* * * * *

JOURNEY FROM THE BANK TO BARNES.


A lively volume with many shreds of wit and humour, and occasional patches
of "righte merrie conceite," has just fallen into our hands, and has
afforded us some very pleasant reading. There is fun in the very title,
"Personal Narrative of a Journey overland from the Bank to Barnes, &c. with
some account of the Regions east of Kensington. By an Inside Passenger.
With a Model for a Magazine, being the product of the Author's sojourn at
the village of Barnes, during five rainy days." The author is a shrewd,
clever fellow, who loves a little raillery on the follies of the day, and
joins with our friend, Popanilla in deploring the present artificial state
of society; therefore, suppose we give a few _flying_ extracts from his
tour, premising that the good people of the little villages through which
he passed, are not aware of what good things he has said of them; for his
little book would suit every parlour window from Hyde Park Corner to
Barnes.

_Brentford._

The ancient and nearly deserted barony of Brentford still contains, in its
monuments and antiquities, vestiges of former splendour. The horse-trough
opposite the "Bell and Feathers" is to the antiquarian a most particularly
interesting _morceau_; the verdure of age has defaced it in part, but
enough still remains to prove that our ancestors had made no mean
proficiency in the rustic style of architecture. The reservoir, which
contains the sparkling element so grateful to that noble animal, is
modelled from the celebrated sarcophagus in the British Museum; and the