Class. Book. FP4T23 .Gr3'2.3^ Sure to be soinelxulv nice. Charlie thinks, or it would not hf worth a seven miles drive in the wet. " His expectations are scariely realized. SOCIAL PROBLEMS SKETCHES OF SOCIETY AND TRAVEL. BT AN "AMATEUR CASUAL," AND OTHERS. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY KURD AND HOUGHTON, 459 Broome Street. 1868. -^^X' ,^l.- RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. i CONTEISTS. Frontispiece. — " Social Problems." Drawn by G. Bowers. Something about Breakfast 1 An Evening with my Uncle b^ Twenty-four Hours of the Season .... 12 (With a double-page illustration by Florence Claxton.) Engaged ! 14 Humours of the Paris Exhibition 19 St. Valentine's Day 29 (With an illustration by Florence and Adelaide Claxton.) Canine Celebrities 36 The Private Life of a Public Nuisanck . . . 46*^ Modern Beau-Brummelism . . . . . . 57 Balls in Vienna . . . 65 Recollections op a Bachelor 71 A Week in a Country House 79 What 's in the Papers ? 98 Upstairs and down 102 1> SKETCHES OF SOCIETY AND TRAVEL. SOMETHING ABOUT BREAKFAST IT has often been asserted that as long as human beings congre- gate together like wild beasts at ' feeding tinaes,' this age has no right to lay claim to superior civi- lization, and that it would be an improved manner of life if relays of food could be brought to some particular place at stated times, to which any who chose might resort. As it is an acknowledged fact, that society and conversation are the best promoters of digestion, the plan that these cai>tious people propose would be both unwhole- some and unsocial, but it might be advantageously acted upon in the matter of breakfast, for that, as English people ordain it, is de- cidedly a mistake. ' Breakfast is such a charmingly social meal,' we heard a lady once say in speaking of a large breakfast in a country - house, * every one comes down so fresh, everybody is in time, and ready for the duties and pleasures of the day. I con- sider it a delightful moment.' It was a sentimental and poetical view, but as far as possible removed from the truth ; for in our estimation it is a peculiarly unhappy moment, and one in which many persons are prone to regard their fellow-creatures as their natural enemies. When people are hungry and cold it follows as a matter of course that they are cross, and as large parties in country-houses usually occnr in the winter, this is tolerably sure to be the case. Shy people, too, are always shy in the morning ; they cannot take up life where they left it the night before, or say ' Good- morning ' at all in the same happy and friendly spirit in which they said ' Good-night.' People are not ready for social intercourse till they have been up at least three hours. It is quite curious to see how disagreeable really good-humoured people often are before breakfast. They are often conscious of their moroseness, and try to conceal it by utter silence or cynical smiles ; but with all their endeavours we are aware that it would be a service of danger to speak to them, and whether it be our most valued friend, or simply a highly agreeable or intellectual ac- quaintance, we equally hope that it may never be our fate to meet him again at breakfast. Surely it would be a great advantage to the world if these individuals break- fasted alone ! Perhaps the moreakfast to eighteen or twenty people as varied and rddwrcfie as it is made now, consisting of tish, hot and cold meat, and fruit, as well as tea, coffee, bread, butter, and eggs -to send up, in fact, to each person a miniature dinner, would exhaust the resources of the largest establishment. One way, and per- haps the best way of meeting this ditticulty would be to imitate the example of most foreigners, who have a cup of coffee or chocolate when they first rise, and only comt; down at eleven or twelve o'clock for the dejc/our, which with them corresponds to our luncheon ; for no more eating is considered necessary till dinner-time, which is generally not later than seven o'clock. They have meat and wine as well as tea and coffee, and their ilt{/i uner, in fact, combines breakfast and lun- cheon in one. This is in many respects a much wiser division of the day, as it leaves tiie whole after- noon free for exercise or amusement, either at home or abroad. But the amount of food that is ptit before us at breakfast is totally unnecessary, and if the meal were changed to a more simple one there would be no longer any difficulty about having it alone. Though we have been discussing our breakfast, nothing has been said of the food of which it should con- sist. People's tastes are so differ- ent that it is quite impossible to lay down any gastronomic iaw upon a Something about Breakfast. meal the constituents of which vary from bread and water, to salmon and gronso, and pate de foie gras. We have seen unhappy wretches deliberately pour out a tumbler of cold water as their only brcalcfast beverage. Others, who make equal sacrifices at the shrine of health, are content to abjure even bread and butter, and breakfast entirely on some unpalatoable mess, which, by dint of ailvcrtisiemcnts, has worked its way into lashion. Gentlemen who are addicted to field sports, and who for tlie most part despise lun- cheon, make breakfast a most sub- stantial meal. Indeed, modern breakfasts seem drifting baek to the beef and ale and goodly capons' that young ladies found necessary to support nature in Queen Elizabeth's time. L:idie.s, and idle men of a more sedentary turn, are contented to depend luainly upon luncheon. There are otlier kinds of break- fasts, besides the early morning meal of which we have been speak- ing. It is a constant habit with the literary world in London to have reniiiutis of scientific and agreeable people early in tlie day, and what in the evening would be a cortversu- zione, in the morning is simply called a breakfast. But the greatest misnomer of all is the habit, in London, of calling a dinner, and a ball and a stij^per, if given al franco, a ' breakfast.' No one dreams of going to these parties till five o'clock, and they last freipiently till the small hours of the morning. As the meeting usually takes place in the garden or grounds of some villa near London, the guests appear in morning dresses, which we suppose is the reason of this strangely mis- applied term. There is another annoyance to which those who never breakfast alone are exposed. Letters in the country always arrive in the morn- ing, and we are tolerably sure when we go down stall's to find a packet of letters on the table awaiting us. It is amusing to watch the different manner in which people behave about their letters. Some dart eagerly upon them, are instantly absorbed in their contents, from time to time doling out small pieces of intelligence from them; ottiere exannne them carefully, and then lay them aside, deferring the plea- sure or the pain of their perusal tu a ' more convenient season ;' others, and these for the most part young men, take them up with real dr affected indifference, and transfer them at once to their pockets. The chances are that these consist prin- cipally of reminders, more or less pressing, from the neigldioiu'hood of Bond Street, Eegent Stiect, and Piccadilly. Their contents may pos- sibly be paraphrased in the parody of a well-known ballad : — ' Yuu remember, you remember. The little bill you owe ; 'Tis but two pound ten and four, sir. And I've waited long, you know, ' On my word, sir, on my word, sir, 1 Wduldn't trouble now, But I've gilt a long account, sir. To make up, and don't know how. • You do take, sir, you do give, sir. Three letters every day ; D V Is what j'ou talte, sir, I U is what you pay.' It is to be feared that these ' re- jected addresses ' form a large por- tion of many people's correspond- ence 1 There is one very odd pecii- liarity that many people have about their letters, and one for wliich it is difficult to account. If a letter or note is brought, and the receiver is somewhat puzzled to know from whence it comes, the seal is closely investigated, the direction pondered over, the postmark held up to the light; every pos.'-ible trouble is taken to examine the outside of a letter, when, by simply opening it, the desired knowledge would be attained. Does this show that hu- man, nature delights in a mystery ? In some houses it is the custom ■ for the children to be brought down to be admired at breakfast. This habit, unless the children are quiet to stupidity, cannot fail to be a nuisance. The only time that we can gladly hail the appearance of children out of their own legitimate sphere, is in the formidable half- hour before dinner is announced. Then they create a diversion, and possibly suggest topics of conver- sation. Something ahovi Breakfast. Breakfast is generally, more or less, a solemn process. The only aim at sprightliness it was ever our fate to witness was so disastrous in its results that we could only hope the attempt would never be re- peated. It was at a large party in a country-house, and the conversa- tion had accidentally turned upon eggs. The young lady of the house, who was seated by a ci-devant jeune homme, an exquisite of the last gene- ration, who had been evidently taken with her beauty and gay spirits, de- clared that it was impossible to break an egg by pressing it ever so tightly, provided you held it in such a manner that the two ends, and no other part, touch the palms of the hands. Her neighbour heard her with a supercilious smile, and re- commended her to try. She re- peated that she had seen it done constantly, and would convince him there and then of the truth of her assertion. So saying, she took up an egg, and turning towards him, said, ' Now, see if I am not right !' When, to her dismay, the egg smashed at once, and its contents spurted over the very particular gen- tleman by her side, soiling his fault- less shirt and waistcoat, and cling- ing pertinaciously to his whiskers and stuVbly beard. Utterly dis- mayed at such a very unexpected disaster, partly from amusement, and partly from nervousneBs, Mita burst into a violent fit of laugh- ing. Her example was followed by several others, for in truth nothing could present a more ludicrous and unhappy appearance than the poor man. Besides which, he was fu- riously angry, believing the whole thing to have been a previously ar- ranged practical joke, and to see that he was the laughing-stock of the company, of course enraged him still more. In vain the poor girl tried to explain that the acci- dent was quite unintentional, and, indeed, that her theory still held good, as the egg was broken not by the pressure but by her ring, which she had forgotten to remove. He would hear nothing, hurried out of the room to repair the mischief done to his dress, and would not re- turn to the breakfast-table ; in fact, we did not see him again, for he left the house the same day. We have not spoken of the ar- rangement of a breakfast- table, or the pretty decorations of which it is capable. Flowers seem more in keeping with breakfast than with dinner, for if the china is ever so beautiful, or the damask ever so fine, a breakfast-table is dull and colourless without them. But how- ever inviting it may be made, we still hold to our theory that for the most part it is better to breakfast alone. An JBkening with my Uncle. AN EVENING WITH MY UNCLE. HOW I first came to know Uncle Gawler, how it happened that our acquaintance, at first of the sim- plest sort, ripened gradually to a friendship warm and durable, need not be here discussed. .It is suffi- cient for the purposes of this paper to state that between my uncle and myself such a happy condition of affairs prevails. The act of parlia- ment which regulates the times and seasons during which my uncle may transact business with his numerous other poor relations in no way af- fects me ; indeed it is more often ' after seven ' than before that I make my calls, and I am always welcome. The strong spring-bolt that secures the flap- door of my uncle's shop counter is cheerfully withdrawn at my approach, giving me free access to the sanctum beyond— where the money-till with its silver ' well,' as large as a wash- ing-bowl, and its gold ' well,' big- ger than a quart basin, is always ajar ; where on back counters, and shelves, and bunks are strewn rings, and pins, and brooches, and lockets, and bracelets (all solid and good gold, as attested by the grim glass bottle labelled 'aquafortis,* conve- niently perched on its little bracket), where deep drawers, open just a little, reveal countless tiny and precious packets, done up in brown paper, and white paper, and stout bits of rag, and patched with a blue, or a red, or a yellow ticket, to indicate the number of pounds sterling that have been advanced on them; where watches, gold and silver, lie heaped together in a living heap, as one may say, each one hobbled to a pawn ticket, and left to die, but not yet dead, but, fiiithful in the discharge of its duty, clamorously ' tick, tick, ticking,' though nobody now takes the least interest in its time-keeping, nor minds its urgent whispering of the flight of time any more than the angler minds the gasping of the fish he has just landed. Were I a sentimental writer (which, thank goodness, I am not), and this a sentimental article, I have no doubt that a very pretty paragraph might be written on these faithful little monitors con- signed to dungeon darkness and the stillness of death for just so long a time as may suit the convenience of the tyrant man. Torn from the bosom where they had so long Iain nestling; abandoned by the hand that gave them life and motion, there they lie, true even unto death, the uncompromising, though some- what astonished ' tick, tick ' of the English lever ; the plethoric and muffled tones of the old-fashioned ' hunter' of the mechanic ; the spas- modic whimpering of the wretched Genoese, reminding one of — of — (not being ready with a happy simile I turn to Mr. Gawler, who is church- warden, and who promptly suggests) cases of desertion on doorsteps. It must not, however, be inferred from the above statement of the wealth in my Uncle Gawler's pos- session that he is as well-to-do in the world as many other of my rela- tions in the same degree. He is not, for instance, as rich as my Uncle At- tenborough, whose meanest place of business is a palace compared with that in which my poorer uncle carries on his trade. Uncle Attenborough affects plate glass and green and gold ornamentation, and informs you, through the medium of off-hand little notice-boards in his window, what is his price — per peck— for pearls and diamonds, and what he can give, per ton, for Australian bullion. Should the keeper of the crown jewels call on Uncle Atten- borough, and request the fullest possible advance on them, he would no doubt be packed off with a satis- factory ' ticket.' Such matters, however, are alto- gether above Uncle Gawler. He makes no pretension to dealing in diamonds, or foreign bullion, or sculpture or paintings by the old masters. It is a wonder, considering the locality in which his business is carried on— near Whitecross Street, St. Luke's — that so much valuable property is confided to his keeping ; and, doubtless, the fact is mainly due— firstly, to the great number of 6 An Evening with my Unde. years he has been established ; and, secondly, to the convenient arrange- ment of his premises. It is a corner house, and the shop, which faces the High Street, is an innocent jeweller's shop, and nothing more. There are neatly-written cards in the window, vaiionsly inscribed, 'jewellery re- paired,' ' watch glasses fitted,' ' ladies' ears pierced,' &c. ; so that even though one should happen to be seen entering Mr. Gawler's shop, — nay, even though an inquisitive brute should be mean enough to spy from outside, and see one hand his ' Dent ' to Mr. Gawler, and receive in exchange for it a neatly-folded bit of pasteboard, the evidence of the pawning would be anything but complete ; watch glasses will come to grief, and watch works need re- pau', and it is the commonest thing in the world for the watchmaker to give the owner a memorandum, as security for his property. I have known fellows in the Strand take the ' Angel ' omnibus on purpose to avail themselves of the services of Ml-. Gawler. But it is not on watch and jewel and trinket-pa wners that Mr. Gawler relies for the support of his busi- ness. The street, of which my tmcle's shop forms the corner, is one of the most densely populated streets in London. It is a market street, a street of shops, abounding in ' courts,' and ' alleys,' and ' yards,' with entrances like accidental chinks in the wall, and swarming with men, and women, and children, as rats swarm in a sewer. It is a roaring sti't-et for business ; there are twt ut} - two butchers' shops in it, seventeen bakers' shops, and twenty-seven gin shops and beer shops. So it may easily be imagined that Uncle Gawler does his share of trade. He is well prepared for it. Up the street by the side of the inno- cent- looking jewellers shop— a long- ish way up the street — is a mean- looking doorway, that might be the entrance to a back yard. That it is something more than this, however, may be at once perceived by the stone tlireshold worn through to the bricks beneath, and the doorpost paint-rubbed and grimy of elbow grease. This is the poor pawners' entrance. It opens on to a passage, extending down the whole length of which is a row of latched doors, close together and hinge to hinge. There are eleven of these doors, and they belong to as many ' boxes ' or compartments about four feet wide and ten deep, boarded on each side, and with a portion of counter (boarded, of course, from the top downwards) in front. There is a little bolt on the inside of the cell door, so that if a customer desires privacy he can secure himself from observation until his negotiation with the pawnbroker is completed. This precaution is— at least as re- gards the daytime— quite super- fluous ; for when the door is closed, the closet is dark as evening, making it next to impossible for any one to recognise his neiglibour, except by the sound of his voice. I have said that each closet -is fronted by a portion of the long counter which extends from one end of the pawning compartment to the other — I should rather have said that it is a ledge raised a foot above the level coimter that faces the cus- touicr, the said raised ledge being, doubtless, intended as a check against the evil disposed, who might be tempted to advantage themselves of the bustle of much business, and walk off with their own or their neighbours' unran- somed goods. Against the wall opposite to the boxes, and facing the middle one, the ' spout ' is built. The ' spout ' at a pawnbroker's, as the gentle reader will please to understand, is a boxed-in space penetrating the upper warehouse floors, and con- trived for the more ready delivery of pledged goods; which consisting, as they usually do among poor folks, of wearing apparel, and boots, and shoes, and bed-linen, may be collected from their various places of stowage and bundled by the dozen through the aperture in question from the top of the house to the bottom. To accommodate Uncle Gawler's extensive business, his ' spout ' was of enormous size. The opening was as large as a kitchen chimney, and to two sides of it upright ladders were fixed. An Evening with my Uncle. Astraddle over the hole on the top floor was a windlass with a stout rope and a chain and a couple of hooks depending from it. This was used to wind up tlie sacksfull of pledged bundles, and no doubt saved a vast amount of labour. About the spare spaces (very few) of Uncle Gawler's shop walls were stuck various placards and business notices : one relating to the rates of interest allowed by law ; one or two relating to recent instances of pro- secution, and conviction, of persons pawning the property of others without their permission, and of other persons who had endeavoured to foist upon the unsuspecting pawnbroker ' Brummagem ' ware, reputed to be honest gold or silver. There were other placards more or less curious, but none more so than one which in red and conspicuous letters, bore the mysterious an- nouncement that ' there could be no parting after eleven o'clock.' A solution, however, to this mystery, and many others, appeared in the course of the evening I passed with Uncle Gawler. How I came to enjoy that rare privilege I will explain in a few words. Although my calls at the shop in St. Luke's were not unfre- quent, they had invariably taken place on some other day than Satur- day. It was a real pleasure to call and see Uncle Gawler : he was always so filled with contentment and gratitude. 'How was he get- ting on ■?' ' Oh, nicely, thanky — very nicely; a little overdone with work, that's all : small cause for complaint you think, eh, young fellow? Ah! but the amount of business to be attended to in this place is enormous, sir— en-normous!' And then he would cp,st his eyes towards the long row of " boxes,' and from them to tlie mighty 'spout,' with the cable and the chain and hooks dangling down, and sigh a pleasant sigh, and jingle the keys in his pocket. He said this, or something very like, so often, that one could not help looking about him for symp- toms of the enormous business Uncle Gawler made so much of. Looking about for these symptoms he failed to discover ijjem. Although there was kept up a pretty constant slam- ming of the box-doors, and a briskish clamour of ' serve ine, please,' ' it's my turn,' and ' ain't that there come down yet ?' the eleven boxes were never a quarter filled, and never at any time had I dropped in at such a time of pressure that IMr. Gawler was uuiible to tuck his hands under his coat-tails and gos- sip for half an hour, while his two young men plodded along, the one examining and valuing articles brought to pawn, and the other making out the deposit-tickets and handing over the money, but with very little show of excitement. This circumstance, coupled with another, viz., that Uncle Gawler was inva- riably as unruflied as regards his habiliments as though he had just dressed for an evening party, drove me to the conclusion that either the worthy old gentleman possessed a marvellous aptitude for getting through an 'enormous amount' of business with perfect ease, or else that he was slightly given to exag- geratiim. At last came theeventM evening when my unworthy suspi- cions were vanquished, and my be- lief in Uncle Gawler established more firmly than ever. It was a Saturday evening and the time of year was July. I had not met Uncle Gawler for several days, and it happening that a friend had kindly given me an order for the admission for two on the Adel- phi Theatre, I thought it would be a good opportunity for a manifesta- tion of my regard for him. It was rather late, ' but,' thought I, ' he is sure to be ready dressed, and he will only have to pop on his hat and we may be off at once.' Enter- ing Uncle Gawler's shop I was im- mediately struck with astonishment, not to say awe. The two young men were there — Uncle Gawler was there, but how changed ! No longer was he an elderly gentleman dressed for an evening party, but a person whose avocation it was to put down mob risings, to quell riots, to stop prize-fights, and who, calmly con- fident, expected each moment to be called on. It was his custom to wear a black satin stock and a dia- •8 An Evening with my Uncle. mond pin ; tbepe ware cast aside, and, only for the ncck-band of his shirt, his throat iras bare. ETer before I had seen him in a coat of the glossiest black ; now he wore no coat at all, but a waistcoat with tight black holland sleeves, Hke a porter at a paper-warehouse. Usually he was particular as to the arrangement of his hair, so that the side-pieces were cunningly coaxed upwards to conceal the nakedness of his crown ; this, however, was no time for au indulgence of such weaknesses, and his stubbly, iron- grey locks apptand in the same state of delitihtlul confusion they were originally thrown into by the bath-towel. Whatever was Mr. Gawler's ob- ject, it was evident at a glance that both his young men were prepared to second him while breath remained in their lK)dies. Like their master, they had thrown aside their neck- erchief, but, unlike hira, they were without black hollai d sleeves to their waistcoats, and wore their shirt-sleeves rolled back above their elbows. And all for what? Never before had I found Uncle Gawler's shop so peaceful. With the excep- tion of one, the eleven boxes were qnite empty, and the exception was provided in a shape no more formi- dable than that of a yonng laun- dress, who was redeeming a brace of flat irons, and mildly remonstrat- ing with Mr. Gawler's assistant con- cerning their condition, while the yonng man, with equal politeness, was endeavouring to exonerate the firm from the charge of being ' beastly damp' (that being the basis of the young woman's argument), but was compelled ultimately to fall back on the saving clause printed on every pawn-ticket, 'that Mr. Gawler was not answerable for moth or rust.' 