every traveller might, for a modest remuneration, take a republican
seat; the mercenary caroche, with its private freight; the brisk
curricle of the letter-carrier, robed in royal scarlet: these and a
thousand others were laboring and pressing onward, and locked and bound
and hustling together in the narrow channel of Chepe. The imprecations
of the charioteers were terrible. From the noble's broidered
hammer-cloth, or the driving-seat of the common coach, each driver
assailed the other with floods of ribald satire. The pavid matron within
the one vehicle (speeding to the Bank for her semestrial pittance)
shrieked and trembled; the angry Dives hastening to his office (to add
another thousand to his heap,) thrust his head over the blazoned panels,
and displayed an eloquence of objurgation which his very Menials could
not equal; the dauntless street urchins, as they gayly threaded the
Labyrinth of Life, enjoyed the perplexities and quarrels of the scene,
and exacerbated the already furious combatants by their poignant
infantile satire. And the Philosopher, as he regarded the hot strife and
struggle of these Candidates in the race for Gold, thought with a sigh
of the Truthful and the Beautiful, and walked on, melancholy and serene.

'Twas noon in Chepe. The ware-rooms were thronged. The flaunting windows
of the mercers attracted many a purchaser: the glittering panes behind
which Birmingham had glazed its simulated silver, induced rustics to
pause: although only noon, the savory odors of the Cook Shops tempted
the over hungry citizen to the bun of Bath, or to the fragrant potage
that mocks the turtle's flavor--the turtle! O dapibus suprimi grata
testudo Jovis! I am an Alderman when I think of thee! Well: it was noon
in Chepe.

But were all battling for gain there? Among the many brilliant shops
whose casements shone upon Chepe, there stood one a century back (about