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 2i8 Anecdotes.

��goose ; one smells it so while it is roasting, said I : ' But you, Madam (replies the Doctor), have been at all times a for tunate woman, having always had your hunger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand.' Which pleasure, answered I pertly, is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as have the happiness to pass through Porridge-Island I of a morning. ' Come, come (says he gravely), let's have no sneering at what is so serious to so many : hundreds of your fellow-creatures, dear Lady, turn another way, that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge-Island to wish for gratifications they are not able to obtain : you are certainly not better than all of them ; give God thanks that you are happier.'

I received on another occasion as just a rebuke from Mr. John son, for an offence of the same nature, and hope I took care never to provoke a third ; for after a very long summer parti cularly hot and dry, I was wishing naturally but thoughtlessly for some rain to lay the dust as we drove along the Surry roads.

symptom of radical health, I have a Quality of Brentford.' The World,

voracious delight in raw summer fruit, Nov. 29, 1753, No. 48. of which I was less eager a few years Charles Knight, describing a walk

ago.' Life^ iv. 353. in 1812 from Co vent Garden to Pim-

1 Porridge-Island is a mean street lico, says : ' We make our way to

in London, filled with cook-shops for Charing Cross, deviating a little from

the convenience of the poorer in- the usual route, that I may see how

habitants ; the real name of it I know some of the worthy electors of West-

not, but suspect that it is generally minster are lodged and fed. We are

known by, to have been originally a in the alleys known in the time of

term of derision. Note by Mrs. Piozzi. Ben Jonson as the Bermudas but

'The fine gentleman whose lodgings since called the Caribbee Islands. ..

no one is acquainted with ; whose Close at hand is Porridge Island,

dinner is served up under cover of a then famous for cook-shops, as in the

pewter plate from the cook's shop in middle of the previous century. ..

Porridge Island, and whose annuity We are out of the labyrinth, and are

of a hundred pounds is made to sup- in a neglected open space, on the

ply a laced suit every year, and a north of which stands the King's

chair every evening to a rout, returns Mews. Trafalgar Square and the

to his bedroom on foot, and goes National Gallery have swept away

shivering and supperless to bed, for these relics of the pride of the Crown

the pleasure of appearing among and the low estate of the people.'

people of equal importance with the Passages of a Working Life, i. 117.

' I cannot

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