'How do?' said Uncle Gawler. ' Pretty time to call, of all times in the week, upon my word!' Saying this, he consulted his watch, and, apparently alarmed to find it so late, immediately rushed to the 'spout' and bawled up it, 'Now, you lads! make haste alx)ut your tea; there isn't a minute to spare !' ' Why, what maj- be the matter ?' I asked. ' Anything unnsnal about to happen?' ' Oh no, nothing nnusual — the regular thing of Saturday nights,' replied Uncle Gawler, pushing his muscular arms further through his waistcoat-sleeves, as though not at all afraid of the ' regular thing,' but, on the contrary, rather anxious for its approach. ' You won't stay, of course,' continued he; 'they'll be here like a swarm of l>ees presently, you know, and I shan't have a mi- nute to myself for the next live hours.' At this moment several of the * box' doors were heard to open and fall to again with a slam, at which signal Mr. Gawler started and held out his hand to say good-bye. It was evident that those who would pre- sently arrive like a swarm of bees were cxistomers. It was for their reception that my uncle and his assistants had prepared themselves, and taken off their neckcloths and rolled back their sleeves. My reso- lution was at once taken. 'Shall I be much in your way if I stay for an hour ?' I asked. 'My dear fellow!' began Uncle Gawler, while his two young men looked round with astonishment. ' I could sit in the parlour and look through the window,' I sug- gested. ' I won't disturb you : I'll sit in there as quiet as a mouse.' ' Well, go in if you like,' said Uncle Gawler, after a moment's hesi- tation ; ' you'll soon be glad to get out again, I'll warrant.' So I went into the little parlour and took a chair at the window in the wall that commanded a lair view of the shop from one end to the other. Especially there was a fair view of the boxes, and, to my sur- prise, although but live minutes had elapsed since the slamming of the first of the eleven doors had l>egun, at least forty customers had already assembled. Although, owing to the deep gloom in which the interior of each box was shrouded, it was diffi- cult to make out the figures of the customers, it was easy enough to count their numlier, for one and all had thrust out a hand containing a small pack of tickets of redemption. It was an odd sight to see this long An Evening tctth my Uncle. 9 row of grimy fists and tattered gown and jacket and coat-cuflfs all poking towards the shopman and beckoning him coaxingly. However, there was no favouritism. It was quite use- less for the owners of the gown- cuffs to address the young man in familiar, not to say affectionate, lan- guage, calling him 'David,' and even 'Davy' ('Davy, dear/ one woman called him), or for the jacket-cntfs to growl and adjure David to ' move hisself.' David had a system, and he well knew that the least depar- ture from it would be fatal to the proper conduct of the business of the evening. Beginning at box number one he began the collection of the little squares ot pasteboard with both his hands, and ' hand- over-hand,' as one may say, with a dexterity only to be acquired by constant practice, crying out ' tickets! tickets! tickets!' the while. By the time he had perambulated the length of the shop and called at all the boxes he had gathered as many tickets as his fists would hold, and at once turned to a back counter where stood John (the other shop- man). John and David then en- gaged in 'sorting' the tickets, an operation rendered necessary for several reasons. Some of the tickets referred to tools and flat irons and articles of furniture too cumbrous and imwieldy to ascend the ' spout,' and which were accommodated with lodgings in the cellars. Other of the pawn-tickets related to wedding- rings and Sunday brooches and scarf-pins, which were deposited in the room whose walls were mailed with sheet-iron in the rear of the shop. Another reason why the tickets should be sorted was this. A goodly proportion of Uncle Gaw- ler's customers were unacquainted with the art of reading, and not un- frequently tendered tickets pertain- ing to goods in the custody of another ' uncle' keeping a shop in the neigh- bourhood, an error if not at once detected likely to lead to a great waste of time and temper. The tickets sorted, a heavy and melancholy youth, bearing a dark lantern, opportunely emei'ged from the bowels of the pi-emises through a trap-door in the shop floor, and took into custody the tickets relating to shovels and picks, and saws and planes; while John bustled off with another lantern and the jewellery tickets, and David remained to attend to the ' spout ' department. Lapping out at the mouth of the spout, and waving gently to and fro, like the busy tongue of the ant- eater, was a long leather bng ; into this David thrust his handful of cards, and at the same instant briskly touched a bell-hiindle fixed to the side of the 'spout,' and, with a sudden jerk, the longue vanished upwards into the maw ; to return, however, long and lean as ever, and dangling and wagging as though it had just caught the flavour of the food it was remarkably fond of, and much desired some more. It must not be supposed that Uncle Gawler himself was mean- while idle. Redemption was the order of the evening ; still, there were numerous cases in which it was necessary rather by way of barter than by ready-money pay- ments. As, for instance, Mrs. Brown, being a laundress, has found it necessary to pawn the table-linen belonging to one of her customers, and, not having money at her com- mand to redeem the same, she feels it convenient to 'put away' the shirts of another customer, and thus make matters square. On Monday she will redeem the shirts of cus- tomer number two, by pawning the sheets of customer number three. Or, again, as for instance, the Browns are asked by the Greens to come and have a bit of dinner to- morrow, and have accepted the in- vitation ; but Brown has made a bad week ; has not earned enough, indeed, to ' get out ' his Sunday coat and the children's frocks. Brown is a man who doesn't like ' to look little.' He won't want his working clothes till Monday; and, as they will be from home, they won't miss the hearthrug. Again, there are exceptions to the rule altogether. Saturday night is a ticklish time for poor mother. No work this week— last week— the week before. Not a single penny. No dinner to-morrow— no dinner on a Sunday! Mother does not 10 An Evening ivith my Uncle. care. Father does not care — much ; but the children! It is all very well to rub along all the week with bread and treacle for the mid- day meal, or, at a pinch, with nothing between breakfast and an 'early tea ;' but it is different on Sundays. Everyhody has dinner on Sunday, even in a Whitecro^s Street alley ; the atmosphere is hazy with tbe steam of ' bakings ;' and by two o'clock you won't find a little pina- fore that is not dinner-stained. ' It's of no use,' says poor mother, ' a bit of hot dinner must be got somehow.'' So she waits till dusk, and then, slip-shod in old slippers, carries her sound shoes to Mr. Gawler's and places them on the counter. This sort of work keeps Uncle Gawler tolerably busy, while his joung men are busy restoring the pledged goods ; but he is not nearly so busy as he will be presently. By this time the slamming of the box- doors has increased, and a quick succession of dull bumps and thumps announces the descent down the ' spout ' of parcels of all sorts and sizes from the various ware- houses above. John has returned with the lantern in one hand and a bunch of little packets in the other ; and three times the gloomy boy has laboured up the cellar steps, laden with ironware and tools, which he has deposited, with a malicious clatter, upon the shop floor, and once more retreated. The eleven boxes are gradually filling; and from out their gloomy depths, where the clatter and chatter is each moment increasing, there crops a thick cluster of ticket- grasping fists, wriggling to be delivered. But it is not time yet to gather in this second crop : the result of the first, which chokes up the spout, has yet to be cleared off. This part of the performance is conducted by the indefatigable David. Hauling and tugging at the rag- wrapped bundles that bulge out at the mouth of the spout, he rapidly ranges them, ticket up- ward (it should have been stated that a duplicate of the ticket held by the pawner is pinned on to the property pawned, and that, when the searchers have found the bundle to which the ticket put into the bag refers, he pins it by the side of the ticket already distinguishing it), and then begins to call out the name the duplicate bears. * Jones !' 'One; here you are,' somebody calls. ' Three and sevenpence-half- penny, Jones ;' and in a twinkling the money passes one way, and the parcel the other, and Jones is dis- missed. 'Kobinson! how many, Mrs. Kobinson?' ' Five.' Mrs. Robinson must wait : when the other four bundles happen to turn up, she will get her ' five,' not before; so, putting her first dis- covered bundle aside, David con- tinues his investigation. ' Mackney ! How many, Mack- ney? Mack-ney! — how many more times am I to holloa ?' ' Is it McKenny ye mane ?' shouts a shrill voice. 'Well, p'raps it is: what's the article ?' inquires the cautions David. ' Siveral,' pipes Mrs. McKenny ; ' there's the childers' perrikits, and me ole man's weskit, and a shawl, and- ' ' Two and a halfpenny,' exclaims David, cutting the lady cruelly short. ' But I want to part, Davy dear,' said the Irishwoman. ' Why didn't you say so at first?' snapped David, and at the same time tossing the monstrously large two-shilling bundle towards Uncle Gawler. Uncle Gawler at once seized it, unpinned it, and disclosed petti- coats, and shawl, and waistcoat, be- sides several other articles. ' I want tbe weskit and shawl, and leave the rist for fifteen pince,' said Mrs. McKenny. ' Ninepence is what you can leave *em for,' replied Uncle Gawler, with a determination that Mrs. McKenny had not the courage to combat; ' one and four, please.' And having paid this sum, she walked off with the shawl and waistcoat. This at at once explained the meaning of the mysterious placard, ' No parting after eleven o'clock.' It was evident 1 An Evening toitk my Vncle. 11 enough that the process of ' parting ' was not a little tiresome, and calcu- lated to hamper and impede busi- ness if allowed at the busiest time. The first delivery of pledges over, the second crop of tickets was gathered ; and so much heavier was it tlian the first, that by the time he had reached the sixth box, David's hands were quite full. Big as was the leather bag suspended in the ' 8pout,' it was chokef ul when David thrust in his gathering; and before five minutes had elapsed, the noise of falling bundles within the spout was fast and furious. Tear and haul at them as David might— even with the assistance, slow but determined, of the melancholy cellar-boy — the lads above, now well warmed to their work, were not to be outdone, but kept up the shower, pelt, bump, thump, until the throat as well as the mouth of the spout was fairly choked. Still, in flocked the customers, until there was no more door-slamming, for the boxes were crammed and brimming over into the passage ; and the number of ticket-grasping fists that threatened over the counter was enough to appal any but such tried veterans as Uncle Gawler and his crew. Then the uproar ! Small- voiced women, of the better sort, begging and en- treating of David to lake their tickets, at the same time pouring into his adder ears the various domestic businesses on which their need for haste were based. Shrill- voiced women of the worser sort, dirty-faced, baby-bearing, gin-hie- cuppy slatterns, brawling, pushing, driving their elbows into other people's eyes, and trampling on their feet. Drunken men who had never given any ticket at all, and who yet obstinately persisted in blocking up the front and most desirable places, taking great oaths, banging their great fists against the counter, and challenging David into the road to fight. Great indeed must have been the joy of David and John when eleven, o'clock struck, and Uncle Gawler shouted * no more parting!' and, whipping off his sleeved waistcoat, came to their assistance. He was a host in him- self. By a few pertinent remarks as to what would be the probable result of their outrageous behaviour when they brought their things back to pledge on Monday morning, he silenced the vixens ; and by em- phatically declaring that he would not deliver another parcel to his customers until they turned out the noisy drunken men, he got rid of them in a twinkling. He aspailed the glutted ' spout,' and delivered bundles in batches of six and eight, and counted up the interest, and took money, and gave change with a celerity that took away one's breath to behold. In half an hour the box doors began again to slam — a sure sign that the rush was thin- ning : in another twenty minutes he had so slackened the pressure as to find time to come in to me, mop- ping the perspiration off his scarlet visage with his silk handkerchief, and inquire what I thought of it all. James Greenwood. 1S» Twenty-four Hours of the Season. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS OF THE SEASON. By My Lady's Watch. OF society's life the first dawning Begins with the letters— and yawning ! Your orders you give, while you're sipping Your tea ; then your wrapper on-slipping, You submit to the toils of the morning— Your ladi's-maid does your adorning; While you skim, during ornamentation. The latest three-volume ' sensation.' Next, when you the break fast-room turn-in. The children are brought— with the urn— in ; And papa, on the ' Times ' intent, drily Doesn't see that they look at you shily. Babes— and breakfast — disposed of, your iVwels From Hancock's, your dresses from Sewcils, Your bonnet, your boots, and your chignon Claim full sixty minutes' dominion. Then off, like a shot from a cannon! — To horse, and away, the Row's tan on ! Just pausing at times in your canter Your friends at the railings to banter. In your brougham soon shopping you're hieing — Inspecting— electing — and buying : Then home, with a cargo of treasures. For the next in the list of your pleasures. You then, for a couple of hours, show Your tasteful toilette at a flow'r show. Displaying, 'mid roses and orchids, Ldght muslins and pale three- and-four kids. Then, the Royal Academy in, it's The thing to appear for tive minutes. The merits of Millais and Leighton It enables you glibly to prate on. But somehow you must be contriving By six in the Park to be driving. Your daughter (the eldest, you know,) sits Beside you— in front of you Flo sits. Soon homeward you re wearily pressing With prospects of dinner and dressing. Faint — aching in every bone— you Your maid have to eau-de-Cologne you. Till you meet — the first time since you brake fast- The being four parsons did make fast Your slave, at St. George's, — poor sinner I — And your husband and you have your dinner. 10. She awake tb. 10-30. Dresseth, 11. Breaketb her tost. Noon — 1 v.m. lirceivelh hei tradL'bfolk. 1—2-30. Taketli horse exercise. 3. Goeth a- shopping. g 5^ Vlsitelh the Boianical. J.— 5- 10. Glance ih at the Academy, Taketh car- riage exer- cise. 6—6-30. Goeth to her tiring-room. 7—9. Ilath her dinner. ;z)/^7/^^;^ Drawn bv Florence C'laxtc Drawn by Florence C'laKtin.] TWENTY-POUK HOUKS OP THE SEASON IIY MY lady's \VAr< II. I Sep tlie Vfrses. Twenty-four Hour$ of the Season. 13 9 9-5. Visitotli her bal>'. 9- .- 9-30. (iocih to the Opera. 9-:jo— 10. Kiijoyeth Kiidueth her ball-dreas. i i l-.M.~12-S0. Showelh her loyalty. 1. Payeth homage to Royalty. 2—2-30. Haiitelli to I Hall. 3; Disportetb herselt 4—10. Retiretb to .est. Fish, soup, entrees, meats, sweets, and cheese are Brought on— and discussed by degrees are; Which leaves you five minutes, it may be. To take just a peep at the baby : — When your maid comes, observing, ' My leddy, Master says, plea«e, the kcrridge is ready ;* And you're off, Co vent Garden- wards dashing- Lamps flashing, wheels splashing and crashing. And now you display your ecstatic Devotion for things operatic : — But the music, you talk so much stuff of. You find half an hour quite enough of. Yet a whole one find scarcely suffices For the various arts and devices. Which deck you in satin or moire. Lace, jewels, and plumes for the soiree, To which you are speedily rushing — To find there much squeezing and crushing. The crowd is so great, to get in it's A matter of quite ninety minutes ! But then, though the struggle dismays you. The end of it more than repays you! A smile upon lips that are royal Itewards your activity loyal. You return to your brougham enchanted. Yet glad of the respite that's granted For a rest on the carriage's cushion. To the Countess's Ball while you push on. But to shake off, soon after arriving, Your weariness you are contriving, Coote and Tinney your feet quickly winning To a waltz-measure, merrily spinning. When at last you get home it just four is ! Every bone of you aching and sore is — You feel that existence a bore is — So is going to bed up three stories ; — While the husband you always ignore is Eeturned from supporting the Tories (He M.P. for land-owners galore is). And, forgetting the House's uproar, is Asleep —sound as nail in a door is : — So your greeting just only a snore is ; And you sleep until ten it once more isi >mSql^J^ 14 Engaged i ENGAGED rNTEKltUPTEB I E NGAGED! Oh, indeed! And pray what then, sir ?' 'What then, sir? Why, then there is no more insufferable con- dition for other people than to have to stand by and be spectators of their happiness !' There is something, after all, in what my friend sa.ys, tliough it can scarcely be supposed he is abso- lutely serious, considering the ad- vantageous match his daughter. Miss Lucy, has really made of it. Thit fact being apsiuvd, however, he sticks to his point about the discomfort he experiences in being a compulsory witness to ' their ex- travagant affection.' ' My good friend, jou forget. So many things have occupied your attention since the day when you were first ad- mitted to the family circle as the "engaged" of dear Amelia— you seem almost to forget that "dear Amelia" and your excellent wife, " a joyful mother of children," are one and the same person — that you forget both the joy that was yours, and the " insufferable condition " that joy occasioned to the members of your innaraorata's family, who received you so kindly. Pray let us Engaged / la I'far no more about " extra vngant affci-tion." I am as old as you are, ami remember well — for was I not, at the very time, in a green and yellow melancholy, sighing for the afl'uctions of your dear Amelia's sister Mary, who jilted me in favour of Jack Hornby, the mustachioed and beanlcil man of war? I re- member how eminently ridiculous you were wont to appear to ns, who saw not with your eyes, tipon almost (ivery occasion wlien you and dear Amelia figured in public. I will not harrow your feeliugs by de- scribing what iiulications of "extra- vagant aff> ction" you gave when I came unawares, and assuredly with- out intending it, upon a certain arbour in the garden, where yon and yours had sole possession, one Sunday evening in the summer, as I returned from a solitary, un- lovely walk. Shall I remind you of the many shifts, more or less flimsy and transparent, with which, many a time and oft, you tried to make your occupjttion appear other than it had been before you were inter- rupted by the im welcome entrance of a third person into the room? Cannot your memory carry you back so far as to tlie time when you seriously proposed to challenge my cousin Tom, because he, all ignorant of your engagement, dared to take your dear Amelia from under your very eyes, and to waltz with her as he might have done with any young lady whatever? lean remind you, if need be, of the time when you poured out your soul in grief to me, because you were not oftener left alone with your carisnima, and be- cause her wortliy father, a thousand times more aminble than you are, was inconsiderate (nougli occa- ' sionally to require the uf e of his own study, which, for reasons best known to you and Amelia, was your favourite billing and cooing place.' Long ago, Charles Lamb raised his voice against the pretensions of the newly married, and held them up to scorn in various ways, in return for indignities which he had suffered at their hands ; but the claims and self-assertions of the would-be married have gone on unchecked since long before Lamb's time until now. With the single exception of the bard who Bon Gaultier hight, and who sang in moving verse the miseries of the lover's friend and confidant, no one has ventured to handle the delicate subject of the conduct of engaged people, either towards each other or towards other people. It is a delicate subject, to be sure, and a man might be excused for refraining to bring in the mirth-makers, who haply might select himself for the immediate subject of their laughter. There are so few who can afford to raise a laugh on this subject, so few who have not, once at least in their lives, to pass through the love- making stage, and so to ajipear, as they say, ridiculous in the eyes of other people. It is a privilege which only old bachelors like my- se|f — I never recovered the blow my young affections received when the beauteous Mary, sister of ' dear Amelia,' threw me overhoard for the mustachioed and beaidcd man of war aforesaid — enjoy. We have a fee simple in the follies and extra- vagancies both of those who are married, and of those who are about to take upon them the holy estate of matrimony ; we can witti im- punity let 'our jest among our friends be free,' and in the matter of courtship— as they used to call it in my young days— we have a right to comment upon it as we like, because of the completeness with which we are excluded from the joys of it. 1 hold that my friend, who grnmbles at the ' in-^nfferable condition' in which he is placed, is quite out of court. He docs but see the reflection of his former sf;lf ; it is an instance of the thing that hath been being the same that shall be ; and, so far as he is concerned by it, there is no new thing under the sun. With me it is different. Though once in my life, as I have already hinted, I 'sat. like patience on a monument,' smiling at the grief which the mus- tachioed and bearded man of war caused me in the matter of Mary, 6i.