literary portion of the present volume. Our extracts must be short, for
we have other claimants to our attention. The _Housekeepers_, a Shandean
extract, is from one of the best prose contributors:--

There were two heavy, middle-aged merchants; they were either Dutch or
German, I know not which, but their name was Vanderclump. Most decided
old bachelors they were, with large, leathern, hanging cheeks, sleepy
grey eyes, and round shoulders. They were men not given to much speech,
but great feeders; and, when waited upon, would point clumsily to what
they wanted, and make a sort of low growl, rather than be at the trouble
to speak. These Messrs. Vanderclump were served by two tall, smooth-faced
dawdles; I never could discover which held the superior station in
the _ménage_. Each has been seen trotting home from market with a basket
on her arm; each might be observed to shake a duster out of the upper
windows; each would, occasionally, carry a huge bunch of keys, or wait at
table during dinner; and, in the summer evenings, when it was not post-day,
both of them would appear, dressed alike, sitting at work at the lower
counting-house window, with the blinds thrown wide open. Both, I suppose,
were housekeepers.

It happened, one cold, foggy spring, that the younger brother, Mr. Peter
Vanderclump, left London to transact some business of importance with a
correspondent at Hamburgh, leaving his brother Anthony to the loneliness
of their gloomy house in St. Mary Axe. Week after week passed away, and
Mr. Peter was still detained at Hamburgh. Who would have supposed that
his society could have been missed? that the parlour could have seemed
more dismally dull by the absence of one of those from whom it chiefly
derived its character of dulness? Mr. Anthony took up his largest
meerchaum, and enveloped himself in its smoke by the hour; but the
volumes of smoke cleared away, and no Peter Vanderclump appeared emerging