"How far is it to the Angel in Islington?"
"But I mean—what distance? How many miles?"
"O, come, sir, jump in—don’t be ’ard on a fellow—I 'aven’t ’ad a fare to-day. Call it ’arf a crown, sir."
Leigh Hunt says somewhere that if there were such a thing as metamorphosis, Dr. Johnson would desire to be transformed into an omnibus, that he might go rolling along the streets whose very pavements were the objects of his ardent affection. And he was about right. What better place is there in this world to study human nature than an omnibus? All classes meet there; in the same coach you may see them all—from the poor workwoman to the genteelly dressed lady, who looks as if she disapproved of such conveyances, but must ride nevertheless—from the young sprig, who is constantly anxious lest some profane foot should dim the polish of his boots, to the urbane old gentleman, who regrets his corpulence, and would take less room if he could. And then the top of the omnibus, which usually carries four or more passengers, what a place is that to see the tide of life which flows unceasingly through the streets of London! I know of nothing which can furnish more food for thought than a ride on an omnibus from Brompton to the Bank on a fine day. It is a pageant, in which all the wealth, pomp, power, and prosperity of this world pass before you; and for a moral to the whirling scene, you must go to the nearest churchyard.
London is ever the same. The omnibuses follow each other as rapidly as ever up and down the Strand, the white-gloved, respectable-looking policemen walk about as deliberately, and the tail of the lion over the gate of Northumberland House sticks out as straight as ever. The only great change visible here is in the newspapers. The tone of society is so different from what it was formerly, in all that concerns France, that the editors must experience considerable trouble in accustoming themselves to the new state of things. Once, France and Louis Napoleon furnished Punch with his chief materials for satire and amusement, and if any of the larger and more dignified journals wished to let off a little ill humour, or to say any thing particularly bitter, they only had to dip their pens in _Gaul_; but times are changed, and now nothing can be said too strong in favour of "our chivalric allies, the French." The memory of St. Helena seems to have given place to what they call here the _entente cordiale_, which those who are acquainted with the French language assure me means an agreement by which one party contracts to "play second fiddle" to another, through fear that if he does not he will not be permitted to play at all.