>ter to 'dear Amcba,' I sighed to myself only, witho\it declaring my passion, and had not, therefore, to. go through any public exhibitions of ' extjravagant affection,' such as. 16 Engaged t doubtless, T ptiould have done had I been admitted to pratique, and had the Fates been kinder to me than they wore. Thus, yon see, gentle readers, I am at liberty to make any remarks I please upon the situation. No one can meet me with a tu, quoquc, or declare me estopped from using as freely as I like the gleanings of my expe- rience. Let ray friend therefore, for decency's sake, stand aside, and let me take his place. I am vain enough to think I shall treat the matter with a hand more tender and more sympathetic than his, while I si 1 all not the less expose what he would in his unamiability tear to tatters. There is, then, to be noticed in the carriage and deportment of engaged persons an amount of awkwardness and restraint in the presence of other people, which not only stamp them for what they are, but tend to make the whole party amongst whom they find themselves perfectly uncomfortable. Strangers — that is to say, any people but the two who are interested in main- taining the monopoly of mutual 'extravagant affection'— feel almost guilty at being the occasion of so much discomfort. They do not want to obtrude themselves on the attention of the loving pair; and assuredly, if their own personal comfort were alone concerned, they would get far out of sight of the enamoured; but circumstances will not admit of it; there must be cer- tain rooms in common at certain times— under no circumstances, for instance, do lovers, love they never so lovingly, quite dispense with the service of the dining-room. Common civility, moreover, requires that occasionally they should be in the drawing-room, or other place where the other members of the family are assembled ; and it is on each and all of these occasions that the charac- teristics above mentioned are notice- able. There is in the manner and on the face of Amandus an ex- pression half of listlessness, half of anxiety to be agreeable in spite of himself, which strikes a disin- terested observer rather curiously. He begins to think that Amandus is unwell, that he is a genius pondering abstruse questions 'even in the presence;' or may be the thought crosses his brain, as he sees the conlinuousness of Amandus's ab- sence of mind, that perchance he may have committed some crime which makes him ill at ease. Only one who is cognizant of the true state of the case can rightly inter- pret the meaning of that shifting glance of the eyes, that perpetual wandering to and fro the beloved object, who sits uncomfortably upon some neighbouring chair or sofa, and tries to play the hypocrite, though with as poor a result as Amandus. As plainly as the ex- pression on an intelligent being's countenance can convey a meaning, so plainly is it apparent to the disinterested unappropriated that Amandus is chafing on the bit which good manners have forced into his mouth, and that he is wishing with all his heart he had wings like a bird, that he might fly into the study or the break fast- room, where he would be with Amanda. What pleasure, what sati-factiou there can be in thus secluding himself with Amanda I do not pretend to say. Would it not seem more glorious to stay in the midst of tlie family circle, and triumph openly and continuously in the conquest you have won? Or are there sweet mysteries, solemn rites of courtship, which none but the initiated may know, and which must be performed in so private a manner, that the sudden entry of a Philistine into the room is enough to scare the votaries of Cupid from their vow-making, and to cause a trepidation that is observable long after the invader has entered ? I presume it must be so, eli-e there could not he so great, so manifest a desire on the part of Amandus and Amanda, and on the part of Amanda's father before them, as I have already testified, to get away to some covert from the common gaze. ' Not that room ! They are in there !' ' Confound them ! Suppose they are ? My " Encyclopaedia Britan- nica " is in there too ; and surely I may go and fetch it I' Engaged I 17 * My dear sir, you are too violent, and too inconsicierato as well. At all events, muke a noise with the door-bamile, so as to give some warning of your coming.' My friend feels the awkwardness of having his own study as effectually sealed against liim as if the Customs officers had found out that he had an illicit distillery in it: herestnts what he calls an encroachment on his liberty ; but the noise he has made in stumbling over the door- mat, and in fumbling with the door- handle, has put ' the pair ' suffi- ciently on the qui vive to allow of their quitting the celebration of those riles luiknown to all but the initiated, and my friend enters his study to find his large easy chair vacant, but looking as if it bad not long been so, drawn up in a com- fortable position on one side of the fireplace, while Amandus, who might be suspected of having sat therein, is busy seeing ' why the lamp burns so dimly,' and Amanda, at the other end of tlie room, is so osten- tatiously engaged in looking over some music, that one is bound to suppose witli Longfellow that 'things are not what tliey seem.' It does not re(iuire one thoroughly acquainted with the rites of Dan Cupid to conjecture that Amandus and Amanda bad been differently occupied ere that fumbhng wjth the door-handle warned them of the fact that a Philistine was ap- proaching. ' Two are company, three none,' says Marian, when it is proposed that she shall go with Amandus and Amanda to the croquet party at Mrs. Thingumby's. 'You are quite right, my dear ;' only there is the slightest possible tinge of dis- satisfaction in your tone that you are of the three, and not of the two, which leads one to doubt whether your remark is prompted so much by a desire to let the company consist of the only har- monious elements, as by a wish to point uncomfortably towards the composition of the company in order to gratify yourself by enjoying their discomfort. If the tone be rightly interpreted, I will pass by your remark as being merely cynical ; if not, I humbly beg your pardon, and cordially endorse the truism you have uttered. Engaged folk do, as a matter of fact, dislike the presence of a third person, almost as much, perhaps more, than that of a large party. ' A great company is a great solitude,' and in it tlio ' engaged ' can be, comparatively speaking, free, almost unnoticed ; whereas, in narrower limits they botli cause and are required to give a greater attention. I am far from being certain that the con- dition of the third person who is tacked on to the ' lia!)py pair ' is not much more 'insnlhraUle' than theirs. If they so far consider him or her as not to talk al)out them- selvps, it will bo in so forced and artificial a manner as to make their conversation ' less tolerable than their silence, or their mutual self- apprcpriation. With what unblush- ing selfishness do an engaged couple walk off together, with a noli nou tangere expression on their faces, as though they had a monojxily of the earth on which they walk, anil would resent any intrusion as the infringement of a patent right. Whilst they choof^e to walk they are as scarecrows to the timid and the good natured, who avoid them as tabooed objects, and ' steal away so guilty like,' if perchance they stumble upon them in the course of their pcrigrinations. My friend, the father of Amanda, speaks very feelingly on this subject, fie says his favourite pait of the garden is no longer one of his pli.asant places ; the ivy-grown summer-house, where he was wont to read and smoke a lazy pipe, is no longer available for him since he was foolishly led to sanction the mad engagement which brings his Amanda and her Amandu.s so much in his way. He complains, too — and herein, as a calm, dispassionate observer, I am compelled to join with him— of the demonstrativeness of the 'en- gaged.' 'Positively, sir, I have seen them sitting knee to knee almost, with their hands clasped, their tongues as silent as the grave, their eyes reflecting all sorts of nonsense from one to the other, and looking iike the most perfect foola 18 Engaged I that can be met with out of Bed- lam.' Gently, my friend. This fault, this unshamefaced glorying, if you will, is very reprehensible. If it does notbing else it asserts to all present, moro plainly than is agree- able, tbat they are not happy as the engaged are ; but there is no need for you to break out into a fuiy on the subject. I will mention the circumstance in a dou't-do-it^agaiu sort of way tbrough the various circles of London Society, aud I doubt not you will cease to be troubled by demonstrations of 'ex- travagant affection.' Did the captain take Amanda down to dinner ? Well, it was very gauche in the hostess not to have arranged differently ; but there is no reason why you, Amandus, should sit savagely all diimer-time, saying nothing whatever to the amiable lady by your side, who is ignorant of your misfortune, and is trying to enlist your sympathies in the last report of the Society for procuring a change in the colour of the Ethio- pian's skin. Do not venture to press Amanda's foot, though you may think it to be within reach, under the table. You can assure her of yoiu" sentiments towards her as well as of those you entertain towards the captain afterwards. Meantime, though you may think to touch Amanda's foot with your own, it may happen you light ac- cidentally on the captain's, and some embarrassment may ensue. Why should you be angry be- cause an old friend of Amanda's chooses to talk to her longer than you like ? Is it not enough for you that Amanda has preferred you to the old frienrl, to all her old friends, and only wishes not to make them feel the preference too keenly ? Go to ; you are unreasonable ! Again, while I recommend you not to wear your heart on your sleeve for daws to peck at, or, in other words, not to flaunt your engagement in everybody's, face, be particularly careful how you inflict upon your friends the story ' How you did thrive in this fair lady's love, and she in yours.' Your lady friends T»ill per- haps welcome the recital, for their tender, loving natures incline them to listen to a tale of love ; but your male friends, glad enough to know that you are happy, will vote you a bore if you give them too many details of your happiness. They will be sure to discount your de- scription of yonr ladylove ; it is ten to one they will make tun of you and of her too, the ungenerous brutes, in the next conversation they have with a mutual friend; they will think but simply of you for talking of that which you should keep as private as possible; and they will wish you at Jericho if you take up much of their time with a matter in which they can have but a specially limited interest, ' Jt is the most egregious bore Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who lost his heart A short time ago.' This will be the burden of their song, this will be the true expression of their inmost feelings ; and though good-nature may prompt them to bear and forbear, they will assuredly feel aggrieved if you draw, as the custom of lovers is, upon their patience ad libitum. As for Amanda, it would be almost presumptuous in me to offer her any counsel, yet, at the risk of offending so charm iug a young lady, I will venture to suggest that she should be very cluiiy of confiding too much to her ' dearest Jane' or Lucy. The chances are she will say more than s'le intended, and there will be some additions made by lively imaginations. Let her re- member she has some one else's confidence to keep besides her own. Let not the love of triumph, the communicative springs of happiness, still less the mere love of ' hearing or telling some new thing,' lead her into imparting thoughts which are already ' engaged.' Let her not exult by word or action, as I have seen some do, over her compeers who are unattached ; ' there is many a slip,' &c. Above all, let her con- sider very tenderly the abnormal position in which she and all about her are placed during the term of her engagement— let not that be 1 Humours ofth€ Paris JExhibiUon. 19 long — and let her try to accommo- date herself to the convenience — ay, even to tlie prejudices of those whom she is soon to leave, and to whom she will thereafter be glad that she showed so much considera- tion and self-denial. Finally, let her not on any account forget to ask me to the wedding. She may rely upon my services in the matter of giving away, of speech-makingi of flinging the slipper, of drying the tears of the respective mothers- in-law, of anything, in short, which may properly and fairly be con- sidered as forming part of the office and duty of the devoted ad- mixer of all Amandas. F. W. R. HUMOURS OF THE PARIS EXHIBITION. I ENOUGH has been said about the J Paris Exhibition in the way of d(JScription and criticism, and, to state a candid impression candidly, I think it has been overpraised and overwritten about. But before it closes'' let me gather up some per- sonal reminiscences and a few addi- tions of adventure that will keep clear of the newspapers. Going about among one's friends and acquaint- ances, Paris has been the promi- nent idea all the spring and sum- mer. When I lunched lately with the Griggses of Clapham Park (old Griggs being safely stowed away at the Stock Exchange), mamma and the girls told me that though they had certainly been bitten by Overend and Gurney, they had made up their minds (old Griggs having always kept within a margin) that it was absolutely necessary, particularly with respect to public opinion in Clapham Park, that they should do the Exhibition. How excited the dear girls became when they talked about the amusements and dissipa- tions of Paris, fur which the Exhi- bition would furnish colour and excuse; and how unreservedly did Mrs. Griggs take me into confidence about Overend and Gurney ; and how glad she was to find that she was not absolutely obliged to go to the Grand Hotel or the Louvre, and that every meal would not neces- sarily cost a napoleon a head. Griggs aslccd me a f«w days after to partake of a saddle of mutton, which meant a gorgeous dinner, in which there was no apparent falling off from pri">tine splendour. At the dinner I certainly contrasted the lofty politeness of the young ladies with the cozy familiarity of the lunch, and I am afraid I thought worthy Mrs. Griggs a humbug for alluding in that distant way to the Paris Exhibition, as if it were a sub- ject that had only lately and acci- dentally entered her thoughts. I knew that Griggs would laave to submit; it was only a matter of time ; and sure enough the Griggses turned up, as will be hereafter men- tioned in this veracious narrative. Likewise several friends of mine rushing into matrimony about this time, despite my gentle dissuaKives, which met with less attention than my valuable remarks ordinaiily re- ceived, I was much consulted on the advisability of proceeding to Paris for the honeymoon. I quite admitted that in one point of view there was a great deal to be said for the idea. You will not be bored with each other so soon, having the Exhibition to fall back upon. Poor Widdicombe, who was married the other day, about a week after the event, had to telegraph to some friends to join him, as he and his bride were tired of each other's so- ciety. Still, in crossing the Channel, you may be placing your.'elf and your wife under very unromantic conditions. Supi> ising one or both of you are very ill, you will either be making yourself ridiculous at the very time when you would wish to be most interesting, or beginning to signalise yourself too early for brutal indifference. However, seve- ral braces of married pairs disre- garded my advice, and on some far* distant ^ay they will probably a«* 20. Humours of the Paris Exhibition. knowledge to me t1iat they regretted they did not follow it. Then, again, there were a whole lot of under- graduates from Trinity, who went over en masse, and did not even think it necessary to make any pre- tence of a coach and private read- ings. I was hardly surprised to Hnd my own old col lego friend, Jones, at the Exhibition, for wherever I go I meet Jones as a matter of conr>-Je. He is a special correspondent to some paper, and at the present moment is getting his traps together to be off to Abyssinia. But I confess I was very much and agreeably surprised to see my fiiend the Eev. Tiuophi- lus Gataker, who for the last tliirty- five years has been imranred in a rectory in Dorse tshire, during winch time he has liardly visitid London, turning upon the Boulevards, and placidly imbibing sherry cobMer at an American bar. But we live in an era of revolutions, and Mr. Gataker 's revolutionary movements struck me more forcibly as a sign of the times than Mr. Disraeli's Household Par- liament. As I was staying for a little while at Calais, it was a great amusement to check off the different people who were passing; to and fro. About this time the balance of summer weather had been seriously disturbed. Vio- lent winds had i-et in, and on the narrow seas it alternately blew a quarter, a half, and a whole gale. Travellers tell us of a certain half- way station, I think somewhere on the Andes, where a singular con- trast is pre.'^ented between the as- cending and descending travellers who meet at the same point. Those who are mounting are shivering with cold, and those who are de- scending are fainting with heat. Not otherwise was the scene at Calais. Jaunty, well-dressed, and smiling were the travellers who had just come back from Paris ; miser- able, disordeily, and in the deepest dejection were those who had just lauded from Dover. These looked cheerily at the sky and took weather observations on the quay, as if they could thus obtain the smallest indi- cation of the slate of matters in the mi;]dle of the Channel; those were thoroughly beaten, and, aslJing for bedrooms and brandy, declared their utter inability to proceed to Paris on the same day. Jones alone was unmoved. He told me that he had been twice round Cai'e Horn, tod had spent a considerable part of his life upon the Bay of Biscay. As for one of the lovely young brides who showed upon this occasion, I am afraid that even thus early in the gushing spring of life she had ar- rived at the conclusion, speaking metaphorically, that matrimony is not all beer and skittles. She had considerably picked up next morn- ing, and by extianrdiuary efforts at matronly demeanour, endeavoured to convince the brcakfiist-table world that she was celebrating her silver or twenty-tifth wedding-day, instead of being fresh from St. George's, Hanover Square. But even more than those who had suffered in their passage I pitied those who were about to make it — ' Unheeding of tlie sweeping whirlwind's sway, Which, husli'd in giira repose, awaits its evening prey.' I had been in the Avenue La- bourdcmuaye, looking at the Belgian collection of pictures, when T saw the Griggses apjiroach the office for issuing weekly tickets. The elderly Griggs hail been profoundly pen; - trated with the idea, while on the Stock Exchange one day, that the proper thing was to take the weekly, ticket, whereby an entire admission was secured, also a free pass to all the 2^t''<^!J^'^ speciuiix, and you might go in and out as often as you liked and at any entrance. This is all very true, and the Griggses were iu the right to take weekly tickets; only they ought to have remera- bertd,for I had given them the hint, that they must be provided with photographs, to which their weekly ticket is added. But somehow they had imbibed the imbecile idea that in the case of Britishers this rule was not very strictly insisted on, little knowing tlie Gallic passion for organization and the Median strict- ness of their regulations. They had all the consolations which shru'^'s and smiles couM impart, but the rules were inexorable; an I all the officials could do was to point out Humours of the Paris Exhibition. 21 to them a photographic ^tablish- ment where their cartes do visite might be taken with the least pos- sible (Jehiy. Si) Mr. and Mrs. Griggs, and Master Griggs, atid the two Miss Griggsos had to dangle about a photographic studio for the whole of the morning, and the old birds did not at all appreciate the fifty francs whiclt formed the initial ex- pense of the Exhibition. They would have saved time and money if they had had minds open to con- viction. Laura Griggs is a very nice girl, that is to say, as nice as any girl of the name of Griggs can be, and the sooner she changes it the bett<;r. I have my doubts, how- ever, whether she would consider the name of Tompkins any improve^- ment ; I am afraid that Griggs pere would consider it an impecunious name. Chatting with Laiara in the studio was very pleasant for a time, but I question if even Petrarch him- self could have stood very much of Laura, if a grilling sun was glower- ing through a glass roof, and the dust wa^ an inch deep on the bare floors and tlie mutilated chairs, and grinning idiots came and went on the same monotxmous errand con- nected with their inexpressive coun- tenances, and a very strong smell of chemicals was pervading the esta- blishment, and the British father was loudly execrating the stupidity of his wife in not bringing the pho- tographs and the stupidity of the French in wanting them, and there were seventeen flights of stairs to traverse between the atelier and the entrvaijj. It was edifying to meet Mr. Griggs some hours later, with a little library packed under his arm, containing an entire and unique collection of the catalogues, and ad- dres>ing himself to the sy.stematic study of the diflerent objects. I made the mental calculation that this enthusiasm for knowledge would continue till Griggs should arrive at the British reiVeshment .depart- ment, when Griggs '.vouM assuredly pubside into a state of liottled stout. There was one particular scientific object which received considerable attention from my fiiend. This con'iistcd of the plans and sections of a contemplated railway across the Channel. I wonder if the in- genious framer of those plans ever had any actual experience of a galo in a Channel. The notion of any bridge of boats ever spanning the waves under a sou' wester is one of the most marvellous and in- congruous that could ever have occurred to the imagination of an architect ofLaputa. When wo had cleared out of Dover we had found ourselves at once in the teeth of a gale, and a sea behind (the nndit' ticquaccs of Horace) swept clean over the deck, and Laura Griggs had been enveloped at once in a sheet of water, and might have imagined herself in bathing costume beneath the briny. I need hardly say that there was a manly form at hand on whose stalw;irtarm she could find support. After the bottled stout Mr. Griggs was not long in steering his way to one of those tieep leather- covered circular settees which are infinitely more com tbrtal)le than any of the chairs, for which two sous are demanded. Here the worthy man reclined, and s])read a yellow silk pocket-handkerchief over his head and deliberately composed himself to sleep. Quite a circle of admiring Frenchmen gathered round him, and I confidently expect to find him reproduced in the 'Charivari' slioitly. In the meanwhile 1 pio- neered the ladies to the Janlin re- serve, and envied the cool fishes that were swimming about so lei- surely in their aquarium. In that cool grot Laiara was accidentally separated from her party, but I had impressed upon them the precau- tion that in case of any such acci- dent they should resort to the pavi- lion of coinage in the central garden at the stroke of the hour. L'azed and amazi d to the la.st degree were the Grig^ses on their first day, and I quite pilied Laura, who would have revivified if the poor girl could have had a quarter of an hour's rest from the iuces.