high head among the plebeian society with which they were reduced
to associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is taken up with a
bow-window, on the panes of which are recorded the names of previous
occupants for many generations, mingled with scraps of very indifferent
gentlemanlike poetry, written in characters which I can scarcely
decipher, and which extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain
who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an
idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill regularly
every week, I am looked upon as the only independent gentleman of
the neighborhood; and, being curious to learn the internal state of a
community so apparently shut up within itself, I have managed to work my
way into all the concerns and secrets of the place.

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of the city; the
stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of London as it was in
its better days, with its antiquated folks and fashions. Here flourish
in great preservation many of the holiday games and customs of yore.
The inhabitants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday,
hot-cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send
love-letters on Valentine's Day, burn the pope on the fifth of November,
and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and
plum pudding are also held in superstitious veneration, and port and
sherry maintain their grounds as the only true English wines; all others
being considered vile, outlandish beverages.

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as the great bell
of St. Paul's, which sours all the beer when it tolls; the figures that
strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the Monument; the lions in the
Tower; and the wooden giants in Guildhall. They still believe in dreams