any moderate reader, whether a marine post
man is not bound to give us a hail instead of
a knock?  "House, ahoy!"—surely he ought
to say, "House, a-hoy!"? Instead of doing
anything of the sort, he, too, sets up the
London element at the sea-side, by knocking
like a London postman. Nay more, he
carries the base imitation a point farther, by
being violently angry with the servant if he
is kept waiting an instant at the door. How
am I to derive benefit from the sea-side when
this licensed tyrant comes twice a day to
take me back to town again?

There are some walks about our
neighbourhood here, some exceedingly pretty
inland walks, which I am given to
understand are in the country. I certainly do
see cornfields and lanes, trees, ditches,
stiles, cottages, windmills, and so on. And
yet, I really don't know. The other day,
when I thought I was walking, in
pastoral solitude, along a lonely road, I was ,
overtaken by an Omnibus. I could hardly
believe my eyes. I said to myself, incredulously,
"No, no; this is either a waggon or a
bathing machine." I looked again, and a
Conductor, an active, all-observing Cockney
Conductor, hopped up on a London foot-
board, and "plied" me with uplifted hand
as if I had been in Holborn.

This afternoon, the rain has come at last;
and we have been obliged to stop in-doors
and amuse ourselves by looking out of
window. What goes by in the street, as dinner-
time approaches? A fly—one of the London
sort, which tries to look like a private
brougham—carrying a gentleman inside, in
formal evening costume, with that look of
mournful expectation and suffering
self-importance, peculiar to Englishmen on their
way to festive assemblies. This is a very
bad sign; the worst I have seen yet. Here
are the visitors themselves conspiring to
poison the fresh sea-side with the unwholesome
metropolitan atmosphere. Why go to
London dinner-parties, in London costume,
here? Why not get away from town customs
and town amusements, and establish
something which is characteristic in a social way
of the free ocean on whose borders we live?
"Mr. and Mrs. Jones request the company
of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, to box the compass.
Small and early. Bathing-gowns and slippers.
Grog and shrimps." Why not establish
some such marine form of invitation as this?
Why not strengthen the conviction even in
our most festive moments, that we are still
at the sea-side?

I am sorry to observe it, but my own
servant-girl, my once trustworthy and attached
housemaid, whom I have brought here for
the benefit of her health, has rewarded her
master's kindness by using his marine
residence as if it was his London house. One
night I come back late from my walk, and I
find her enjoying the cool air of the evening
at the area gate here, just as I see her enjoying
it at the area gate in town. Nay, more,
as I approach nearer in the dusk, I find that
she has got a follower on the other side of
the rails. As a man, I have learn
philosophy; as a master, I am proverbially
indulgent towards the little frailties of my
domestics. Abstractedly speaking, the
discovery of the housemaid's new sweetheart
does not discompose me. My anger is solely
aroused by the entire absence of characteristic
local peculiarity in the reigning follower.
The area Lothario of the sea-side is a base
repetition of the area Lothario in town
He has the same mysterious slouch in his
walk; the same sinister compromise in his
apparel, between the dress of a broken down
gentleman and a prosperous artisan. He
has also the one singularly dreary method of
courting the opposite sex, which obtains
among all his class. He stands mutely
staring at the beloved object, first on one
leg, then on the other: he varies the
proceeding by looking first over one shoulder,
then over the other; he occasionally whistles,
he occasionally scratches his head, he occa-
sionally says, "Well, I must be off." Exactly
like the man in London—in the smallest
particulars, the very image of the man in
London. No smell of shrimps about him, a
stick in his hand instead of a boathook, a long-
tailed coat in place of a blue jacket. What
do I hear my servant saying to him? Just
what she says under similar circumstances in
town,—"Fine evening, ain't it?" Wretched
girl! why not be characteristic, and say
"How's the wind?" Why not offer his
trousers to wash, and his grog, too, to make?
Think of the sea breezes, Mary, and be a
tight lass, a trim little craft, a bumboat-
woman—anything, anything but a London,
housemaid.

And yet, what right have I to expect a
marine course of conduct from my servant,
when her betters set her the example of
importing the London element? Here are
the" swells" on the pier, surveying the sea
through their opera-glasses, exactly as they
survey the audience at the theatre in London.
There are the ladies on the Esplanade, with
nothing that is not metropolitan about them,
except their hats. The same spread of petticoat,
the same circumambient hoops, the
same critical intensity of expression when
they look at each other as they pass—just
like Regent Street. Regent Street, did I say?
here is a shabby man, doing his best to
complete the disastrous analogy by thrusting a
bill into my hand as I walk by him. What
is it? Concert at the Assembly Rooms.
Ha! Something appropriate to the locality
here, surely? Madrigals of the forecastle?
Fishermen's choruses? The song of the
stroke-oar, and the coxswain's catch? Let
me repair to the Assembly Room. London
again—stop my grog, if here is not London
again! The charming young vocalist in pink
satin, the youthful tenor with the wavy