-^aut tumult and noi.so. One day I had mentioned tliis fact to Jones, how this restless Exhibi- tion tired one so soon, and that I should enjoy it doubly if only I could get a little repose and read my morning ' Galignani,' which has the same sedative effect for me as a 22 Humour^ of the Paris Exhibition, morning pipe. ' Come along with me/ said Jones, tapping me upon the shoulder. Then Jones led me into a large cool room, spacious and silent, wliere a large table was lite- rally covered with newspapers and periodicals, and little tables had writing materials and blotting-pa- pers ; and better than all was the enjoyment of ease and privacy, and the consciousness that out of that surging human sea I had planted my foot on dry land at last. ' Oh, Jones, this is kind !' I said, as I wrung his hand and a manly tear started to my eye. * What jolly club is this? Put me down as a visitor, or make me a member. Ex- pense is no object.' Then Jones grimly smiled, and pointed me to the printed bill, * Working Man's Hall.' 'Jones,' I said, 'I will be a working man. Ease before dignity. I will wear corduroys and a blouse before I lose this paradise of the Exhibition.' I may here mention, parenthetically, that very few cor- duroys and blouses ever came into this fairy hall, which was a secluded deserted island in the middle of the waste. 'Tompkins,' said Jones, ' if you were the British aristocrat, or a bloated capitalist, or a man of letters and genius, you might sigh in vain for admission into this pala- tial hall. Labour is king. The British workman is the ruling influ- ence of the state, and yon may judge of his supremacy by the fact that the only place at all approximating to a club in the Exhibition has been jippropriated to the British work- man, and the man of mere educa- tion and refinement has no retreat of the kind.' Jones is a fellow of infinite resource. He contrived, greatly to my delight, to present me with a ticket of membership, and I was quite prepared to coalesce with the British working man, who eo rarely turned up, however, that I had no opportunity of extending to him the grasp of brotherhood. Jones knows a lot of queer things. I can- not think how he manages to pick np his information, only I know that he, or rather the people who own him, will give any amount of money to get it. He has repeatedly told lue important items of Paris news the evening before they appeared in the Paris morning papers. ' There was a queer story going a little while ago,' said Jones, ' at the time the Emperor distributed the prizes at the Palais in the Champs Elysees. You were there, I suppose ?' said Jones. I was compelled to own that I was not. ' I was, though, and not so very far from the impe- rial dais. The story is,' he con- tinued, lowering his voice, 'that when some man belonging to the electric telegraph came to receive his prize from the hands of the Emperor, he slipped into his hands a paper, on which he had written, Maximilian is taken, and shot. It was the first intelligence that Jiad come to Europe, and amid all the splendours of the scene, the Emperor quailed visibly. Curious story, isn't it, Tompkins ?' said Jones. 'Do you believe it?' I in- quired. Jones was silent, and de- clined to answer. 'I didn't put it into the paper,' he added, ' but, for all that, so ran the story at the time, and I observed that it got into one of the foreign newspapers.' Those Griggses were certainly the most helple.-s people in the world, thoroughly unversed in Parisian ways, and with all my regard lor Lauras belongings, the thing be- came rather ' a grind.' It was quite a separate piece of education to teach them how to get to the Exhi- bition. I used to convey them safely to the railway station in the Eue d'Amsterdara, where they could not go far wrong, as the line set them down within the very building itself Then, for a change, I took them through the Louvre to the steamers, where, on the river, they always found a fresh breeze, and, boating between the quays, saw the finest view which Paris could offer. It was I who showed them that they need not necessarily b^ cheated by the coach-drivers, and exp'ained to them the mystery of the coirespondence of omnibuses. It was I who enabled them to navi- gate their own course in triumph to the Porte Rapp. It was I who was their escort to St. Gerujains, St. Cloud, and Fontainebleau, and, in- stead of allowing them to tread in Humours of the Paris Exhibition, 23 the beaten track of tourists, took them to choice bits of genuine forest scenery in these regions, which, by themselves, they could never have found out. But why should I enu- merate all the boons I showered upon this family, whose ingratitude — but I must not anticii^ate the tragic portion of my narrative. The Griggses had gone to an hotel in one of the streets between the Champs Elysees and the Faubourg St. Honore, the heart of the English quarter. They had got a floor to themselves, almost as complete as a Scotch flat, ami Mrs Griggs, having the recollection of Overend and Guruey before her, had resolved to make the matutinal cottee herself, and not have it sent up from the hotel. I met Griggs rushing about the Faubourg one morning, and he asked me, in a distracted state of mind, what was the French for coffee-pot. I helped him out of his difficulty, and saw him return to his inn with the humble but comforting article surreptitiously concealed be- neath his overcoat. The dining dif- ficulties that beset the Griggses were very great. They had gone into a cafe and demanded dinner, but Laura, whose lioarding-school French had been conlidently relied on, broke down altogether under the test, and Mr. and Mrs. Griggs, finding that they could make no- thing of the carti' that had been handt d to them, majestically sailed out into the streets, i gave them a good dinner and a pleasant even- ing on one occasion, but I could not always be doing that sort of thing. We dined together at the Cercle International — about ten trancs a head, including wine- after we had had a long afternoon at pic- tures, and then sat out in the open air, listening to the music of Strauss' baud; then we drove to the hotel for cohee, and afterwards went to the Theatre Lyrique, where, with incredible pains, I had managed to secure a box for the performance of Romeo et Juliette. That was really a great thing for Laura Griggs, for it enabled her to compare among her friends Patti's personation of Juliette with that of Madame Mio- lan-Carvalho, for whom Gounod composed the music. In fairness perhaps, it ought to be men- tioned that old Griggs performed the useful but subordinate part of paymaster. I myself lean to the opinion that the charges against the French for imposition are, upon the whole, rather exaggerated, and that they are no worse than the Lon- doners were in 1862. Yet I must allow that the Griggses were grossly victimized in the matter of their dinners at the hotel. There was certainly an announcement iu thin gold letters that there was a tuble- (i'hote a 6 hmres. I flatter myself that I know something of the tahles- d'hote of Paris, and I venture to say that for years there had been no regular tahle-d'hote at that hotel. The salle-a-manyer totally contra- dicted all the received notions about French cleanliness and glitter, being dark and bare and repellent. The Griggses were surprised that they were always dining alone, and that the dinners contradicted all their notions respecting the glories of French cookery. I dined with them one day in a friendly way — what old Gilbert called'' promiscuous-like ' — and took mental as well as bodily stock of the feed— a very thin soup^ no fish, bif-stack (sic), and 2^ommes- de-terre, haricot verts, (jigot de mou- ton, volaille (microscopic merry- thoughts), and lettuces drenched in oil. Voila tout ! The dessert was not bad, and old Gilbert gave us champagne ad libit ton. He com- plained to me bitterly of his French dinners. ' They are not so I'ad/ I replied, ' provided you take a sulfi- cient number of them in the course of the day.' I had no doubt but the landlord procured the dinners from a neighbouring restaurant, and charged " napoleons where he had paid francs. Griggs showed me his bill for the week, which, when stated in francs, sounded enormous. 1 explained to him that for much less he might dine very wejl at the , Palais Royal or on the Boulevards, and for not much more he might dine sumptuously at Dotesio's or Philippe's. The old gentleman ex- plained that they were most days at the Exhibition, and always had a solid lunch at Spiers and Pond's, or 24 Humours of the Paris Exhibition. Bertram and Eo1)erts's. I invited them to coiiiO and dine with me on the Bouleviinls, and I was tliis time the real host. It was au immense room, and the hidies looked almost frightened. There was certainly the drawback of some qtiestionable people parent, and I was afraid that I had got myself into a scrape, but my worthy friends were none the wiser. They enjoyed taking their colTee on tho Bonlovurds, although rather nervous that their presence there nn'ght not be quite comme il fuitt, but safe under their double guardianship. James, of Trinity, was perhaps tho most interesting member of the group of Cantabs. Just before he came abroad he had re- ceived a legacy of two thousand pounds, and 1 think the receipt of this legacy had something to do with his coming abroail, for, as they say of chiUlren, the money was burning a hole in his pocket. He said that the interest would not be of the slightest use to him, and that therefore it would be advisable to expend the principal. After all, he was not so very extravagant, and the men around him were not men who would allow him to be extrava- gant on their accoiuit. But we saw no objection to his giving us a little dinner, to eelebratu the vktues of the deceased relative who had left him this unexpected windfall.' It was certainly the best dinner which I had during my last trip to Paris. It was at the Trois Freres. 1 will just mention some details, as it will bo interesting to some persons to know how people can dine in Paris. The arrangement fur the dinner was thirty francs a head, exclusive of wines. Of wines there was every conceivable kin I, and of the best; no bottle co.-t less than a napoleon, and no glass of li<;iicHr less than three francs. The dishts were sent up in endless multiplicity, and, of course, an immense number of them' were necessarily sent away un- tasted. The waiters had a sove- reign between them. The expense of the dinner to its. hospitable donor was a little over live pounds a head. The next day I had been endea- vouring to improvo my mind in the useful and industrial part of the Ex- hibition. I had wandered over the trackless wastes devoted to dry ma- nufactured goods, a display in which tho French certainly beat us from the simple circumstance that the English manufacturers with remark- able unanimity abstained from ex- liihiting. Still tired by the same noble thirst for knowledge, I exa- mined many models of engines, but when I attera^jted to take some sketches I was sjieedily brought to an anchor by the prohibitions of the police. Tlien I listencii to the mul- titudinous clanging of tho clocks proclaiming the hour, and thinking of Charles the Fifth and his diffi- culty at Yuste in making his clocks keep time, a secret which the French clockmakers have not altogether suc- ceeded in solving. Suddenly 1 heard a great cheering and slu)uting, and from corridors and picture galleries the people came rushing forth in that excitement which so rapidly flares up in a large concourse, and outside there was cheering, laughing, and gesticulations. Coidd it be the Emperor ? I thought. Could Queen Victoria suddenly have changed her mind and come over '? A moment's reflection told me that emperors and queens could hanlly have caused all that excitement. At one time they were to be seen almo.^t any day at the Exhibition, noiselessly pursuing their work of examhiation in an orderly, business-like way, glad to escape any attention; and if a mob of gazers gathered around, a cordon was quickly fjprnied, the approaches inteicepted, and the royal view confined to those who first caught sight of it. Dashing forth to inquire what it was that had disturbed the French people from their conven- tional propriety, my wandering gaze encountered the following spectacle On a moveable fauteuil sat James of Trinity, triumphantly waving his hat and insisting en favouring the mob with a specimen of British eloquence. A proce.-sion of nine other fauieuils followed in order, consisting of James' set, and va- rious other young men whom they had met accidentally at one of the Humours of the Paris Exhibition. 25 restaurants, and with wliorn they had gloriously iimalgamiited. Then after lunch the idea of the proces-^ion occurred to them. I was ast.onislied to recognise the intellectual features of Jones lunong the Cory l)autic in- liahitants of the fauteiiils. Tliey ex- plained afterwards tliat there had been no regular processJDn since tlie opening of the l)nil(liiig, and something of the kind was sadly wanted. Tiie astonishment of the onlookers was great when they saw the chairs UMiuIly appropriated to invalids or weaklings tilled with a set of stalwart jouiig men, itnder the influence of a luncii rather too much on the scale of the dinner of the preceding day. 1 lost sight of the procession as it ra[)idiy pruc( eded to round the circle. The magic word 'Anglai.ses' whisjiercd and rapidly caught up among the crowd seemed fully to account for any eccentricity or lunac.v which the jouug men had displayed. A friend of Mr. James, whom we will call iiolle, had chosen to fall in lovo with one of the young women who belonged to one of the restau- rants. It was not the young maid at the Tunisian cafe, who monoto- nously sings all day long ' Oh wo shall all be glad when Johnny comes marching home,' which her cosmo- politan audience is convinced is one of the vernacular melodies of North Africa. Neither was it a French vi- vandiere with her heroic associa- tions, nor yet one of those Tyrolese or Bavarian peasants who in the picturesque costume of their coun- try hand you the wholesome goblet of foaming beer. It was, 1 believe, some English maiden, and Eolle fell a victim to a fine head of hair. At the Exhibition, English beauty, at least at the restaurants, chiefly runs into hair. ' Hair is a difficult and curious fcubjt.'ct, Mr. Rolie,' said Jones, giving me a sly nod, as we three sat one night at M. Draher's, making an impartial and scientific comparison between the beer of Vienna and our country'^ ' bitter.' ' Are you aware, Mr. llolle, that the subject of the human hair has greatly occupied the attention of tlie commissiouers, and as the chignon Las convincingly shown how com- paratively scanty is the natural sup- ply, the promotion of the natural growth has become a serious object of public interest, it would hardly do to make such a matter the sub- ject of public coin])etiti()n, but I be- lieve I am correct in stating that an intimation was given to respective restaurateurs that quantity of hair was reipiisite for those who should assist behind the counters, and sub- stantial prizes would be privately coufrrred. 1 believe, Mr. Kolle, that the yuung lady who sjjeiids so much of her time in conipouuding iced drinks for you has obtained either a silver medal or honourable mention.' 1 do iii)t know whether Rolle alto- gether appreciated Jones's irony, for he was ' true Yorkshire bred — strong in the back and weak in the head.' It is of Rolle's strength of back and weakness of head that I am about to speak. We need not go further into the history of his admii'alion for that head of hair. The owner thereof used regularly to administer sherry cobbler and brandy-smash to Mr. Ilolle by the hour; but if he became at all amatory in his attentions ho wa.s i)roraptly consigned to the attendance of a grihuing waiter. As a matter of fcicr, after liolle had iirobal)ly in- jured liis constitution t)y the num- ber and variety of his iced and aerated drinks (not to speak of the corre- sponding detriment to his sub- stance) he withdrew in disgust as other men had done both l)efore and after him. At the present time, however, it was the custom of Mr. Eolle to sjiend the concluding hours of the evening at this restaurant, when he found the coast tolerably clear and he might more leisurely pursue his little game. For lii.vself, I found that the evening hours at the Exhibition were intolerably dull. A spasmodic eflbrt had been made to represent them as peculiarly bril- liant, and to persuade the put)lic that the hours bet'^een the closing of the building and the clo.^ing of the park were of the most cheerful and festive kind. But the show was closed and the lights none, and the crowds thin and thinner except in the immediate neigh l)()urhood of the restaurants, and the attempts to 26 Humours of the Paris Exhibition. impart to the Exhibition nights an Arabian character utterly collapsed. As having a siieciai ol^ject at this time, Mr. Rolle never failed to pre- sent himself towards the conclusion of each days proceedings. One evening, however, he was later than the half-hour beyond which there was no admission. He endeavoured to argue the case with the officials in husky Engli.sh and still more in- different French. The French logic, that of kec])ing the rules, is always of a remorseless character. Then Rolle retired within himself, steps a few steps back, collects all the strength in his back, and at a boi;nd cleared the barrier. Imoiediately the gens d'armes seized him — and he ought to have had the sense to know that any resistance would have been ut- terly futile and foolish. Then Rolle struck out right and left, and mate- rially marred the Gallic visage be- fore lie was overpowered by sui)eri- ority of weight. At the moment when Joue^ and I caught sight of him two of the French police had their fists in his neck-tie and Rolle was showing every sign of approxi- mate suffocation. At our urgent entreaty the detaining grasp was withdrawn, and then Rolle struck wildly out and perpetiateda series of assaults for whieh a Bow Street magistrate would have pent him to prison without the alternative of a tine. He was immediately led off to some cells, and Jones, who under- stands all sorts of things, told me that Rolle could not possibly get off under a fortnight's imprisonment. We followed the police to see what we could do ; and I will do Jones the justice of saying that he came out nobly, and spoke most elo- quently in excuse of Rolle. I per- ceived with astonishment tli*t the police evidently knew Jones, and very favourably, but Jones knows eve i-y body. To my great joy Rolle was discharged ; but as soon as the infatuated idiot was told of this he used violent language to all the Frenchmen present and wanted to fight them all round. The result of this was that he was remanded to a coi)l cell for a couple of hours, and then unconditionally released ; the French authorities acting through- out with extraordinary leniency and good temper, and excusing a great deal on the ground of insular lu- nacy. I am glad to think that I was able to be of some service to Mr. Gataker. That worthy divine was thoroughly unsettled in mind and body by his separation from all those English liat)its amid which he had attained an old age. But I showed him that an England existed even in Paris, and that by a slight ettort of fancy he might not bo much worse off than in London. I took him to Galignani's reading-room in the Rue de Rivoli, where he was almost as comfortable as at his club, and to English eating-houses, where he would hear much more English than French, and have English chops and English steaks and not the French ccmnterfeits ; and having a taste for English theatricals (for he belonged to the old school who had no objection to a play onee in a way) I took him to the Italiens, whore Mr. Sothern was ijerformiog Lord Dundreary to the delight of the English and the puzzledom of the P'rench. At tliis time Lord Dun- dreary's intelligent countenance was (tfficlic' all over Paris to an extent to which the human countenance had never been a/lic/ir before. The act- ing, as usual, was of consummate excellence, but the audiences were deplorably thin; most of the resi- dent English and American fami- lies had left Paris fir the summer. Mr. Gataker wandered about reck- lessly through the never-ending galleries, but he was in a new world, and he told me that in his seventieth year he did not now care to talk its dialect and pick up its knowledge. He would slip away from the Exhi- bition in the afternoon, and his tall, venerable, slightly bent tignre might be discerned in the direction of the Anglo-American Epi^cojjal Church for the afternoon service. Yet there was much instruction and wisdom to be derived from the simple re- marks of my old friend, altteit he acknowledged he was as much at a loss cm the plain of Mars as he should have been on the plain of IShinar. One alternoou he went with me through the department oi Humours of the Paris Exhibition, 27 arms and ammunition. The good old man looked rather sad. Even to his lUKM'itical eye the matchless art and ]ieifection of our armoury was visible ; and certainly no other country lias sent oat a warhke dis- play equal to that issued from Woolwich. ' It is very silly of us,' said the old-fixshioned rector, 'to allow the secrets of our strength to be thus exposed. It is just like Hezckiah showing his treasures to the Assyrians, and we may yet have bitterly to rue our folly. I had a brother once, sii", an elder brother, who was killed in the reti'eat from Afifghanistan, poor fellow ! and when I was a lad he took me over Wool- wich Arsenal, and though I knew nothing about these matters, I am able just to discern that there have been wonderful improvements. Otherwise it is all Greek to me ; or rather,' added the old man, as the recollection of ancient academic tri- umphs gltttered in his eye, 'I could manage Greek, but I could not ma- nage the subject of artillery. I only wish that the art of peace had made the same progress as the art of war.' I repeated the lines — ' Ah ! when shall all men's good Be each man's aim, and universal peace Lie like a line of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Through all the compass of the goldtn year?' He nodded approvingly. ' Mr. Ten- nyson, my dear sir, did you say ? It is very pretty indeed. A .very rising young man, I believe ; only I wish he would turn his abilities to something else than poetry. When we have got all the great old poets, Dryden, and Pope, and Mil- ton, and Gray, and Goldsmith, I do not see what need we have got of any more poetry, at all events until people know the old ones thoroughly lirst, which is certainly not the case in my part of the world. But we are only slow swifts, as the saying is, down in Berkshire.' When I pointed out to him the ambulances and medicine-chests for the wounded, and reminded him that at all events we had improved in the matter of hospital nursing, he cheerfully ac- knowledged all this. He was greatly pleased with some of the models of sieges, which were picturesque enough, and gave a fresh interest to historical narrative. ' Now this,' he said, ijointing to a large glass case, ' is not at all unlike the siege of Plataja, which you will find,' he continued to his trembling listener, ' so wonderfully told in the second book of Thucydides. The difference is that the escalade is of a different kind. The snow is on the ground. The weather is evidently most bit- ter ; the ladders are noiselessly ap- plied ; the men are steahng in single line across country.' Mr. Gataker was a scholar : he particularly prided himself on his ancestor's edition of the works of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. I knew what would please the old man. One day I took him to the Rue de Riche- lieu, and passing through an arch- way into the wide, silent court, where a fountain babbles beneath spreading foliage, I took him into the reading-room of the Biblio- theque Imperiale, when he was de- lighted with the studious aspect of the place and its wealth of books, especially delighted when I took him into the manuscript room and placed Pascal's own papers in his hands. To other great libraries 1 also introduced him, almost un- known by the English in Paris, that of St. Genevieve and the library of the Academy. To those retreats he often stole away when tired of the noise and confusion of the Exhibition. I very much enjoyed one afternoon when I took him to Billanconrt, perhaps not the less so because Laura had given us an inti- mation that it was not impossible that she might be there. 