tion they carry on elsewhere. From this place, called by the members of the house Lower Tartary, or Hell, the next step of degradation, when obliged to waddle out of the court, is the Rotunda of New Botany Bay. Here may be seen the private market in miniature; a crowd of persons calling themselves jobbers and brokers, and, of course, a market to serve any person who will deal with them; the same system of ear-wigging, nods, and winks, is apparent, and the same fiddling, rasping, and attempts at overreaching each other, as in Upper Tartary, or the Den; and of course, while they rasp and fiddle, their principals have to pay for the music : but as no great bargains are contracted here (these good things being reserved for a select few in the private market), the jobbers, who are chiefly of little note, are glad if they can pick up a few shillings for a day's job, by cutting out money stock for servants' and other people's small earnings. Here may be seen my lord's footman from the west end of the town, who is a great politician, and knows for a certainty that the stocks will be down; therefore he wants to sell out his 50l. savings, to get in at less: here also may be some other lord's footman, who has taken a different view of things, and wants to buy; and, although their respective brokers might meet each other, and transact business in a direct way, at a given price, notwithstanding they either do, or they pretend to have given the jobbers the turn,24 that is, the one sold at one-eighth, and the other bought at one-fourth.-This market, as in the Alley, is ruled by the prices established in the private gambling market, which being the case, some will have messengers running to and from this market to see how the puffs and bangs proceed; and if they can saddle their neighbour before he knows the price is changed, it is thought good jobbing. From the Stock 24 Some act both as jobbers and brokers, and will charge a commission for selling their own stock, Exchange to the Rotunda, every where, it will be perceived, a system of gambling and deception is practised upon the public, and the country demoralized and injured by a set of men who have no principle but interest, and acknowledge no laws but those of gain. As this was settling-day, we had the gratification to observe one unfortunate howled out of the craft for having speculated excessively; and not being able or willing to pay his differences, he was compelled to waddle 25; which he did, with a slow step and melancholy countenance, accompanied by the hootings and railings of his unfeeling tribe, as he passed down the narrow avenue from Upper Tartary, proclaimed to the lower regions and the world 25 Those who become ducks are not what are termed true jobbers; they are those who either job or speculate, or are half brokers and half jobbers, and are left to pay out-door speculators' accounts; or if a jobber lend himself to get off large amounts of stock, in cases where the broker does not wish the house to know he is operating, he generally gives him an immediate advantage in the price in a private bargain; this is termed being such-a-one's bawd, THE ISLE OF WIGHT. Garden of England! spangle of the wave! In frolic mood, her choicest stores, The Oxford Student-Reflections on the Close of a Term -The Invitation Arrival at SouthamptonRemarks-The Steam Boat-Advantages of Steam - Voyage to the Isle of Wight-Southampton Water -The Solent Sea and surrounding SceneryMarine Villas, Castles, and Residences-West Cowes-Its Harbour and Attractions-The Invalid or the Convalescent-The Royal Yacht ClubCircular in Rhyme-Aquatic Sports considered in a National Point of View-A Night on board the Rover Yacht-The Progress of Navigation-The Embarkation-The Soldier's Wife-Sketches of Scenery and Characters-Evening Promenaders-Excursions in the Island, to Ryde, Newport, Shanklin Chine, Bonchurch, the Needle Rocks-Descriptive Poetry -Morning, Noon, and Night-The Regatta-The Pilot's Review-The Race Ball-Adieu to Vectis. THE Oxford commemoration was just over, and the Newdigate laurels graced the brow of the victor; the last concert which brings together the scattered forces of alma mater, on the eve of a long vacation, had passed off like the note of the cygnet; the rural shades of Christchurch Meadows were abandoned by the classic gownsmen, and the aquatic sons of Brazennose and Jesus had been compelled to yield the palm of marine superiority to their more powerful opponents, the athletic men of Exeter. The flowery banks of Isis no longer presented the attractive evening scene, when all that is beautiful and enchanting among the female graces of Oxford sport like the houris upon its velvet shores, to watch the prowess of the college youth: The regatta had terminated with the term; even the High Street, the usually wellfrequented resort of prosing dons, and dignitaries, and gossiping masters of arts, bore a desolate appearance. Now and then, indeed, the figure of a solitary gownsman glanced upon the eye, but it was at such long and fearful intervals, and then, vision-like, of such short duration, that, with the closed oaks of the tradesmen, and the woe-begone faces of the starving scouts and bed-makers, a stranger might have imagined some ruthless plague had swept away, "at one fell swoop," two-thirds of the population of Rhedycina. It was at this dull period of time, that a poor student, having passed successfully the Scylla and Charybdis of an Oxonian's fears, the great go and little go, and exhausted by long and persevering efforts to obtain his degree, had just succeeded in adding the important academical letters to his name, when he received a kind invitation from an old brother Etonian to spend a few weeks with him in the Isle of Wight, "the flowery seat of the Muses," said Horace Eglantine, (the inviter), “and the grove of Hygeia; the delightful spot, above all others, best calculated to rub off the rust of college melancholy, engendered by hard reading, invigorate the studious mind, and divest the hypochrondriac of la maladie imaginaire." "And where," said Bernard Blackmantle, reasoning within himself, "is the student who could withstand such an attractive summons? Friendship, health, sports, and pleasures, all combined in the prospective; a view of almost all the blessings that render life desirable; the charm that binds man to society, the medicine that cures a wounded spirit, and the cordial which reanimates and brightens the intellectual faculties of the philosopher and the poet; in short, the health-inspiring draught, without which the o'ercharged spirit would sink into earth, a prey to black despondency, or linger out a wearisome existence only to become a gloomy misanthrope, a being hateful to himself and obnoxious to all the world." With nearly as much alacrity as the lover displays when, on the wings of anticipated delight, he hastes to seek the beloved of his soul, did I, Bernard Blackmantle, pack up my portmanteau, and make the best of my way to Southampton, from which place the steam boat conveys passengers, morning and evening, to and from the island. Southampton has in itself very little worthy the notice of the lover of the characteristic and the humorous, at least that I discovered in a few hours' ramble. It is a clean well-built town, of considerable extent and antiquity, particularly its entrance gate, enlivened by numerous elegant shops, whose blandishments are equally attractive with the more fashionable magazines de modes of the British metropolis. The accommodations for visitors inclined to bathe or walk have been much neglected, and the vapours arising from its extended shores at low water are, in warm weather, very offensive; but the influx of strangers is, nevertheless, very great, from its being the port most eligible to embark from for either Havre de Grace, Guernsey, Jersey, or the Isle of Wight. The market here is accounted excellent, and from this source the visitors of Cowes are principally |