, by her
gracious Majesty when a child, to various
old women; and the constant sending
of innumerable loyal presents, principally
cats and cheeses, to Buckingham Palace.
One thing is sure to happen. Codgers
becomes a celebrated public character,
or a great capitalist. Then it is not
generally known that in the year eighteen
hundred and blank, there stood, one summer
evening on old London Bridge, a way-worn boy
eating a penny loaf, and eyeing the passengers
wistfully. Whom Mr. Flam of the Minories
—attracted by something unusual in the boy's
appearance—was induced to bestow sixpence
on, and to invite to dinner every Sunday at one
o'clock for seven years. This boy was Codgers,
and it is not generally known that the tradition
is still preserved with pride in Mr. Flam's
family.

Now, it appears to me that several small
circumstances of a different kind have lately
happened, or are yet happening, about us,
which can hardly be generally known, or, if
known, generally appreciated. And as this
is vacation-time, when most of us have some
leisure for gossiping, I will enumerate a few.

It is not generally known that in this
present year one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-four, the English people of the middle
classes are a mob of drunkards more beastly
than the Russian courtiers under Peter the
Great. It is not generally known that this
is the national character. It is not generally