1 expect Mr. Gataker will greatly rise in the estimation of his chnrchwardens when he gives in his report of the agricultural implements. He spoke disparagingly of thein, however, and said he had seen something as good or better in Berkshire. The sure- footed Pyrenean horses interested him, as also did the Ar,i' s, though these last were nearly all of mixed breed, chiefly, I imagined, from mental associations connected with their habitats. He very much ap- proved of the Norman method of growing fruit-trees, and was hugely pleased when I took him into Levy's 28 Humours of the Paris Exhibition, and showed him Breteuil's great work on the subject. I showed him, in the depar'iuent of books, our unique contributions, consisting of everytliing publislied in the .year 1866, and I gloried in reflecting that some of my own contributions to the field of literature were included in that omnium gatheram. Mr. Gataker, who had not thought so very much even of IMr. Tennyson, made some remarks not very flat- tering to the residue of modern literature, and he unaccountably failed to discriminate my own modest efforts from the herd. He took also a great deal of interest in the cottages. ' It is all very well to call the;u cottages,' he said, ' but they were only cottage onu'is. Coun- try curates might live in them, but what I want is something that would suit my Berkshire labourers on four- teen shillings a week.' I am the more particular in speaking of Mr. Gataker, because he was the very soul of kindness, and the other day, meeting me in a state of deep dejec- tion, he made me come down to his Berkshire rectory, and by his good talk and his good port, such as still lingers in some rectorial abodes, he charmed away a considerable por- tion of a personal wrong and grief. That wrong and grief related to Laura Griggs. Words can hardly describe my assiduous attentions to the Griggses in general and to Laura in particular. On the fifteenth of August I conveyed them all over Paris. Who but I could have taken them so quickly from the Trocadero to the Barriere du Trone, have showed them the greased poles, the giants and dwarfs, the theatricals, the serpentine lines of ouvriers waiting for the opening of the opera, and the illuminations at the Arche? How cleverly I got up the whole subject of silk worms, to the admi- ration of Mrs. Griggs, and took them to the Jardin d' Acclimatization, which was in this respect more in- teresting than the Exhibition. I made them drive in the long even- ings by the side of the lake in the Bois, and took them over to the island and refreshed them at the Swiss cafe near the cascade ; I in- augurated them into the pleasing mysteries of our American cousins' sherry cobbler, champagne frapp6, and brandy cocktail; I kept them fully up to the mark in the current history of the Exiiibition; I saved them from the inconveniences of the raid upon the chairs ; I explained to them the competition and duel of the safes, and af-sured them that if my genial favourite, Mr. Caseley, had been allowed to compete (his trial at the Old Bailey I had wit- nessed, and his tearful eloquence had profoundly convinced me of his innocence) he must have distanced all the others; I worked through the galleries with them, pointing out to them the famous pictures of bygone years in Trafalgar Square, and tracing, in what I considered a masterly way, the influence of the modern French school on the whole of continental art. Our intimacy prompted me to the hope that I might one day lead Laura as a bride to my ancestral halls, the ancestral halls in this case signifying a small stuccoed dwelling in Pimlico. I was afraid Laura was worldly. One day when we were talking of the threatened failure of silks, and I had expressed a hope that the Cape silk would be better thau the Cape sherry, she said she hojjed so, as her dresses had cost her eiglity pounds already this year, being the present amount ot my modest earnings at the bar. Still, I reflected, the ample resources of old Griggs (despite Overend and Gurney) might rea- sonably cover such an expenditure. I, however, was certainly not pre- pared the other day, having ad- dressed a letter to Clapham Park of a certain kind to Laura, to receive an answer in the vulgar handwriting ot Griggs I'e/r. That gentleman was pleased to say that, from the ob- trusive nature of my attentions in Paris he was not unprepared for such a communication, but that I had totally mistaken the nature of his daughter's feelings. I have no- thing to add to this bare announce- ment. The mairiage mart is set up not only in Belgravia but in the Eden-like groves of Clapham Park. If it was not for Gataker's port I should turn desperate and keep a pike. Drawn by Florence antJ-'Adelaide Claxtun.] ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. [Set- the Sketch. St. Valentine's Day, 29 ST. VALENTINE'S DAY. I HAVE long devoted myself to that kind of observation which . ' with extensive view, Surveys mai.kind from China to Peru.' Of course it has fallen to me, in the operation, to remark many an anxious toil and eager strife, as Dr. Johnson lias done before me— many a passion of hope and fear^of desire and h:)te, of ambition and of love. The conclusion of the whole matter —so far, that is, as I am concerLed, for I do not wish to commit the okl bear to any proposition half so amiable — lias been that love is, after all, the master passion, vanquishing honour, laughing at death, and, about jthis time of year especially, writin; innumerable letters. The catholit+ty of love and of love- making is the only absolute one ; and I back it for the only true and genuine eirenicon. The memory of St. Valentine is touchingly and ap- propriately honoured even by those who have no id( a of the red-letter days of a Christian calendar. Flut- tering Cupids daintily hold in their softest fetters the gallant mandarin who sees the gentle Venus, lioriiiniim Divumque volnptas, reiiected in the adorable and elliptical eyts of his celestial charmer. Dragged along by the silken cords, we behold in our mind's eye the representatives of all populations, from the Pata- gonian to the Esquimaux, from the Blaori to the Fox Islander, from the Uottentot to the extra-civilized races of Europe. How the impish progeny of the Queen of Love ring cmt their joyous glee and let fall their tinkling laugh- ter at the heterogeneoiis but unani- mous procession which marshals itself on the artist's brain and peo- ples his quaint and fertile invention! First with a becoming and national, but only outward, insouciunce, marches Young England, male and female; after whom, separated only by the elegant natives of the Flowery Land, who have been introduced already, proceed, with more outward demonstrations of afiection, the re- presentatives of a rather more elderly England. The drill-sergeant has fallen back upon the once despised glories of the goose-step, and seems to rejoice in parading the aifection of his well-preserved elect. Fol- lows an Arcadian, sentimentally haranguing his lady-love in the chastely -ornamental style of Claude Melnotte, and eloquently decanting about that chateau of his that, on the shore of some lake in lovely Spain, towers up into the eternal summer. Merrily, and taking pleasure plea- santly, trips to dance-music the gay army subaltern of la grand': nation. Then a nondescript pair, whose pas- sion is. that of romance and disguise, who exchange the ever -fresh and kindling vow in the woru-out lan- guage of the formal past, and tread meanwhile a stately measuie. Fol- low a crest-fallen couple who have dared the impious expeiiment of electing friendship to the place of love, one of whom, the spectator rejoices to observe, is justly being tweaked as to the nose for his au- dacity. The pet god is not more amiable when indulged than venge- ful when his patience has been too much or too impudently tried. Next after these rebuked and punished wretches, a lady of Eliza- bethan time and dignity receives with a gratified hauteur and with a guarded mouth the addresses of the gallant who pays a half-Mepiiisto- phelean homage in the shape of a kiss on the coyly-surrendered hand ; whilst the knight, whose motto is ' God and the Ladies,' sighs to think of the vows that come between him- self and a more particular selection. The squire is happier with his pil- lioned demoiselle; and Hodge and the grenadier perform to the best of their willing ability the almost dou- ble duty which three capricious and capering beauties demand at their hands and hearts. The Elizabethan gentleman in the wake of these is about, we fancy, to contract a me.-i- alliance ; and the tar walks stoutly off with a lady who must have fur- tively wandered from the neigh- bourhood of a Court, and who doubt- less enjoys the despair of the barrister 10 St. Vahntines Day. who in pleading his own caiise has become the most unhappy and hope- less of suitors. All thepe, however, are the mere phantoms of the artist's brain ; but what shall we say of the fortunate pair whose forms in all but flesh and blood occupy the centre of his ornamental lozenc:e? What shall we say ? It is a difficult question for any writer or reader to answer who is conscious of the necessity of re- maining true to an allegiance that has been pledged elsewhere. Turn over the page quickly, fair lady or gallant gentleman, unless, indeed, you have the good fortune to be the identical ones represented in all the intensity of pictorial bliss ; in which case, as nobly and ungrudgingly as we may, W(i will wish each of you joy, and pray that every succeeding day may be a renewal of love and a commemoration of this day of St. Valentine. "What memories does not the name (^f the dear old saint call up — what memories, not all und ashed with re- gret ! For, alas ! it is so very easy for the best things to degenerate into the worst ! As I walk through the streets in these latter days of January I see in the windows of every print-shop flaring and absurd parodies of the tenderest of passions, monstrosities of z^humanity in- tended to burlesque the most sacred and the most universal of mortal or immortal affections— coarse and flaunting vulgarities of form and colour, matched by doggrel verses offensive and ribald beyond the furthest stretch of license. Only here and there amongst the hideous caricatures there is erected some chaste, retiring, and half exposed altar of Hymen, from which the fames of iccense are with difficulty seen to ascend to the delight of a group of fluttering Cupids, and to the edification of a pair of lovers in the act of blessing each other by the interchange of mutual vows of eternal union and constancy. My earlier memories of the feast of St. Valentine are of a ditferent order. In a primitive and secluded district, where life seemed to win a solemnity even from its monotony, the claims of the most popular of the sairits were not so set at nought. The stately drama was the business of the celebration ; tlie farce, if there was one, was an afterpiece which followed, as the Christmas hilarity followed the morning sermon. I iish up from the imperishable stores of memory the recollection of the mystery that hovered over the ac- tious, the sayings, the inuendoes of my compeers for many days before St. Valentine gave his sauction to those hearty declarations which it were a forlorn hope to suppose could be quite anonymous. The kind of valentine I best remember in those days was one cut out of paper into many curious patterns, and folded afterwards into as many shapes as the ingenuity of waiters has since devised for metropolitan dinner- nai)kins. Triangular, oblong, square, diamond, circular, polygonal, worked out by the cunning sliears to the similitude of most elaborate lace-work, and made vocal by some quaint and ardent rhyme — such were the bait with which we angled for the favour of our chosen fair, and with which, O rapture! we occa- sionally succeeded in cajjtivating them for a couple of days. The arbiter- eleciantiartim in these mat- ters, without whom nothing could be done, or at least done well, was a cheerful lady who, having slighted the opportunity of taking that ebb in her affairs which led on to matri- mony, devoted much ot her genial old maiden liood to the delectation of the youth of both sexes. Her services, her taste, her nimble wit and pliant shears, were called into requisition whenever an assault more determined than usual was to be made on some too-obdurate charmer's heart. I know not where now abides the spirit of that vestal priestt ss of Venus ; whether it haply fldats ♦about me as J write these lines, or whether, still incarnate, it initiates tiie yoi;th of the antipodes — whither, obedient to some noble impulse, she went to end her days — into the same mysteries that, twenty years ago, were so piquant and en- gaging to the youngsters of my native village. Peace be to her, wherever she may be; yea, peaeis must be with, her as a condition of St. Valentines Bay. 31 her benevolent and placid exist- ence. Wfcien the valentine was finished . came the task of selectinc; a * posie/ a legend, a rhyme of true love, which had to be written round and round inwards until it centred finally in a bleeding heart transfixed by the dart of Love. Let the hhisc reader try to imagine the ineffaV)le tender- ness that welled out in such pathetic words as • The rose is red, the violet, blue, * Carniitions sweet, and so are you ; And so are they that sent you this; And when we meet we'll have a kiss— A kiss on the cheek and a kiss on l\ie chin. And when we meet we'll kiss again.' To this astounding length did our proposals go. Wliether they were ever carried out, the present depo- nent is in no position to say. An- other of these poems began with the lines •As I lay sleeping on my bed, I saw a rose and it was red ;' the first of which the philosophical inquirer into valentine literature will be interested in comparing with the ' Quant je suy couchie en mon 1ft,' which commences one of 11 '■ numer- ous valentines of Charles Duke of Orleans, a personage with whom we arc iuclined to wish our space en- abltd us to make the reader a trifle better acquainted. In those days, and in that locality, —which, we may inform the reader, in confidence, was in the neighbour- hood of the thriving emporium and fashionable watering-place of Daws- mere — we urchins, wise in our generation according to our lights, passed by the temptations of the penny- post and delivered our love- missives in person. After this manner. When tlie shades of even- ing had fully closed in upon the face of nature, and a row of blinded and curtained lights streamed out fitfully upon the straggling street, the adventurous youtli aro.se and sallied forth. His elegant declara- tion—possibly he would be Don Juan enough to fortify himself with more than one — being duly directed in the best disguise his hand- wi'iting could assume, was laid tendei-ly, silently, and with trepi- dation of heart against some door behind which his inamorata was very likely lurking expectant. One good heavy knock and a scam- per of feet in fearful flight; the opening of the door, sometimes all too prompt; the groping for the valentine on the part of the lovec and her jealous sisters- these were the circumstances that macjip illus- trious the delivery of each. So far the youngster had proceeded in good faith ; but now, after having cooled a little from the fever of doubt as to whether he had been discovered, and as to how his devotion had been re- ceived by the idol of his soul, he was at liberty to make fun of the fair to whose charms he was indif- ferent. His next exploit would be a practical joke. A piece of paper folded up in some form proper to the occasion, and promising as much as if it were veritably sick of love, would be perforated for a piece of string. The sham valentine is laid, as before, on the doorstep; the knocker is thumped as emphatically as before; the retirement as speedy as before, but not to so remote a distance. The operator has only retreated to the further extremity of the string, of which the other end secures the traitorously -folded sheet, when, as before, the door optns. Anxious fingers grope until, in the semi-darkness, they pounce at length upon — the bare, cold ground or the vacant stone. The valentine itself has moved about six inches. ' 'Twas but the wind.' The eluded fingers try and try again, whilst again and again the wind delights to frustrate their intention of taking possession. Then comes the climax of the joke. Whenever a f/rab has been made at the valentine lying on the ground, a judicious pull from the observing youth lias attracted it in his own direction; until the mortified maiden, either at length fairly baffled or fully enlightened, gives up in despair oi- bridles up in wrath, and closes the; door with a bang to a chorus of un- mannerly laughter from the asso- ciates of her tormentor. A variety of this joke was to draw the ' coun- terfeit presentment' of a valentine 32 St. Valentine'a Day, m crayon; in other words, to chalk a parallelopraiu on tho groimd be- fore tlie door. But tliis was a com- paratively tame affair, as 1 here could of course be only one disappoint- ment and one triumph l)flnie the mean trick was exploded. I think I have heard of pins being intro- • iuccd into the valentines to which strings were attached ; but this was getting far beyond the pale of fun into tha| of mischief, if not of wan- tonness and malice. For myself I will not, because I cannot, confess to a malpiai'tico of this kind; but of all the others I thank a certain Venus of eleven years old -at that time, of course ; she is now a Juno and a matron— I have had my share. To-dny, alas! concerning valentines I must profess (idnm csl, so far, that is, as the sending of them is con- cerned. But no man can bar his door against the dulcet appeal of a double knock ; and if the valentines 1 have had the happiness to receive for the last tlnvc years from, I be- lieve, the isamo failliful and devoted angel, wer<. sent by any one who reads this tattle of miiie, there is still time for her to know that I am looking forward to my annual com- pliment, and that I am open to a declaration which shall not be anony- mous. After this candid advertise- ment of the state of my aftections I shall know, if the post'otRco is neg- ligent towards me on the morning of the impending festival, that my fair one is faithless and that I am forlorn. May I be spared the tears and dejection of so chilly a convic- tion ; yet let me rather be neglected than scorned. I M'ould not 'choose to appear, even to myself, depicted with the ears of Midas, or with the sometime head-dress of ' sweet bully Bottom,' the weaver. So much, kind nader, have I been permitted to say of myself; btit I have a few stray jottings to lay before you with refer- ence to our dear old St. Valentine and his world -respected day. The peripatetic delivery of valen- tines by the principals, to which 1 have alluded, jiresents features analogous to the liroceed in gs which, according to the author of '"Rambles in an Old City,' characterize the eve of St ^■alentine at Norwich. ' The streets,' says bladder, ' swarm with carriers, and baskets laden with treasures ; bang, bang, bang go tlu^ knockers, and away rushes the banger, depositing first upon the doorstep some packages from the basket of stores ; again and again at mtervals, at every door to which a mi.ssive is addres.sed, is the same re- peated, till the bask-tsts are empty Anonymously St. Valentine presents his gifts, labell(>d only "With St. Valentine's love," and " fiood-mor- row, Valentine." Then within the houses of destination, the screams, the shouts, the rushings to catch the bang-bangs; the flushed faces sparkiing eyes, rushing feet to pick up the fairy gifts; in.scriptions to be mterpretcd. mysteries to be un- ravelled, hoaxes to bo foimd f)ut; great hainper.s, heavy, and ticketed " Wii h care, this side upwards," to be un]>acked, out of which jump little live boys, wilh St. Valentines love to the little ladies fair; tlici sham bang-bangs, which bring no- thing but noi.se and fun, the mock parcels that vanish from the door- step by invisible strings when the door oj)ens; monster parcels, that dwindle to thread-papers denuded of their multiplied envelopes, with fitting mottoes, all tending to the final consummation of good counsel, " Happy is lie who expects nothing,' and ho will not be disappointed." It IS a glorious niglit ; marvel not that we would perjietuate so joyous a festivity.' In Devonshire the peasants be- lieve that if they go to the porch of a church, and wait there till half- pnst twelve o'clock on the eve of St. Valentine's day, with a quantity of hempseed in their hands, and at the time above mentioned, scatter the seed on either side, repeating these lines— * Hcnipsonl I sow, hcnipsci d I mow, She (or he) ihat will Diy uiie love be, Come rake tlie liempsccil alter me,' his or her true love will appear behind, in the act of raking up the seed just sown, in a windmg-sheet. In some parts of Norfolk this .super- stition appears modified in time and purpose. It is there a part of the practices on the eve of St. Mark (April 25) to sow the hempseed in St. Valentine's Day, the expectation that it will be mown by the sheeted ghosts of those who are to die that year, marching in grisly array to the parish church. And the rake of the Devonshire spectre is replaocid by tlie scythe of the ghostly Norfolkman. A more pleasant and a nioi-e strictly valen- tine use is made of a variety of the same ceremonial at Ashborne, in Devonshire. There, if a young woman wishes to divine who her future husband is to be, she enters the church at midnight, and, just as the clock strikes twelve, begins to rim round the building, repeating, without break or intermission, the following formula : — 'I sow hempsoed, hpinpseed I sow. He that loves me b3st, Come after me and mow.' And when the young lady has thus performed the circuit of the build- ing a dozen times without stopping, the figure of her lover is supposed to answer to the gentle invocation, and follow her. These are Old World supersti- tions, and we are not to look for them in the New. But in America St. Valentine is popular, and would seem to be tiu-nel to a direct prac- tical advantage in the way of in- itiating tlie process of courtship and of facilitating the process of matri- mony. Of course, in a great coun- try that licks creation, and is just now reposing and ' recuperating ' after licking itself; where marriages are cooked up in a short railway trip, and performed by some zealous and opportune clergyman in tran- situ ; where railway companies at- tacli ' bridal chambers ' to excursion trains as a part of their regular fur- niture ; and where enterprising couples plight their troth and endow each other with all their worldly goods in a balloon — in such a coun- try it is no great marvel if there should be some truth in the hy- meneal puff of an advertisement like the following, culled from a 'Worstcr Demociat' issued in early February a few years ago: — ' The great increase in marriages throughout NVaync Co. during the past year is said to be occasioned by the superior excellence of the Valentines sold by George Howard. Indeed, so complete was his success in this line, that Cupid lias again commis- sioned him as the " Croat High Priest" of Love, Courtship, and Marriage, and has sujiplied George with the most coinpluto mid perfect assortment, of" Love's Armor" ever before offered to the citizens of Wayne County. During the past year the "Blind God" ha^ centred his thoughts on producing some- thing in the line far surpassing any- thing he has heretofore issued. And it is with " feelinks" of the greatest joy that he is able to announce that he has succeeded. ' Howard has got them ! ' To tho*e susce])tible persona who.