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deep in the labyrinth of some lane within lanes, whose name I have forgotten. It was the Selecta è Veteris, or rather the Selecta è Profanis, of Cheapside and Broad-street: to be a member was the summit of civic ambition, and happy was the mercantile aspirant who could even get a ticket for admission once in the season. Upon the old principle, that to be sociable you must be exclusive, brokers and persons standing behind a counter were, by the rules of the establishment, declared inadmissible, and many a long debate do I remember among these "potent, grave, and reverend signiors," on the important points, whether certain merchant-brokers of indisputable wealth came within the first exception; and whether bankers, though avowedly within the letter, were embraced by the spirit of the second. As Tyre, Sidon, Palmyra, and Carthage, have been swept away, we cannot so much wonder that the City assembly, with all its plums, diamonds, lord-mayors, aldermen, gorgeousness, vulgarity, and pride of dunghill aristocracy has ceased to exist; or that its equally dull and narrow-minded rival, the London, has shared its fate. But their spirit survives;-" even in their ashes live their wonted fires," and the prostration of mind with which their worthy descendants fall down before any golden calf, would have done honour to the worshippers of Baal. Walking lately with one of these gentry in the City, I was astonished at finding myself suddenly thrust out into the kennel, that we might give the wall to a pompous little porpus, whom my companion saluted with a profound respect. "That," said he, drawing himself up with a proud consciousness of the honour he had received in being noticed," that is Alderman Calypash; he is worth at least ten thousand a-year.”—“ I am glad of it," I replied, "as but for that circumstance, he would not be worth any thing whatever." But who shall describe the anxious reverence with which he approached, or the cringing and crawling with which he attempted to win the eye of some high-priest of Mammon, some Croesus of the synagogue, as we elbowed our way through Jews and Gentiles, to get a peep of him upon 'Change. He is worth a million," said my informant, as soon as his feelings allowed him to give utterance to the tremendous word. Be satisfied," I replied; "you are still richer, for you can afford a clean shirt." Among women, where wealth admits of more obvious manifestation by external signs, it attracts a deference equally unqualified, and I have often amused myself with following an expensively dressed female, and marking the effect of her magnificence upon those whom she encountered. On the faces of the more amiable of her own sex, I have read unaffected admiration of the display, mixed with some shadowings of regret that they could not, by an equally costly style of dress, participate in the happiness

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which they conceive to be its inevitable concomitant; but it must be confessed that the greater number of countenances expressed an angry scrutiny, that seemed to measure the value, per yard, of every lace and satin, while in the eagerness to depreciate that which they could not hope to rival, I have more than once caught mutterings of " the veil is only a net-lace after all;" or "the trimming of the pellisse is nothing but cotton velvet."

One would have thought it hard enough that the insatiable demands of government should consume so much of our substance, and drink up the very life-springs of our hospitality; and certainly we might as well have had popery at once as the national debt, for it condemns us to as many fast-days without affording us any chance of absolution. It is a mill-stone around the neck of our social system; it compels us, like Dutch malefactors, to pump ourselves to death, that we may keep our heads above water; it has destroyed more good dinners than the worst cook in Christendom; it squats itself in the middle of our kitchen-grate, like a huge night-mare, and with one hand stops the smoke-jack, while with the other it rakes out the fire; --it compels us to shut the door in the faces of our friends, that we may open them to the tax-gatherer. And yet, as if the bounds of joviality and companionship were not sufficiently circumscribed by this voracious monster, we must voluntarily narrow them still further, by acknowledging the supremacy of a new fiend the dæmon of Luxury. Enjoyment of our friends' society was formerly considered the rational object of a dinnerparty; but you now invite them that you may exhibit your superior magnificence, and, by exciting their envy or anger, do your best towards converting them into enemies. Sir Balaam's frugal but substantial meals have been long exploded, and the reign of alternate fasts and feasts has been substituted :-servants and horses are half-starved, and friends wholly excluded for a month, that the doors may be thrown open for one day of emulous ostentation. I never sit beside a silver plateau, (too often a compound of meanness and vanity-a showy, but sorry substitute for solid fare) without fancying that I hear the grumbling of the numerous stomachs at whose expense it has been purchased; nor can I be easily brought to acknowledge the wisdom of either giving or receiving one grand dinner where there were formerly five pleasant ones. Here, again, is another pervading cause of the sullenness and unsociability of which we are accused;-conviviality is exchanged for competitionhospitality, unless it mean to finish its career in the King's Bench, must be frequently niggardly, that it may be occasionally gorgeous; and the apple of discord is thrown down upon every table long before the appearance of the dessert. Tomkins re

fuses to visit Simkins, because the latter gives French wines, which he cannot afford to retaliate; and Huggins withholds the light of his countenance from Briggs, because he never gives him a second course, although he always provided one for the said Briggs at his own house. Nay, so minute are these balancings and calculations, that they even take cognizance of fractional parts. "Excessively shabby of Mrs. Brown," I once heard a lady exclaim, "to give us a dinner of five and seven, when she had two courses of seven and nine at my house, and her party more numerous than mine too." Upon inquiry, I learnt that these accurate numbers had reference to the dishes with which the table was covered. All the infinite combinations of the kaleidoscope are produced by the same few materials; and on peeping into the heart of an Englishman, it will be found that all the disguises, changes, and varieties, of which we have been endeavouring to afford a partial glimpse, are but new modifications of the old element-pride.

