I was in the strength of my reputation, when Huggins the great poet and romance writer arose.

"We met 'twas in a crowd;"

but I saw the women hanging round him—all the ten artists, nine of whom had done me, watching him to catch him for "Somerset House"-a fashionable publisher (turning his back to me) glaring at Huggins, as if he would have looked into his very bowels for "copy," "-and two editors of rival magazines (their backs to me) smiling graciously on what I felt to be the "Lion" or the night.

I retired early from the scene; and never-never shall I forget the cool insolence with which one of my former worshippers, a beautiful girl, who had already appeared in one of the handsomest of the annuals, met me retreating to the door, and with her eye on Huggins, and half-turning her back to me, she cried, "What! going good-bye."

I went home, suspecting, nay, more than suspecting, my fallen condition. The fact, however, was put beyond a doubt, when in the next number of "The Annihilator," I read the following passage-a passage taken from fifty eulogies redolent of incense. The words were as follow:

"To say that Huggins has risen beyond all former poets in the portraiture of men and things is to say nothing; as he has surpassed all men, so will no man ever surpass him. In a word, he has all the grandeur (and ten times more) of Nokes, without one particle of his weakness!"

That "without!" My fate was sealed; from that moment my mane came off by handsfull!

The "weakness of Nokes!" I who had been quoted — lauded for energy-superhuman power but it matters not! Had I malice, the evil passion would be more than satisfied, for, in a year or two afterwards, I perceived in "The Annihilator," the following gratifying intelligence :

"For Slopkin-the new star that has risen in the firmament of literature-it may be truly said of him, that he has more than all the vigour of Huggins, without his poverty of expression."

And what is Slopkin now? No " Lion," but Bottom the weaver. Another "Lion" came with a "without " a something of Slopkin, and lo, Slopkin is now mere mortal man.

I retired from London in disgust; having, however, had the satisfaction of seeing myself bound in sheep for the use of schools --went to college-entered the church, and here I am in the parish of Satansfield, on the limited income of two hundred

pounds per annum, house-rent, coals, and candles, included; no "Lion," but an unshaken pillar of Protestant ascendancy,please to direct to immediately forward me the thirty pounds for this article, and believe me yours, truly and affectionately,

JOHN NOKES.

We will add nothing to the “confessions” of the late “Lion :”— they shall stand unmixed "with baser matter."

THE COCKNEY.

"My lot might have been that of a slave, a savage, or a peasant," says the grateful Gibbon; "nor can I reflect without pleasure on the bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilised country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune." In his heart, the true Cockney has a kindred gratitude to that of the author of "The Rise and Fall," though it may happen he shall never express it; nay, shall be almost ignorant of its existence. Yet, notwithstanding, it is the unknown cause of his self-complacency, the hidden source of his pride, the reason of his compassionate consideration of the original deficiencies of his rustic brethren. He might have been born at the Land's-End; he might have spoken broad Cornish; he might have never seen St. Paul's Church, or the wax-work in Westminster Abbey. Hence, in the meaning of the classic historian, he must have been a slave, a savage, or a peasant. He is, however, none of these- but a cockney; and therefore a person, to his own satisfaction at least, conversant with all London science and philosophy; and, by virtue of such advantage, justified in the wickedness of his jokes upon bacon, smock-frocks, and hob-nails.

We believe that, despite much antiquarian research, the term Cockney has never been satisfactorily traced to its origin. Should we regret this? No; we ought rather to rejoice that what has been familiarised by-shall we say, contempt―is indeed of an antiquity

"Mysteriously remote and high."

The Cockney, like the forty centuries apostrophised by Bonaparte, may, from the height of time, look down upon the present fleeting generation. Whence Cockney? Unde derivatur? Antiquarians have dreamt dreams about it; have, indeed, written their pages in sand: but we have nothing certain — nothing to

quench curiosity thirsting for a draught of truth. With these premises, we may safely touch upon the fables imagined by the ingenious men who have, as we think, vainly sought to bring the Cockney from the dim realm of shadows into "the light of common day."