«e hearts were captured during the past year, (Jeorge refers, and advises others to call on them, and find them on their way rejoicing, shouting praises to the name of Howard. The "blessings" descend unto even the third and fourth generations, and it is probable that the business will go on increasing year upon year, until Howard's valentines will be a " household word " throughout the land. The children on the hou.se-tops will call to the passers-by, shouting " Howard's Valentines !" while the cry is echoed from the ground, and swelling over hill and vale, reverberates the country through. ' Remember that the only regu- larly-authorized dispenser of Cupid's goods is George Howard, two doors East of the American Hou.se, Worster, 0. ' «^ Ordei's by mail promptly at- tended to. Prices range from six cents to five dollars. ' Valentines ! ! ' A large and splendid assortment of valentines, togetlier with all the necessary fixings, for sale wholesale and retail, at the New Columa Building. ' J. H. BAUMGAUTEIi & CO. * Worster, Feb. 3, 1853. 84 St. ValtnlineM Day. ' Valentines. — Beliold, St. Valen- tine's Day is coming, and all are seekiDg for messages to bo de- spatched under cover of this Saint to friend or foe. They are provided of all kinds, styles, and varieties, ready for use. The turtle-dove kind, with its coo ! coo ! the sensible sentimental, the cutting and severe, and, in short, everything that can be required. Jnst call on (Jeorge Howard or J. H. Baumgarten & Co., and you can be suited to a T.' Does the curious though hazily- informed reader wish at tliis st.age of our progress to suggest a ques- tion as to who St. Valentine was ? That is a question to which, thanks to the ' Acta Sanctorum ' and Alban Butler's ' Lives of the Saints,' an answer is tolerably easy and precise. ' Valentine Avas a holy priest in Rome, Avho, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the Emperor to the PreTect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith in- effectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterward to be beheaded, which was executed on the 14th February, about the year 270. Pope Julius I. is said to have imilt a church near Ponte Mole to his meniory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del Popolo, for- merly Porta Valentini. The gre;; ' est part of his relics are now in tlie church of St. Praxedcs. His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martyr in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman Missal of Tho- masius, in the Calendar of F. Fronto, and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado, Notkcr, and all other martyrologies on this day. To abolish the heathen's lewd, super- stitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess, Februata Juno, outhe 15th of this montli, several zealous pas- tors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day.' To this we would only enter the single caveat that the true relics of St. Valentine are, in a beatified state, at this present moment flaunting in nnnumbered stationers' windows. and waiting to be scattered abroad to the tour winds of heaven on the wings of every post. St. Francis do Sales, a bishop and prince of Ge- neva, who died in 1622, -and was canonized in 1665, to whom we are inclineil, for tlie sake of his devout treatise on ' Piactical Piety,' to for- give everything but this, was one of the ' zealous pastors ' who, to use the words of Alban Butler, ' severely forbade the custom of valentines, or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them : and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints to honour and imitate in a particular manner.' It is too heartrending to contem- plate the disappointment of the in- genuous youth who, hoping to re- cei\^ the likeness or tlie name of the blooming Mariana or the sancy Julietta, received instead the effigies of some musty and dyspeptic ascetic at loggerheads with the devil — some Antony of the Desert, or somoDun- stan of the Tongs. In the early part of last cen- tury it was tiie custom for young folks in England and Scotland to celebrate a little festival on tlje eve of St. Valentine's Day. * An equal number of maids and bachelors,* says Mis.'-on, a traveller of veracity and discernment, * get together ; each writes their true or some feigned name upon separate billets, which tlicy roll up and draw by way of lots, the maids taking the men's billets, and the men the maids'; so that each of the ni<^n lights upon a girl that he calls his ndtntlne, and each of the girls upon a young man whom she calls hers. By this means each has two valentines; but the man sticks faster to the valentine that has fallen to him than to the valentine to whom he has fallen. Fortune having thus divided the company into so mnny couples, the valentines give balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets seveial days upon their bosoms or sleeves ; and this little sport often ends in love.' The great Pepys has some quaint and picturoj^que particulars of his valentine experience. We copy the following entries from his 'Diary' : St. Valentine'B Day, 35 'Valentine's Day, 1667. This morn- ing came up to ray wife's bedside (I being up dressing myself) little Will Mercer, to be her valentine, and brotight her name written upon blue paper in gold letters, done by himself, very pretty; and we were both well plea-ed with it. But I am also this year my wife's vi.ltn- tine, and it will cost me 5?. ; but that I must have laid out if we had not been valeutines. 'February 16. I find that Mrs. Pierce's little girl is my valentine, she having drav\'n me : which I was not sorry for, it easing lue of some- thing more that I must have given to others. But here I do first ob- serve the fashion of drawing mot- toes as well as names, so that Pierce, who drew my wife, did draw also a motto, and this girl drew another for me. What mine was, I forget; but my wife's was, '' Most courteous, and most fair," which, as it might be used, or an anagram Uf)on each name, might be very pretty.' Pepys tells us also that the Duke of York, being on one occasion the valentine of the celebrated Miss Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Rich- mond, ' did give her a jewel of about 800/. ; and my Lord Mandeville, her valentine this year, a ring of about 300/.' But we meant to have anticipated another question on the part of the benevolent reader. St. Valentine beieg such as he was, and not a bishop who immortalized the day by writing a love-letter upon it— as we were in very early youth given mis- takenly to understand by a here- siarch of a nursemaid — how comes his name to be used as a cover for all the love-doings that take place under the quoted sanction of his name and authority ? This has al- ready been vaguely explained in the quotation from Alban Butler. But we may f-ay ten more words about it; and these words we choose to say by deputy of the author of a small paper entitled ' The true story of St. Valentine,' which appeared in the ' Churchman's Family Maga- zine ' for February of last year. ' In ancient Home there was, about the middle of February in ench yeir, held the public festival called Lu- percalia, which was given in honour of the Lyc£ean Pan. One of the numerous ceremonies at this pagan festival was to put the names of young women into a box, froai which they were drawn by the young men, as chance directed ; and as in those days auguries were thought much of, and exercised great influence over the minds of the superstitious Eomans, the girl whose name was thus dr.iwn by lot from the box was cousilered as a person very likely to become the future wife of the drawer. As a good deal of barbarous and licen- tious conduct was often the result of this ceremony, the zealous fathers of the early Christian Church used every possible means in their power to eriiiicate these vestiges of pagan su])ci-^titions. The names of saints instead of these girls were placed upon the billets, and that saint which each drew was to be his tutelary guardian during the follow- ing year, and as theLupercalia was, as we have already mentioned, held about the middle of February, they appear to have chosen St. Valen- tine's D.iy whtreonto celebrate their reformed festival. The exertions of the priests were not altogether barren of good results, for although St. Valentine's Day is a day pecu- liarly devoted to love affairs, its festivities are no longer as.sociated with the pagan aspect which called forth the righteous ire of the good Fathers of the Church ; a result for which we ought to be truly thank- ful, and one which is a striking example of the good work which Christianity is ever doing. It has not abolished the custom, but puri- fied it. It has taken away the old heathen coarseness and licentious- ness, but has left unchanged the play of human feeling and alfection; true-hearted lovers, instead of being afraid of their newly-di.scovered emotions, may have reason to con- gratulate themselves that they are under the tutelage of so good and noble a saint as Valentine of Rome.* S. St. M. dc Ganine. Gdebn'tiei. CANINE CELEBKITIES. * I am Ills highness' dog at Kew ; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you.' WHOSOEVER'S dog you, gentle forgotten; although canine celebrity, reader, may be, I, the gt ntle like human, varies in its kind an(l writer, am, for the nonce, M. Emile quality ? Richebourg's devoted dog and ar- Athos (notorious as ' The Red dent admirer. That gentleman has Dog ' throughout the whole arron- had the patience— no, he has allowed dissement of Melun) never knew his himself the pleasure— of putting to- parents. His mother abandoned gether a bulky volume, entitled, him to the care of a goat, who lirst ' Histoire des Chiens Celebres,' full suckled him, and then discarded of all sorts of stories about all sorts him by means of vigorous thrusts of dogs. He has been dog-fishing with her horns. His father, an in- on an enormous scale, and his net corrigible poacher, appears to have has hauled to shore an extraordinary suffered the penalty of the law be- variety of canine prey. It is to be fore he could lick his infant son. hoped that some publisher will. At the present writing, Athos is two with his permission, present us with years old, having been born in Paris the entire work in an English dress, on the 15th of June, 1865 Height, A great many of the dogs are quite twenty inches ; hair, carroty red ; new to us. Nevertheless, there are nose, sharp; chin, round; couute- dogs historical, biblical, and clas- nance, angular. Per.sonal peculi- sical ; serio-comic, melodramatic, arity, a habit of breaking and smash- tragical, and farcical dogs ; dogs ing everything, political, domestic, and mendicant; Indue time, Athos was put out every dog, in short, you can imagine, to board and lodge with a game- and a great many more; for after keeper, who taught him to find, to reading M. Richebourg's amusing point, and to fetch, for twenty francs compilation, you will confess that per month, or two hundred and with them, as often occurs with the forty francs per annum. The pupil human race, truth is strange — soon gave signs of promise. In a stranger than fiction. fortnight he could find a hen in the In turning over his well-filled poultry-yard, catch it at the hen- pages, to select a short example or coop, and fetch it to the kennel, two, the choice is rendered ditBcult where he discussed it in company by his immense store of anecdotic with a couple of bandy-legged ter- wealth. Which dog shall I first riers. take by the paw to introduce to the ' Good !' said the keeper, when he British public? Shall it be a lady beheld the feathers with which the or a gentleman? a puppy, or a dog Red Dog had softened the straw of advanced in years? a terrier, a turn- his bed. ' I think I shall be able to spit, a coach-dog, or a mastiff? At make something of this fellow.* the present moment, the weighty He at once made out Athos's bill decision may almost be left to for the mouth: — chance ; for one of the consequences , ^^"^8- -perhaps I ought to say one of Board and instruction during March. . 20 the premonitory symptoms— of the con^ 't„rn ....'.'.'...'... i shooting season is, that men's minds Leasu broken i are turned to dogs in general, to Medical attendance for indigestiun after pointers and retrievers in par- kiiung the hen ^ ticular. Xot,, ,0 I will therefore ask my sporting ^ readers if they ever had, and what The months of April, May, June, they would do were they ever to July, and August followed, with have, a dog in the guise of Athos like results ; that is, the Red Dog, the Terrible — a creature never to be making daily progress, added pigeons Canine CelebritteB. 37 to hares, ducks to pigeons, arid rab- bits to ducks. Tlie gamekeeper had never liad a hoarder so little particular in his choice of food. On the 4th of Septeiulier, the day before the opetiing of the shooting season, Athos's master, Monsieur H , a rising young doctor with a limited practice, came to fetch him. The teacher brought him out in triumph. ' Jlon-ieur,' he saiil, ' you have got there a most wonderful dog. I shall be curious to hear of his per- formances.' * Does he point well ?' ' Nothing to boast of. He dashes off in fiue style; but he listens to nothing, will have his own way, flushes the game a hundred yards oflF, runs after it a mile, and then oomes down upon the otiier dogs like a thunderbolt. A good crea- ture, nevertheless; keen nose, sweet temper; all you want.' ' How does he find ?' ' Very tolerably. But he is some- times before you, sometimes behind you, sometimes to the right, some- times to the left . never within gun- shot, and often not within earshot. But a good creature, sharp-eyed, sure-footed, keen-nosed, sweet-tem- pered ; all you want.' ' But I hope, at least, that he can fetch ?' ' Whatever you like ; hares, rab- bits, pheasants, partridges ; only he brings the hares and rabbits in quar- ters and the partridges in halves. But an excellent creature, capital teeth, fine scent, sweet temper ; you want nothing more.' ' I can shoot with hira, then ?' 'Certainly. Here is his little bill.' francs. Six montlis' board and pal'riial care, at 20 fr.iiics per month, as agreed. . . 120 16 hens killed, at J fr 48 4 diiclcs ditto, at } fr 12 6 pigeons dittu, at i fr 6 18 r.ibbitsditto, at J fr 54 2 fat geese di I to, at 4^ fr 9 i neighbours' cats ditto, at 5 fr i; Crockery broken 4; Sheets, napkins, and towels tfirn ant three days that the number of rolls brought home was short by one. On returning he related to his mistress and tlie customers present what he had f^een and what tlie portress bad told him. 'Capital!' exclaimed the lady. ' Bravo, Toto ! Good dog ! Our hearts would be considerably harder than yours if we treated such con- duct as a crime.' She consequently ordered that Toto should have full liberty of action in the disposal of the rolls. Toto, therefore, using his dis- cretion, continued for a certain time the same allowance to the lady in # the straw; and then, wlien she be- gan to wean her pups, he hanestly brought home, as heretofore, the exact number of rolls delivered to him by the baker. Our next dog answers to the name of Diamond; not the Diamond whose destruction of matheiuatiial papers, so calmly borne by the phi- losopher Newton, is an instance of canine carelessnes-s, but a far better dog, though of minor celebrity, who has been saved from oblivion by ]\J. Pliilibert Audebrand. ' Viscount, you engaged me for the tiiifd quadrille,' said the Mar- quise de Servay, a rich young widow who was giving her first ball after thi-owing off her weeds. ' I cannot deny it, Madame,' re- plied the Viscount de la Chattiigue- raie, a handsome young man, with but scanty resources besides a small estate in the Nivernais and an al- lowance made him by his uncle, the Archbishop of Bordeaux. The world, however, gave him credit for a good chance of obtaining the widow's hand. ' When tlie band commenced I looked out for you ; but you allowed me to sit here without coming to fetch me.' ' Madame, I cannot deny the fact.' ' The truth is. Viscount, that you like the card- table better than the ball room; you pre'er the Queen of Clul)S and the rest of her sisters to keeping your engagement with me.' ' I assure you, Madame ' ' It is quite useless your protest- ing to the contrary after acting thus. I am sorry that such should be the case; but wretched is the woman who is foolish enough to set her heart upon a gambler. You deserve to be punished, and you shall be, I promi^e you.' ' At least, Madame, I should like to know the nature of my punish- ment.' 'Well, sir, it is simply this: I will save you one of my bitch's puppies.' And with a curtsey she left him to join her other gnest.s. At the present day such a speech would .'■ound vulgar, nay coarse, in a lady's mouth; but in 1782, and at Bourges, the capital of the pro- vince of Berri, it was merely a pro- verbial saying, expressing, in excel- lent though old-lashioned French, 'I will have my revenge.' During the rest of the evening, seeing that his hostess kej^t him at a distance, he could not but acknowledge the gravity of his offence, and appre- hend the vengeance — a woman's vengeance — with which he had been deservedly threatened. Nevertlieless, a month elapsed without the occurrence of any un- pleasant circumstance. La ChS.- taigneraie, believing that the Mar- quise bore no more malice than he did himself, supposed that his fault was forgiven or forgotten. He had come, however, to too hasty a con- clusion. One January evening, on his return from shooting, Fridolin, his valet, handed him the following letter : — 42 Canine CdebrUies. ' Dear Viscount, ' A promise is as binding as a writ- ten engagement. An honest Marquise must keep her word. I said I would save you one of my bitch's puppies. You will receive it a few minutes after the delivery of this. Oblige me by giving him the name of Dia- mond, which his ancestors have borne with unblemished honour. ' Yours, willi sincere compliments, ' The Marquise de Servay.' La Chfitaigneraie had scarL-ely finished reading the note when a servant entered and pi-esented him with a basket, in which he found a little greyhound pup. He began to swear, feeling himself humiliated and a laughing-stock. The joke, he thought, had been carried too far. The creature was weakly and any- thing but handsome ; so he told his man to tie a stone to its neck, and drown it in the Loire. 'Poor thing,' said Fridolin. 'It is not its iault if Madame amuses herself at your expense. Let mo keep it, Monsieur, and bring it up. I will undertake all the trouble ray- self.' ' Do as you please. If Madame de Servay were but a man! or if she only had a brother to answer for her impertinence!' This jeer in action galled him deeply. Instead of regarding it as a good-natured mystification, he considered it meant as a proof of disdain. He could not drive it out of his mind ; and having heard that India was the real Eldorado, he re- solved to solicit the king for a com- mission, and seek his fortune at Pon- dicherry. ' Since my suit is repulsed thus scornfully,' he said, 'I will console myself by acquiring wealth.' A fortnight afterwards he sailed from Marseilles on board the brig ' Duquesne,' bound for the Carnatic. When the Marquise de Servay heard of his departure, she, in turn, felt exceedingly vexed. * What nonsense has he taken into his head,' she exclaimed, ' to treat seriously in this way a mere piece of harmless pleasantry ? I was fond of him, and was quite prepared to let him see it.' ' Ah, Madame !' said a lady in her confidence, ' there are three things you should never play with — the fire, your eyes, and your affections.' La Chaiaigneraie was absent a couple of years. He fulfilled the mission intrusted to him with great credit to himself. Some English prizes (vessels captured at fea) in which he had a share brought him in two hundred thuu.'-and francs, at that time a considerable sum. Then there was his allowance of two thousand crowns a year from the Archbif-hop of Bordeaux, besides his claim on the ro\ al treasury for his services at Pondieherry ; so that he was quite iu a position to return to Europe. He did return, at the beginning of the year 1785, first to Paris, then to Bourges. At any epoch two years are a considerable lapse of time; under the aiicien rei/ime they were especially so. Nothing is stable here below ; and the Nivirnais noble- man found many things changed. On presenting himself at one of Madame la Presidente de Morlieu's receptions he heard the news of the neighbourhood. Amongst other things he learned that the pretty Marquise de Servay, tired of waiting, and uncertain whether he would ever come back, had taktn to herself one Maurice d'Esgriguy, a sort of % small iJaron in the Sulogne, as a second husband some six months ago, her choice having been guided, gossips said, by his intrepidity as a dancer. La Chfitaigneraie therefore retired to his Nivernais home. Alter Fri- dolin, still his only attendant, the first creature who came to meet him was a rough-coated greyhound, a sort of lurcher, with bloodshot eyes, and of not at all a prepossessing ap- pearance; but he wagged his tail to beg for favour, and licked his master's hand in token of affection. " Ah ! I recollect you, ugly brute. You are a reminder of my late mis- hap,' said the Viscount, lashing him with his riding- whip. ' Go to the devil !' With a plaintive cry the animal turned round, and ciawled back on his belly to his masters ilet. 