Misfortunes never come single. Taxation and luxury had no sooner laid their benumbing hands on our social system, than fashion introduced late dinner-hours; and these, as if to give the death-blow to all that remained of genuine unsophisticated sociability, exploded suppers. Suppers,-those unpretending, economical parties which could be often afforded, and yet never seemed to be sufficiently frequent,-those only meals to which women, by their continued presence, imparted a thousand charms, substituting the Muses and the Graces for the worship of Bacchus, uniting decorum with hilarity, compelling their male associates to forego the eternal discussion of politics and business, and condescend, for once, to be unanimous in the determination to be vivacious and happy. Then was it that the song went round, and the hastily-prepared dance, doubly delightful because unpremeditated, afforded sufficient gratification to the most resolute votaries of Terpsichore, and yet allowed them to seek their beds in sober time, without injuring their health or encroaching upon the next day's duties. I am old enough to remember when these truly festive entertainments were common as the flowers in May; and vulgar enough to regret the temperate bowl of punch which in many families was duly administered, when the party was not sufficiently numerous to justify more vigorous demonstrations of enjoyment. Routs, ices, and sour negus are miserable substitutes for these noctes cænæque Deum. They have passed away, and with them has fled the soul of all gallant and hilarious sociality.

Even in our domestic circles we resemble the asymptotical lines, which perpetually approach without ever effecting a complete union. We have little family cordiality after we become old enough to set up a pride of our own. Sons will not marry

until they can maintain a separate establishment; they would hold it a degradation to bring their wives under the paternal roof; and as they cannot afford to gratify their anti-social feelings without a considerable independence, many, of course, remain unmarried. Hence the number of profligate young men, and disappointed and unhappy young women inevitably destined to become old maids. In France, the married sons and daughters are frequently collected together in the large old family mansion; and in those patriarchal establishments I have often found a harmony and domestic happiness for which I have looked in vain in the disunited union by which the different branches of an English family are flimsily held together. By the arrangement that prevails abroad, the venerable parents of the society ensure solace and protection until they die, in the midst of their descendants; while in England their offspring fly from them one by one, until they are left in the utmost social need of their old age, lonely and desolate. Affection in the one country seems to be centripetal; while with us it is centrifugal. Pride, churlishness, and hauteur, are equally perceptible in our demeanour towards inferiors and domestics, as compared with the frank benignity and condescension which they invariably experience upon the Continent.-"Surely," exclaims some starch personification of cold pride and ignorant prejudice, "surely you would not recommend familiarity with servants." Familiarity, thou most rigid formalist, is a comparative term. My old schoolmaster used often to tell me that there were many degrees of intermediate solidity between a Westphalia ham and a whip-syllabub; so are there between the familiarity that breeds contempt and that which generates an unreserved but respectful attachment. How often have I seen Italians shrug up their shoulders, and utter exclamations of surprise, when an English barouche passed them, with its broad-shouldered owner lolling at his ease inside, while the lady's maid was tanning in the sun, or biding the pelting of the storm in the dickey outside. Their respect for the sex knows not these paltry distinctions of rank; theirs is the genuine gallantry of feeling; ours is the spurious one of manners and externals. Proofs crowd upon me: but I have occupied enough of your pages, and I feel that I have established my assertion. I have weighed thee, John Bull, in the scale of nations; I have tried thee by a foreign test, and of pride and unsociableness thou art finally convicted.

H.

ON LETTERS AND LETTER-WRITERS.

SOME of the pleasantest moments in life are those which intervene between the arrival of the post and the opening a letter. It is the prettiest flurry-the happiest mixture of gratification and suspense. We love to toy with our own impatience, and prolong our uncertainty by the very means which we take to end it. To look at the date on the franked cover (a franked letter is the best because the longest)-to find that that tells us nothing, for, no disrespect to noble lords and honourable gentlemen, they are often sufficiently unintelligible; then to turn to the seal, and learn from the aristocratic coat of arms, the finely cut head, or the pretty womanly device, which of our correspondents is to charm us by kindness, or amuse us by wit; and then to cut carefully round the seal, or tear it hastily open, according as the writer is more or less dear. All this is delightful. The very adjuncts come in for a share in our love. Seals, for instance, are always interesting. Many of the antique heads have a grace and beauty quite inimitable; a letter sealed with such a one conveys a valuable present; and some of the moderns are almost equally lovely. Milton's fine face makes as fine a seal; so does Raphael's. I wonder whether any one has ever adopted the beautiful head of Cardinal Bentivoglio, with the name for a motto-" Ben' ti voglio;" the conceit seems too obvious to have escaped notice. Of the countless hieroglyphics which ladies use, that which pleases me best is the heart's-ease, a simple little flower, easy to imitate and difficult to mistake, whose rounded and shapely blossom contrasts well with the slender truncated leaves, and which is so fertile in pleasant associations as to require no motto. Heart'sease, pensée, viola tricolor, love in idleness--no flower is so rich in pretty names. Such a seal is fit for all ages, occasions, and conditions, partaking of the nature of the charming little plant, which flourishes alike in field or garden, and continues in bloom half the year round. Hand-writings are more interesting still, even those on the outside of letters. What infinite variety! what shades of difference! what family likenesses! what striking contrasts! The best and the worst that I ever saw were those of two of our greatest scholars, the late Professor Porson and Dr. P. The Professor's was clear, delicate, and beautiful; as fine, I suppose, as the Greek character for which he was so celebrated: the Doctor's is utterly indescribable. The specimen, with a sight of which I was favoured, was a letter to a friend, which did not, to my eyes at least, afford the slightest clue as to the language in which it was written: I rather think it was English; indeed there were two short scratches near the top, which being interpreted might mean

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