Star.
London, England, 1826-12-14 00:00:00

other faculties to Sight. My object being, accomplished,
I took my leave, considerately recollecting an adage,
to the truth of which I readily assented in my own
billing•and•cooing days—and though two may be
company, three are none.
The banking-houses of Hoare, Child, and Goslink
and Sharpe (the gosling, doubtless, a lineal descendant
from her of the golden eggs), are equally singular
mementoes. They remind us of the Old Dorntons, and
Thorowgoods of a by-gone era ; and the Leather Bottle
of the first is an object deserving the highest veneration
of the antiquary: Much, however, as I admire the
good sense which still preserves the primitive appear.
ance of the establishment, I must quarrel with that
obliquity of judgment which prompted the gilding of
that ancient symbol; assuredly, as ill-advised a proceed-
ing as the modern barbarism, that decreed a similar
fate to the Pewter Platter in Gracechurch-street.

A few more edifices of the kind might be adduced;
but to revert to the subject of improvements. There is
now lying befcre me a project for levelling that vene-
rable structure, Exeter 'Change, the quondam nursery
of aspiring shopkeepers, who here adventured on a
moderate territory of some six feet square, in the bore
of ultimately achieving the dominion of a wholesale
warehouse: It was here that the renowned Clarke, that
prince of hardware men, and pink of cutlers, amassed
the enormous fortune of 800,0001. by those habits of
frugality that clung to him to the last. What a de-
lightful lounge in our school-boy days, to explore the
dark profound ; to gaze, with longing eyes, on its varied
stores, and, by a sort of mental furtiveness, appropriate
each tempting article to our own exclusive enjoyment!
What a manifestation, too, of fair dealing in that pithy
sentence—" The lowest price marked, and no abate-
ment made!' A voucher of integrity, that, but, for
the simple lack of means, would have attempted us to
purchase them all. And are we to lose thee for ever,
thou renowned repository of walking-sticks, that are
ever stationary ; watches, that never go ; knives, war-
ranted to be at leastas keen as their purchasers ; braces,
brushes, and battledores, patches, pomatums, wash-
balls, and razor-strops. One liege adherent, at least,
will shed a tear of regret over thy departed greatness.
But important as all these matters undoubtedly are,
who, that has a soul, would hesitate to stay the sacrile-
gious hand, raised to sweep away those hallowed haunts,
where nur brightest bards and profoundest philosophers
first drew their inspiration P Genius loved to rear her
offspring in holes and corners. (Green Arbour Court,
oh, Goldsmith! was thy academic grove, and I tremble
at its destiny). Shall they not be deemed sacred?—
Shall not a nobler feeling preserve them from the reck-
less ruin thatzoodern refinement would deal out to them?
Away, then, all meaner regards I all mockeries of taste I
I abjure the classic frenzy, with which I fancied myself
inspired. Could we, at a wish, emulate the adific skill
of Greece and Rome, and cause their proud structures
to overspread the land—gained at such a sacrifice, I
should deem the purchase dear. No; let us rally round
the time-honoured memorials of our ancestors ; let us
shield them from the spoliation that awaits them; and
warring with the whole race of architects, projectors,
and surveyors, establish the cause of Old English feel-
ing over foreign taste and modern innovation ! Q. Q. Q.