'If 1 might be allowed to speak,' 1 Canine Celebrities. 43 said Fridolin, 'I would eay a few words in Diamond's favour.' 'Yes, I remember; Diamond is his name.' ' Monsieur doubtless has not for- gotten that lie gave mo permission to bring up the pup. I did so, and have had no reason to repent of it.' ' What is he good for V 'With Tnuiieau's (your old keeper's) help, I have made him the best dog in the neighbourhood. He always has his wits about him. Ho is first-rate in unearthing a fox, start- ing a roe-deer, and driving a boar. Diamond's courage is extraordinary ; he is afraid of nothing, and has teeth of iron. Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, he fought with and strangled in less than five minutes a wolf that had lorced its way into the courtyard. As a trophy I cut off his feet and head, and nailed them to the stable- door. What does Monsieur think of these?' At the sight La Chataigneraie could not restrain a smile of appro- bation. ' As you give him such excellent testimonials,' he said, 'I have no wish to bear malice any longer. There, Diamond, let us make it up,' he added, patting the dog's head, and nothing further passed in the matter for a time. Some days afterwards the Vis- count went out shooting, taking with him the once despised dog. On his way back he said to himself, ' Fri- dolin is right; there cannot be a better sporting dog. The Marquise, without intending it, has made me a very valuable present.' Before the week was out La Chd- taigneraie had taken the dog com- pletely into favour. When the crea- ture came to caress and be caressed, he would say, ' Good Diamond ! You are the best friend I have , for you love me in spite of my injustice. I'm sure you would defend me at the risk of your life ;' and then the dog would bark his assent. A year afterwards, in the depth of winter, the Viscount, going frcnn Nevers to Avallon, entered, towards the close of day, a woody defile of the Morvan, a hilly country of bad repute. He skirted the forest called the Tremblaye. It was an act either of foolisli imprudence or of very de- termined resolution ; for the neigh- bourhood was notorious for the mur- ders that were almost daily com- mitted there. On so rough and ill- conditioned a road ho could not hope to escape an attack by flight, however powerful bis horse njight be. On the other hand, neither the pistols lie carried nor the raw-boned lurcher which ran before him were a sufiBcient protection against the bands of robbers which then infested the east of France. Moreover, the Viscount, still fond of play, had lately lost ten thousand francs on his parole, and was now loyally taking it in gold to the win- ner. Without manifesting appre- hension, he nevertheless urged his liorse to do his best. ' Patience, Acajou 1' he said. ' You'll soon get plenty of oats and hay. Courage, good Diamond! Don't you smell your sui^per ?' His first intention had been not to halt before reaching one of Ihe in- termediate towns between Nevers and Avallon ; but as he felt himself oppressed by drowsiness, he changed his plan and hastened his pace, in order to sleep at the Tete-Noire, an inn situated in the middle of the wood. He reached it before very long. Finding the door shut he knocked for admission. Strangely etjough, although the house seemed in a bujtle, to judge from the voices and the lights which flashed about in the upper story, he got no answer. The door remained closed. 'Are you all deaf?' he shouted, knocking louder. ' Can't you hear there is some one come to pass the night?' After a wliile a window opened. 'Who is there?' inquired the inn- keeper, with feigned surprise. ' It's me. Master Pennetier, the Viscountde la Chataigneraie. I have already told you 1 want a night's lodging.' ' A hearty welcome to you. Mon- sieur le Vicomte. Jeanne! George! Why don't you run downstairs and open the door to let the worthy gentleman in ? You seem as if you meant to keep him waiting outside all night long.' V* Canine Gelehrities. Admitted at last, the Viscount could uot help expressing his asto- nishment. ' Master Pennetier, you must be hard of hearing to-day* I knocked at the door at least ten minutes, and yet you were not abed and asleep. What the deuce were you so busy about up.^-tairs there ?' The man forced a giiu, and stam- mered, ' We were biL-y about all sorts of things. There is so much to do in an out-of-the-way inn like this. Jeanne, iinstrap that knapsack from the saddle; and you, George, take Monsieur's horse to the stable. Give him all the corn he likes to eat.' The maidservant, to show her obedience t) orders, not only took the knapsack indoors, but began to open it and esaiuine its contents, as if arranging tliem for the tra- veller's use. 'Stop a minute! not quite so fast!' said the Viscount. 'Ill do that myself, when I want it.' Then imprudently adding, 'Tiiere's gold enough there to marry off the ugliest girl in Moivau; and you are too pretty to stand in need of that.' Jeanne opened wide her little black eyes, and so did Master Pen- netier his squinting grey ones. ' Yes,' continued La Chataigneraie, with the boastful rashntss habitual to the gentlemen of that day, 'my knapsack is heavy: you will there- fore be good enough to let me have a room that is secure against intru- sion.' •The most secure in the Tete- Noire, Monsieur le Vicomte; al- though, as for that, all rooms are safe in an honest man's house. George, get the chamber on the first floor ready.' And as George seemed to hesitate, he added, ' Be off with you quickly ! Do you think I don't know what suits my customers? And you, Jeanne, give Monsieur his suf)per.' They set before him, regretting they had no more, a leg of mutton, some salad, dried fruits and cheese for dessert, with a bottle of excellent Sancerre wine. La Chataigneraie ate heartily, declaring there was quite enough for him and for Dia- mond too. It was ten o'clock by his Geneva watch when he rose from table and retired to his bedroom. As he entered he deposited the knapsack iu a corner; Diamond went and lay down upon it. ' Just to, good fellow ; keep guard there.' Casting a glance round the room, he ob.served to him?elf, 'The look of the place is not inviting; but for one night it n it. Searching round the room, ho dis- covered a secret door in tlie alcove which contained the bed. He con- ch;ded that that was how the mur- derers entered in order to commit their crimes, in which cnseit would be unwise to bar it. lie therefore put the body into the l)ed at exactly the place he would have occupied himself; then he extinguished the light, and, armed with his pistols, crept under the bed, lying down on the spot whence he had drawn the body. There he waited, listening atten- tively. For an hovir he saw nothing but Diamond's eyes, which shone like a couple of burning coals. But very soon after one in the morning he heard the jjaper which lined the alcove creak ; the secret door slowly opened, and in the inidi-t of the darkness a man leaned stealthily forwards over tlie bed and stabbed the body afresh, repeating his blows several times. ' I must have done his business!' the assassin muttered. Hardly had the words escaped his lips when Diamond* rushed at him, and with his powerful teeth tore his cheek. * The devil take you !' the mur- derer growled. ' As soon as it is Ught I will serve you as I have served your master.' The door then closed and all was silent. At cock-crow La Chataigneraie crept out of his hiding-place, with the full di'tei'mination of quitting the houKo by some means or other. At dayl)reak he heard the sound of wheels ; they were carriers' carts, whose drivers halted for their morn- ing dram. 'Now is our time. Diamond,' whispered La Chataigneraie, taking his knapsack and btalking down- stairs, making all the noi.se he could. 'Saddle my horse instantly,' he said to the astonished innkeeper, whose face was tied up in a land- kerchifcf. And he set oft' on his journey without bidding his crest- fallen host farewell. That very evening the officers of justice came and searched tlie Tete- Noire inn. Penuetier and his ac- complices were sent for trial before the Criminal Court of Dijon. As the innkeeper persisted in denying many of the facts of which he was accused, the Viscount, remembering the legendary story of the Dog of Moutiirgis, said to the magistrate, ' Next to myself, the principal wit- ness is my dog, Diamond, who set his mark upon the murderer's cheek. 1 demand that he be brought into court.' The case was considered sutB- cieutly grave for this evidence to be rcgardetl in a serious light. Wht n Diamond was confronted witla t!ie prisoner, his eyes flashed fury, he showed his teeth, and if La Cha- taigneraie had not held him tijiht, he would have torn the innkeeper to pieces. That well-deserved punishment was only deferred. Master Penne- tier was condemned to death. Three months after the commission of the offence he was broken on the wheel, alive, in front of the palace of the Dukes of Burgundy. Diamond became the lion of the neighbourhood, and La Chataigne- raie grew more and more attached to the courageous creature who had so effectually helped him. ' Monsieur le Vicomte,' said Fri- dolin one day, ' was 1 not right in begging you to let me keep the d^ 'gV The question painfully recalled Madame de Servay's joke, as well as what he was pleased to term her treachery. Meanwhile a storm was brewing, which threatened to sweep over not only all France but the whole of Europe. That storm was tue re- volution, with its triiin of horrors, its torrents of blood, and its aveng- ing thunderbolts. One of the first pitiless war-cries raised was, ' Down with the chateaux! spare the cot- tages !' La Chataigneraie, who dwelt in an unpretending old manor-house^. 4& The Private Life of a Public Nuisance. ■with a pepper-box tower for its sole fortification, listened to these me- naces without alarm. In the first place, because he was brave and capable of defending hitnself if at- tacked by a mob ; and secondly, because he was greatly beloved and did not know a single enemy. Al- most all his neighbours, however, were emigrating. Some, who were going to Germany to take up arms against the promoters of the Ee- public, urged him to follow their example. ' No,' said the Visconnt, quietly but decidedly. ' I respect the feel- ings and the motives of those who think fit to enter a foreign service as the best way of assisting their king, but [ have no intention of doing as tliey do ; neither do I mean to remain at home, to be slaugh- tered like a slu ep one of the.se days.' 'What will you do, then?' ' I shall follow the advice of a young Breton officer whom I recently met in Paris.' ' His name ?' ' The Viscount Rene-Fran9ois de Chateaubriand. He recommended me to make a tour in the New World, and remain there till the tempt st shall have passed away. It is useless to fight with the elements let loose. When the storm is over I can return to France, and help to reconstruct the ruins of our country.' ' Do you go alone ?' ' Certainly not.' ' Whom do you take with you?' ' The best of friends.' The Viscount whistled. ' Here, Diamond. This way. Show your- self. The day after to-monow you and I, and Fridolin also, if he likes to come, will start for America, to avoid witne.>sing what threattns to occur at home.' THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A PUBLIC NUISANCE. IT is no uncommon thing with folks of an ingenious turn to make ' capital,' as tlie saying is, out of what at first sight seems calamity. As, for instance, a friend of mine, an Alpine traveller, and an indefati- gable naturalist, whilst on a joiumey of exploration in his favourite moun- tainous region, one night retired to his couch exhausted by the fatigues of march and faint for sleep. It ■was denied hirn, however. Not that ' Nature's soft nurse ' was ill-dis- posed towards him ; not that his conscience was ill at ease ; not that he had supped rashly or inordinately. It was because he was wanted for supper. That ravenous monster, the Alpine flea, but meagrely fed through many months on hardy herdsmen and chamois hunters, sniffed his tender carcase, and with- out even the warning of ' fe-fo-fi- fum,' fell on him from the roof rafters, and commenced his savage and sanguinary repast. A man of common mind and courage would have engaged the enemy until ex- hausted, and then yielded at discre- tion. Not so my friend. He struck a light, and calculating his chances of a night's rest, and finding the balance heavily against him, he coolly dressed him.self, and unpack- ing his microscopical instruments, selected and impaled a few of the largest and finest of his tormentors, and passed a ])leasantand profitable night in investigating the peculiari- ties of the form and structure of jnikx irritanfi. There is no knowing how much of ingenuity dwells in the human brain till it is pressed between the hard mill-stones of ne- cessity. Before now, despairing captives have beguiled the tedium of dungeon life by a study of the habits and manners of the very rats which at first were so much their horror and aversion. I have an enemy more tormenting than any flea that ever hopped — more voracious than the rat, inas- much as he feeds not on my bread The Prloate Life of a Public Nuisance. 47 and my cliccve, but on my brain. I have little moutlis to fill, and little leet to cover, and little backs to clotlie; I liave honse-rcnt to pay, and water-rate ; I Iiave to contribute shillings and pounds towards the maintenance of the poor, and the police, and tlie main drainage ; I have to provide against the visit of the income-tax collector; and to meet these various demands, being a scribbler o. the liard- working sort, I am compelled to set my pen dancing over the pajier with considerable rapidity and perseverance. And 1 am very willing to do so. I am willing to sit down in the morning early as any tailor or cobbler, and make my hay while the sun shines. But this my tormentor forbids. He, too, has hay to make while the sun shines. He makes his hay out of my green hopes, sapped and withered ; he grinds my brain to make him bread. He bestrides my sober pen, all sudden and unexpected, as it is plodding industriously over the paper, and sets it jigging to the tune of ' Hop Light Loo ' or the 'Ratcatcher's Daughter.' He fills the patient, well-intentioned quill with the jingling idiotcy common in the mouths of banjo-playing, bone- rattling Sambos and Mumbos, and turns the common sense about to be Tittered by it into twaddle and pro- fitless nonsense. He breaks into my storehouse of thought and turns its contents topsy-tn.rvy. He seizes my golden hours, and condemns them to a lingering and horrible death, maul- ing them and pulling them into flinders, and leaving me to make the best I may of the few minutes his monkey mischief lias left entire. The name of this blowfly in my larder, tiiis weevil in my meal-jar, is Organ Grinder. It is, of course, well known to me that, in accordance with a recent Act of Parliament, I am at liberty to set the engine of law in motion to crush ihe organ man if he annoys me ; but there is a power much greater than any Act of Parliament ever passed and backed by it. My tormentor may grin defiance at his arch- enemy, Bass. No less true than paradoxical, the superior power in question consists in a weakness — the weakness inherent in every free-bom Englishman, to succour all such as he may find downtrodden and driven to the wall. 117/?/ downtrodden is a question which the noble-minded Briton never .stops to inquire. It is enough tliat a pijor fellow is down, to enlist for him the Briton's heartiest sympatliies. Never mind how richly he may have merited the shoulder hit that laid him low, he has only to groan plaintively as he lies in the mire — to whine a little, and beseech pity, and a hundred hands are stretched forth to lift him up, and a hundred mouths are opened to cry ' Poor fellow !' There is ointment for his bruises in shape of a gather- ing of money, and he is set on his legs and hailed as a man and a bro- ther. Who did it? A i^arcel of stuck-up, purse-proud, bloated aris- tocrats ! Why don't you hit one your own size ? Hit him again, if you dare. This noble setliment has been of immense service to the downtrodden organ grinder. The law, acting in behalf of 0. G.'s suf- fering victims, having knocked 0. G. down, the highminded but tough- skinned British mob has set him up again, and taken him under its special protection. I have no in- clination to dispute its right to do so. It admires organ grinding. To be sure, the fact of its utter indif- ference to the existence of barrel- organs and hurdy-gurdies before the passing of the Act is calculated to give rise to the suspicion that pig- headed obstinacy may have some- thing to do with it, but there is nothing for certain. The miller who could sleep tranquilly while his mill was clashing and crunching and rumbling, awoke the moment the mill stopped The mob is the best judge of what suits it. It likes its music full flavoured, and with plenty of grit in it. A weaker qua- lity falls idly on its tympanum. Some animals are so thin-skinned that the titillation of a hair will drive them to madness, whereas the rhinoceros delights to have his hide rasped with the prongs of a pitch- fork ; but that is no reason why the rhinoceros should not be tickled if he likes it. So it comes about that the organ 4«' The Private Life of a Public Nuisance. grinder finds in the notice of eject- uient that was served ou him a new lease. But a few months since he was a skulking, surly wretch, with a heavy tread, a hanging head, and the genf ral air of a felon, hopeless as to this life, and by no means com- fortably assured of the next ; a broad- shouldered muscular, doomed for some monstrous iniquity to tramp the highways and byeways of a foreign land, fettered eternally to a demon of discord— a lunatic Orpheus riding him old-man-ot-the-sea-wise, torturing his sensitive ear, and mocking his weariness with ' funny ' music worthy of St. George's-in-the Fields, or, at the very least, of Earls- wood. A treacherous, lean dog, ready for a halfpenny to mow and grin and show his teeth to win the smiles of little children at the win- dow, and e(]ual]y ready, should he be rashly informed that the little ones are ill, to haggle and make terms as to his consenting to cease from racking their poor little beads with his horrible din; a worse than ghoule, hunting for sickness that he might make a meal of it, with vulture eyes for sadly droop- ing window-blinds and muffled knockers, and a keen scent for mer- cifully-strewn tan, that the wooden leg of his engine of torture may find standing in the midst of it. Distinguished by such unamiable characteristics, it was impossible to love the organ man; still, seeing him go about so evidently conscious of his own unworthiness, so down- cast and depressed, and altogether miserable, your indignation was not unfrequently tinctured with pity, and you had at least the gratification of noting that, however much he plagued and tormented you, he never appeared to get any satisfac- tion out of the transaction beyond the grudged penny flung to him. But since lie has been ' persecuted ' the aspect of the case has become altogether altered. The organ grinder is no longer a glum villain serving his term of life as though it were a punishment, and not a pri- vilege. The dull dead log has sprouted green leaves, and become quite a sprightly member of society. True, he has not given up the ghoule business, nor the lean dog businesf.. but now he is a ghoule in a cut- away coat in place of a shroud ; the lean dog cocks his ears, and carries his fail with an insolent and defiant cui'l in it. He is a man and a bro- ther in pursuit of his honest calling. He has music to vend in ha'iwrths and penn'orths ; and if you don't choose to buy, there are plenty of householders in yoursfreit that will. Don't put yourself out of the way, my dear sir; don't stand there at your parlour window sliaking your head, and frowning, and making threatening gestures ; he is not play- ing for i/oiir edification ; he is playing to the people next door but one ; they are his regular customers, and take a penn'orth of music of him every morning as regularly as they take a penn'orth of dog's meat for Mungo. A pretty thing, indeed, that you should i^resume to order him off just becaiise you don't happen to like music ! You might as reason- ably prohibit the dog's-uieat man from calling at number thirteen be- cause nobody on your premises has an appetite for dog's meat. This is the argument provided for the organ grinder by his noble chain])ions and supporters, and he is not slow to avail himself of it. How can you be out of temper with a poor fellow who knows not a word of the lan- guage in which you are abusing hiui, and therefore cannot retaliate? It is mean, it is cowardly, it is un- English. It would not be surprising if he turned round on you and pelted you with such broken bits of Eng- lish as he is master of. But he is a good-humoured fellow, and does nothing of the kind ; if you shake a stick at him, he replies by thrusting out his tongue, and making a tunny face at you. If you appear at your gate and order him off, he is moved to no worse than playfully ajiplying his thumb to the tip of his nose, and twiddling his outstretched fingers. Yah! Go in. Stuft'your ears with wool. It will be quite time enough for him to go when he sees you rushing down the street in search of a policeman. Even if you have the good luck to find one in time, and the coverage to give the ruffian into custody (winch means accompanying the ' charge ' The Private Life of a Piihlic Nuisance. i^ to the station-liouse, and being hooted and chaffed by the organ grinder's friend, the mob, all the way you go), you will probably find the game hardly Avorth the candle. The prisoner does not know one word of English, explains the inter- preter to the magistrate, and was quite unaware that the gentleman wished him to go away. But, says his worship, the gentleman states that he took the trouble to come out into his garden to motion you away. That is true, replies the interpreter, after referring his worship's remarks to the now deeply jDenitent grinder, but the prisoner misunderstood — he thought that the gentleman was come out to dance. It may occur to the inexperienced that all this is most unnecessary fuss, the remedy for the alleged grievance being so obvious. The organ grinder is no fool ; all he seeks is your penny, and cares not how little he does for it; what, therefore, can be easier tlian to save your time and your temper by sending him out so paltry a sum with the civil message that you won't trouble him to play. You may be making some sacrifice of principle, it may cause you momen- tary annoyance to suspect that your enemy grins as he turns from your gate with your penny in his pocket, but look on the other side of the question! The blow-fly banished from your larder, your meal -jar freed from the devouring weevil, your quill rescued from its impish rider, your golden hours round and sound and all your own ! You are right, oh innocent adviser ! Cheap, dirt cheap would it be if, on payment of a penny, immunity from persecution might be purchased. It would be a stroke of business on the accomplishment of which we might well be proud if one bought off the whole brigand army at a like figure. But beware of the pitfall ! Should you be weak enough to yield that first single penny your doom is sealed. It is merely a hushing fee entitling you to rank amongst the organ man's regular customers. The torturer will now regard himself as regularly engaged, and exactly a week from the time when you committed the fatal error, he will turn up again, his counte- nance beaming with a smile of recog- nition as you amazed ly look out on him from your window, and he won't budge until he gets his penny. Nor is this all. You are duly reported at the head-quarters of the sworn brotherhood of grinders as another to the long list of victims willing to pay for peace, and for the future no organ or liurdy-gurdy bearer will pass your door without giving you the opportunity for exercising your philanthropy. There is no cure for the evil ; organ-grinding has become a settled institution of tlie country, and as such must be endured. And having arrived at tliis con- viction comes in the example of the Alpine traveller quoted at the commencement of this paper — of the poor prisoner who beguiled the tedium of incarceration by an exa- mination of the habits and manners of the rats which at first were his horror. Might I not be i letter em- ployed than to sit moping in my chamber with vinegar raps adorning my throbbing temples because of these Itahan rats squealing under my window? Were their haliits and customs less interesting than tho?e of the^ four-legged vermin ? Did I know 'more about one than the other? Decidedly; but the advan- tage was with the quadrupedal animal. I do happen to know something about mus decumnnits. I know that its hind legs are longer than its front ones, that it has a propensity for burrowing under walls, and tliat it commonly sits on its hind legs and holds the food it eats in its fore paws. I know that its nature is very cunning; that, acting in concert, rats have been observed to cart off unbroken eggs from a basket, one, acting as ' cart,' lying on his back and cradling the egg between his fore paws, while two other rats, acting as teamster.