The Cockney has, within the last half century, declined from his importance in the eyes of his rustic brethren. When London was to York a city almost as mysterious as Timbuctoo, the

*One historian relates, that a gentle dweller in London, having incautiously wandered at least three miles from Bow Church, was suddenly astonished by the crowing of a cock. In the artificial life in which he had passed his early days, he had, of course, never listened to the clarion of Chanticleer; he had only seen him smoking in the dish, or exposed to the critical thumb and finger of chaffering housewives in the Poultry. Hence, our Londoner, when somewhat recovered from his astonishment, exclaimed, "the cock neighs!" From this, the antiquarian, with an ingenious boldness not uncommon with his tribe, has declared the word Cockney a word of reproach-a blot-a shame--a brand; a nick-name illustrative of the grossest ignorance of the susceptible and astute citizens of London. We should not have spoken of this antiquarian morsel, considering it as merely a thing for the nursery, were not trifles of a like consistency every day made up by commentators and glossary mongers, to be swallowed by men.

Chaucer, in his "Canterbury Tales," makes John, the gamesome clerk, say

"I shall be holden a daffe or a cokenay;"

a fool, a cokenay-using the term as one of foulest reproach for a man of sense; upon which Mr. Tyrrwhit expressed his belief that it is a term of contempt borrowed originally from the kitchen. In base Latinity, cook

is coquinator-hence cokenay, opines Mr. Tyrrwhit, is easily derived. The critic supports his opinion by a citation from Hugh Bigot:

"Were I in my castle of Bungay,

Upon the river of Wavenay,

I would na care for the King of Cokeney."

Here London is called Cokeney, in allusion to an imaginary country of idleness and luxury, anciently known by the name of Cokaigne, or Cocagne, still derived by Hickes from coquina, the kitchen, the place of brawn and sweetbread; a derivation that would have been most satisfactory to Rabelais himself. Hickes published a poem, "The Country of Cokaigne," probably, thinks Mr. Tyrrwhit, translated from the French, who have had the same fable among them. Boileau says,

"Paris est pour un riche un pais de Cocagne."

There is also a Neapolitan festival, called La Cocagna; and in a mockheroic poem, in the Sicilian dialect, called La Cuciagna Conquistata (1674), the most noble city of Cuccagna is described as being seated on a mountain of grated cheese, and crowned with a huge cauldron of maccaroni.

Cockney, in his individual character, was invested with higher and more curious attributes than are awarded to him in these days. When he was only to be approached in his metropolitan fastness, by a week's tedious journey in the quickest-going waggon; when folks, two hundred miles away, shut up their shops and made their wills ere they girded up their loins, and corded their trunks, that they might see the animal in its natural state in Fleet Street and in Bishopsgate; he was, when at length through many dangers looked upon, a creature of no small interest-no passing wonderment. His dress, his air, his look of extraordinary wisdom-all things presented him to the Arcadian from Lancashire or the county of Dorset, as a person of considerable importance. Stage-coaches were started, railroads were laid down, and Timbuctoo (we mean Cockaigne) was no longer a mysterious city, but a common rendezvous for graziers, button-makers, dairy-maids from Devon, and pitmen from Newcastle. The pavement of Bond-street, almost sacred to the shoes of the Cockney, became sacrificed by the hobnails of all the counties.

Besides the more favourable claims of the Cockney upon the curiosity and homage of Corydon, he had, in the legends told at farmers' fire-sides of his less estimable qualities, a dangerous interest in the eyes of his rustic beholder. All white-headed men, who in their youth had made one pilgrimage to London, would tell fearful histories of the wiliness of ring-droppers-of the miraculous faculty of Cockaigne pick-pockets. Hence, Lubin from Shropshire, who crawled from the waggon to Cheapside, had a new source of interest as he surveyed the gold-laced coats of the fine people about him: they might be thieves and sharpers in their working suits, and they might be only gentlemen!

And when the Cockney quitted London-yes, when he would condescend to visit his mother's relations in the wilds of Leicestershire! "My cousin from London!" Was he not a something— a bit of the great, mysterious city? Was he not shown as the very choicest and most certain sample of the great Babylon? Even as the pedant showed the one brick as the sample of the house, so was Whittington Simmons, from Lad Lane, exhibited as a veritable fragment of marvellous London. And then what humours of Cockaigne did the said Whittington Simmons put forth, to his own present glory, and to his memory for twenty years afterwards, at the rural fire-side! How the farmer laughed! And how deliciously Whittington, with a joke from the playhouse or with the last flash phrase east of the Bar, how triumphantly did he silence the unconquerable exciseman!