suggested to the mind of the khan simply by the sight of the men in armour in the procession, or whether dark rumours had reached his ear touching the prowess of the Lumber troopers, and other warlike bodies which march under the standard of the Lord Mayor; but certain it is that this most pacific of potentates cannot fairly be charged with abusing the formidable privilege thus attributed to him—­the city sword never having been unsheathed in mortal fray, as far as our researches extend, since Wat Tyler fell before the doughty arm of Sir William of Walworth.  On returning from the show, the khan was taken to see Newgate, with the gloomy aspect of which, and the silent and strict discipline enforced among the prisoners, he was deeply impressed; “to these poor wretches the gate of mercy is indeed shut, and that of hardship and oppression thrown open.”  His sympathies were still more strongly awakened on discovering among those unfortunate creatures an Indian Moslem, who proved, on enquiry, to be a Lascar sailor, imprisoned for selling smuggled cigars—­“and, in my ignorance of the laws and customs of the country, I was anxious to procure his liberation by paying the fine; but my friends told me that this was absolutely impossible, and that he must remain the full time in prison.  So we could only thank the governor for his attention, and then took our departure.”

Following the steps of the Khan from grave to gay, in his desultory course through the endless varieties of “Life in London,” we are at once transported from the dismal cells of Newgate to the fancy-dress ball at Guildhall for the aid of the refugee Poles.  This seems to have been the first scene of the kind at which Kerim Khan had been present since his arrival in England; and though he was somewhat scandalized at perceiving that some of those in male attire were evidently ladies, he describes with considerable effect “the infinite variety of costumes, all very different from those of England, as if each country had contributed its peculiar garb,” the brilliant lighting and costly decoration of the rooms, and the picturesque grouping of the vast assemblage.  But his first impressions on English dancing are perfectly unique in their way, and we can only do justice to them by quoting them at length.  “It is so entirely unlike any thing we ever heard of in Hindustan, that I cannot refrain from giving a slight sketch of what I saw.  In the first place, the company could not have been fewer than 1500 or 2000, of the highest classes of society, the ministers, the nobles, and the wealthy, with their wives and daughters.  Several hundreds stood up, every gentleman with a lady; and they advanced and retired several times, holding each other by the hand, to the sound of the music:  at last the circle they had formed broke up, some running off to the right, and some to the left—­then a gentleman, leaving his lady, would strike out obliquely across the room, sometimes making direct for another