Shall we point out others?  We are fellow-travellers, and shall make acquaintance as the voyage proceeds.  In the Atlantic steamers, on the first day out (and on high-and holy-days subsequently), the jellies set down on table are richly ornamented; medioque in fonte leporum rise the American and British flags nobly emblazoned in tin.  As the passengers remark this pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by side in friendly emulation.  Novels having been previously compared to jellies—­here are two (one perhaps not entirely saccharine, and flavored with an amari aliquid very distasteful to some palates)—­two novels* under two flags, the one that ancient ensign which has hung before the well-known booth of “Vanity Fair;” the other that fresh and handsome standard which has lately been hoisted on “Barchester Towers.”  Pray, sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped?

     * “Lovel the Widower” and “Framley Parsonage.”

So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Comstock press their guests to partake of the fare on that memorable “First day out,” when there is no man, I think, who sits down but asks a blessing on his voyage, and the good ship dips over the bar, and bounds away into the blue water.

ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK.

Montaigne and “Howel’s Letters” are my bedside books.  If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again.  They talk about themselves for ever, and don’t weary me.  I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again.  I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them.  I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories.  I don’t heed them.  It was the custom of their time, as it is of Highlanders and Hottentots to dispense with a part of dress which we all wear in cities.  But people can’t afford to be shocked either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time they meet an individual who wears his national airy raiment.  I never knew the “Arabian Nights” was an improper book until I happened once to read it in a “family edition.”  Well, qui s’excuse. . . .  Who, pray, has accused me as yet?  Here am I smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy’s objections, before she has opened her mouth.  I love, I say, and scarcely ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King Charles’s Council.  Their egotism in nowise disgusts me.  I hope I shall always like to hear men, in reason, talk about themselves.  What subject does a man know better?  If I stamp on a friend’s corn, his outcry is genuine—­he confounds my clumsiness in the accents of truth.  He is speaking about himself and expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a manner perfectly authentic and veracious.  I have a story of my own, of a wrong done to me by somebody, as far back as the year 1838:  whenever I think of it and have had a couple of glasses of wine, I cannot help telling it.  The toe is stamped upon; the pain is just as keen as ever:  I cry out, and perhaps utter imprecatory language.  I told the story only last Wednesday at dinner:—­