dispositions, who become arrogant and graceless under good fortune.
Happy he who can endure one or the other with modesty and good-humor!
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be,
by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor!





CHAPTER IV.

ALSATIA.


Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus of
the Inns of Court, Shepherd's Inn is always to be found in the close
neighborhood of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and the Temple. Somewhere
behind the black gables and smutty chimney-stacks of Wych-street,
Holywell-street, Chancery-lane, the quadrangle lies, hidden from the
outer world; and it is approached by curious passages, and ambiguous
smoky alleys, on which the sun has forgotten to shine. Slop-sellers,
brandy-ball and hard-bake venders, purveyors of theatrical prints for
youth, dealers in dingy furniture, and bedding suggestive of any thing
but sleep, line the narrow walls and dark casements with their wares.
The doors are many-belled, and crowds of dirty children form endless
groups about the steps, or around the shell-fish dealers' trays in
these courts, whereof the damp pavements resound with pattens, and are
drabbled with a never-failing mud. Ballad-singers come and chant here,
in deadly, guttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig
administration, against the bishops and dignified clergy, against the