«(, have dragged home the ' cart ' by its tail. I have heard, and place equal reli- ance in, the story of the rat that emptied a narrow flask of oil by lowering his caudal appendage into it, withdrawing it, licking it clean, lowering it again, and soon. But I don't know half as much about the /iO The Private Life of a Public Nuisance, organ grin(ier. That his fore Umbs aro shorter than liis lateral may bo assumed, but what about his bur- rowing? Tliat ho dors burrow is certain, liei-ause during certain hours oftlio twenty-tour lie, happily, disap- pears. He must iiavo a homo some- where, lie is ni( t at all hours of tho (lay as far away as flighgato, Hanuuersinitli, and Sydenham, but come nif^iit wherever ho may be, ho is invariably lound to l)o turning his steps in a north- westeily direction. However far away, he is rarely seen refreshing hiuiseif at an inn ; ho was never yet known to apply lor a bed at the waysiilo country public- house. It is doubtful if he made such an application whether it would bo entertuiiud. Ifamanou horse- back applied for lodging the matter might 1)0 easily arranged, tho man to his chamber and tho horse to tho stable ; l)Ut a man with an organ ! They are insepara\»le. He is an organ man— a man with an organ on his back, as other unfortunates have a lump on theu'S — with tho difference that the former, for busi- ness purpo.ses, admits of being occa- sionally slewed round to the front part of the man's l)ody. Fancy letting a clean and decent lied to a man witli an organ on his back ! Then as to the grinder's family. Has he a wile and children ? How do they employ them.selves? Aro the white-mice boys and the guinea-pig boys, the monkey-boys and tho boys with the hnrdy-gure ' They ain't all organ men,' lie re- plied; 'some of 'em are pictur- trame makers, and image-coves. They are about half organ men.' ' They seem to spend their money pretty freely.' 'So they ought; they earns enoueh.' ' What, the organ men ?' 'Organ men, ah! A'pence tells up, don't yer know. They picks up a jolly sight more than me and you, as works hard for our livin'.' There was notliing in the dress of the mow players to distinguish the organ grinder fiom his friend the 'image cove.' All were dressed alike— and very well dressed, after a style. More than anything they looked like a body of seafaring men — foreign sailors, recently paid off. Their long blue jackets were those of holiday-dre.«se(i sailors, as were their black satin waistcoats, their ' navy ' caps, their pumps and their earrings, and their abundance of silver watch-guard. Moreover, most of them wore bright-coloured worsted comforters, as do foreign sailors invariably when dressed in their licst and ashore. Altogether, their afipearance was such as to en- tirely change one's views concern- ing the beggai'ly trade of organ grinding. Meanwhile our friends carouse, and the moro players cluster thicker about the tables and butts and the din becomes such that the tall and muscular landlord has to hold his hand to his ear that ho may catch the orders of his cnstouK rs. Sud- denly, however, a sound of music is heard, and mstantly there is a com- motion amongst tlie j)la3ors, and all but those wlio arc in the middle of a game hurry towards a door at the end of a passage beside the bar. Joining the throng, we too approach the door and enter the room it opens into. It is that to which the organ builder reconunendtd us, 'if wo must dance.' It is a spacious room, with bare, dirty walls, and scant of furniture as the casual ward of a workhouse. There is only one large table in the place, and a-top of that is mounted a hard-working grinder, in his every-day clothes, with his organ at his side, and labouring at the handle of it as stolidly, and with the same busmess air as though he Were standing in the gutter in the E'igware lload. Amongst the throng that crowd the room he must recognize many friends— rela- tives, perhaps, — but he looks as un- concerned as a soldier on duty in a barrack- J ard. Perhaps he would not get so many halfpence if ho all'ected to regard his services as merely friendly As it is he docs not fare badly. Between each polka and waltz he makes a significant pause, and the dancers fee him. There are female dancers as well as male; and, strangely enough, the females are not one of them Italian. They are chiefly English and Irish girls, working in the neighbourhood as looking ■gla.'-s fiame polishers We were informed by one of the damsels in question that the Italians never bring their countrywomen with them to the dancing-room. Perhaps this may be accounted tor on econo- mical grounds ; did they bring their countrywomen with them, they would naturally expect to be treated with some degree (jf generosity; whereas the grinder's treatment of his English or Irish partner was as shabby as can bo well imagined. 56 The Private Life of a Public Nuisance. her only reward being a pull at the pewter pot out of which he himself regaled. Tr\ie, he did not ask much of her ; indeed, his contract with her could scarcely be said to amount to a partnershij?, the dance being managed in this strange fashion : — Jaclco and Antonio make up tlieir minds for a dance, and select each a (iamsel ; but Jacko and Antonio dance together, and the two damsels dance together alongside Jacko and friend. When the dance is over, Jacko orders four pen'north of beer, and the four divide it amongst them. ' Stingy beggars, arn't they ?' whispered the damsel who had given us the bit of inforruation con- cerning the organ man's peculiar method of dancing ; ' thinks as much of a shilling as another man would of five. It ain't as though it was every night.' ' They don't come here every night in the week?' ' Bless you, no ! a few on Mon- days, sometimes, but nothing to speak of Saturday night is their time— their time out, I mean : Sun- day is their time at home. 'Their time for what? — not dancing?' ' Dancing, no ! no room for dancing, with twelve or fourteen of 'em in a bit of a back parloiir. Drinking and cards and dominoes, that's what they get up to. Let 'em alone ; they can come out strong enough amongst their own Bet. Plenty to eat and drink, plenty of rum, plenty of everything.' ' I shouldn't have thought that they earned sutlicient money to in- dulge in such luxuries.' ' They don't earn it all : see what their wives earn at artificial-flower making and cigar- making.' ' Then they have pretty comfort- able homes ?' ' Well, comfortable as they look at it: you see, they are people of such strange ways: all for "club- bing." They club together to pay the rent of a room ; to buy a joint of meat ; for their beer, for their tobacco, for everything; eating and drinking and smoking together, a whole houseful of 'em, just as though they were all brothers and sisters. Plenty of everything, you know, but such a hugger-mugger.' The young woman spoke as one that knew ; and it was very much to our annoyance that, just at this moment, Jacko ouce more advanced towards her, and invited her to stand up and earn another driak of bad beer; and so we lost sight of her. We had gleaned enough, one way and another, however, to convince us that Jacko makes a very decent livelihood out of his organ. He lives well, ta,kes his amusement, lias a bettermost suit of clothes, and a silver watch and chain. 'Which is crowning evidence,' triumphantly observes the grinder's champion, ' that the public are well disposed towards the poor fellow, that they appreciate his humble efforts to amuse them, and properly reward him.' But isn't there another point of observation from which the flourish- ing grinder may be viewed? We humbly and hopefully think so. Assuming— and surely it is fair to assume — that at least half the grinder's gleanings accrue to him as ' smart money ' to send him and his nuisance . packing, our eyes are opened to the immense strength of this section of the army of opposi- tion — a section more powerful than any other, and one that has only to vigorously assert itself, and the days of the organ monster's reign are numbered. Jamks Grebnwood. Modem Beau BrummeUism. 57 MODERN BEAU BRUMMELLISM. BEAU BRUMllELL was the dandy of his day, and a dandy of a peculiar kind. Etymologists toll us tliat the word 'dandy' is derived from the French damlin, or ' niuny/ or from the ItaUan danifola,ov ' toy.' Hence a dandy means one who dresses himself like a doll, a fop, a coxcomb, a ninny. The pecuhar type which was especially repre- sented by the famous Brummell was combined with an amount of fasti- diousness and heiplessntss to which there is no parallel. He was a re- markable instance of a man pushing himself into a grade of society to which he had no claim, by dint of a certain amount of assurance and a high estimation of himself. There is nothing more true than the say- ing that the world takes a man at the value he sets upon himself. He who deiDreciates himself by a humi- lity, whether true or false, will not be esteemed by the world at large. The dealer who cries ' stinking fish' is not likely to find much custom for his wares. Let a man assert himself, and lay claim to a certain amount of wisdom, and talk like an oracle, and the chances are that, un- less he is a fool, the world, having neither time nor inclination to go into the matter, will take him at his own valuation. It only requires perse- verance, an indomitable will, and in- ordinate self esteem, combined with a certain amount of tact, which, in this instance, might almo.>t be better called an instinct of self-pre- servation, which prevents a man from showing the cards which he holds in his own hands. Some peo- ple are easily imposed upon by silence, and are apt to attribute depth of learning and profundity of thought to the man who is silent, for no other reason than that he has nothing to say. Coleridge says, ' Silence does not always mark wis- dom ;' and goes on to relate an anecdote in illustration. ' I was at dinner, some time ago, in company with a man who listened to me and said nothing for a long time ; but he nodded his head, and I thought him intelligent. At length, towards the end of dinner, some apple dump- lings were placed on tlie table, and my man had no sooner seen them than he burst forth with " Them's the jockeys for me !" He destroyed whatever prestige he had acquired by his silence by showing his folly.' Had he remained silent, Coleridge might have continued to think him intelligent. The man who is wise enough to keep his own counsel while he lays claim to superior gifts, will probably get credit for all he claims. In Brummell we have a remarkable instance of a man valued according to his own estimate of himself. Possessing no great mental gifts, he worked his way into the highest ranks of society, until he came into the very presence of royalty, where he made himself ne- cessary by the force of will , assurance, and self-coneeit, which had already obtained for him so great a reputa- tion, that to be spoken to by Brum- mell, and to dress like him, was the ambition of all the dandies of the day. No doubt he possessed great graces of the body, as well as the natural gift of an almost faultless taste : otherwise it would be impos- sible fully to account for the com- pleteness of his success while he basked in the sunshine of royal favour. He was the very type of dandies, ' neat, trimly dress'd. Fresh as a bridegroom . . . • » * • He was perfumed like a milliner. And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and toolc 't away again.' Stories without end are told of him, all pointing to him as the great oracle in dress. No lady ever re- quired the attention of her hand- maid more than Brummell demanded the assistance of his valet during the tedious operation of his toilet. The great secret of tying a cravat was known only to Brummell and his set; and it is reported of him that his servant was seen to leave his presence with a large quantity of tumbled cravats, which, on being interrogated, he said were ' failures/ so important were cravats in those days, and so critical the tying of Modern Beau Brummellisrn. them. His fastidiousness and help- lessness are exhibited side by side in this anecdote. The one tliat there should have been so many ' failures' before he could be satisfied ; the other, that he should have required the assistance of a valet, or, indeed, of any hand except his own in tying it. This fastidiousness and helpless- ness are not, however, confined to any age. Iiid>lence, conceit, love of dres.s, and help'essness, will always exist so long as we have bodies to pamper and to d< ck. There will always be luen who devote much time and thought to their per.sonal appearance, who ' .shine .so brisk, and smell so sweet, and talk so like a waiting gentlewoman ;' men who try on coat alter coat, and waistcoat after waistcoat, that their etTect may be faultless ; who consider harmony of colour, and the cut of a coat, or the tit of a shoe or a boot, matters of the greatest moment in life ; who, whether beardless bo.ys or elderly men, never pass a looking-glass without stealing sly glances at them- selves, and never move except with care and cautiim, lest the atraiige- ment of tlieir hair, or some portion of their toilet, should be marred. The elderly danity for pads of all kinds and descrip- tions, and when, in spite of pads and gloves, fingers and, occasion- ally, even legs are broken by the excessive violence of the bowling. The formality and coiu'tliness in dress which existed even to so late a period as that to which we have referred, may be said to have gone out with houps and powiler. Our ancestors, no doubt, deplored the changes which took place in their days, and sighed over the intro- duction of novelties, and the free- dom or license, as it may be called, in dress in our times would have shocked their sense of propriety, for we find an amusing account in the ' Spectator ' of the alarm felt at the way in which ladies dressed themselves for riding, ' in a hat and feather, a riding-coat and peri- wig, or at least tying up their hair in a bag or riband, in imitation of the smart part of the opposite sex,' which the astonished countryman described as ' a gentleman in a coat and hat.' There con be no doubt that a certain amount of attention to dress is necessary so lar as it effects per- sonal cleanliness and neatness. A well-dressed man, that is to say, a man who dresses like a gentleman, neither like a top, nor a clerk, nor a tailor who makes his own back his advertisement, is sure to be well received in all good society. Glold- smith says that ' Proce^sions, ca- valcades, and all that fund of gay frippery furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tirewomen, mecha- nically influence the mind into veneration ; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.' The only complaint made against our gracious Queen, when she visited Ireland, by some of her poor Irish subjects was, that ' she was dressed like any other lady, and 60 Modern Beau Brummellism. had no crown on her head.' There is mucl) worldly wisdom in paying some heed to the adornment of the outer man. It is a good letter of introduction ; but when it goes be- yond that, and branches out into excesses of foppery, it becomes un- manly, and, as sucla, cannot be too much condemned. When young men are either so helpless or fas- tir others which The ' Beaux Mondes ' of Paris and London. (;8 lorraerly served to make men keep out oi sight auy inliiDgement against gooii morals. It may be said that the motive was low— that it was a mere ieeliug oi human respect, and, as such, Oi but httle value ; yet, even if so, it surely had the advan- tage over that most culpable dis- regard for appearances which leads to the public exhibition of vice. In the fact that men dare not associate publicly with vicious companions there lies a protest on the part of society in general against their evil doings ; but the mfuuent they cease to restrain their conduct within due limits, and unblushiugly pursue their course, and society still tole- rates them and winks at their sf- frontery, there is no longer any saf^'giurd against its utter demo- ralization. We owe a vast debt to those who have raised their voices in condem- nation of the attitude of the hrau mondt towards the demi mondc of Paris. We do not entertain the opinion held by some that it is better not to speak ot these things, but siiuply to ignore them as if they did not exist; for if we have a serious malady, or a wound in any part of our bodies, we do not gain anything by pretending that we have it not ; and we hold that it is, to say the least, unwise to shut our eyes to the fact that a revolution of an important character has taken place in society. In public matters there is nothing wrong in pointing out a scandal where it exists. To ferret out a neiglibour's faults, and to expose them to the public gaze, is an in- fringement of the law of charity. But that which is a blot in the in- tercourse of individuals with each other, chameleon-like, changes its hue altogether when it becomes a question of nation against nation. National customs, national tastes, national faults, are a safe mark for other nations to hit at pleasure. In the first place, what is national is more or less public property— there is no exposure of ' secret faults ;' and, in the second place, the principle of self-protection justifies it, because we may avert evil from ourselves by noting its existence and its ruin- ous consequences elsewhere. We may effect a kind of moral quaran- tine by which dangerous and pol- luting influences shall be kept at a distance. It becomes a duty to note and comment upon the signs of the times, and to take warning from every false step which others make. We may thereby arrest the progress of evil at home, and expose the snares and pitfalls which lie con- cealed beneath a spet-ious exterior ; only let us be sure of one thing — that we are equally clearsighted as to our own defects. • O wad some Power the giftie gle us To see ouisels as others see us, It wad liiie mony a blunder free us. And foolish notion.' There is no fault into which we are more apt to fall than that of being keen to detect errors and short- comings in others, and slow in dis- covering our own. As individuals wc have no right to do so. But the law which is intended to seal the lips of those who are addicted to evil speaking has no such restrictive power where nations and the public good are concerned. It is said that, as a rule, no class of persons is so censorious as the highly moral. There is something, perhaps, in the unassailableness of virtue and mo- rality which tempts the virtuous to throw stones ; and wc are disposed to think that it is the tendency of all nations, but especially of Eng- lishmen, to hold the customs, tra- ditions, and manners of all other countries cheap. It is a matter of fact that, with all our national pride, we are, in many instances, the most servile coi^yists of the French, and it will be well for us to inquire whether the spirit of this century has not led us in the same direction as that which we so justly condemn in our neighbours. Are there any indica- tions of a similar movement on this side of the Channel ? Can we de- tect any signs and sounds of its advent among us? There is no wisdom in throwing dust in our own eyes ; to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and we are inclined to think that there are sufficient grounds for apprehen.'^ion. Not many years ago it would The ' Beaux Mondes ' of Paris and London. Lave been considered to be the very acme of indecency and impudence for any of tlie tlioughtlet^s young men who abound, more or less, in every capital to recognize, or to appear even to notice in public, any of those fair ' unfortunates ' who lie in wait ' to hunt souls.' They would have been distressed beyond measure at the idea that their mothers or sisters should suspect, much more know, of their having formed any liaisvn so dangerous and disreputa- ble. But such tenderness of con- science, such regard for the proprie- ties of life, scarcely remains. It is no uncommon thing for a young man to appear in the Park escorting a ' celebrity ' of this kind, and, as he passes some lady of his acquainlauce, to lift his hat in courteous recog- nition of her, as though there were nothing to be ashamed of in his companion. Nor is it rare for a popular characler to api^ear at the Opera, exquisitely dressed, and with some pretence of modesty in her attire, in one of the most conspicu- ous boxes, surrounded by her ad- mirers, whose relations witness their infatuation from the opposite tier. Nor is this all. The very names of these women have become so noto- rious that they are in the mouths of many of the fast young ladies of our bmij^ vionilc. IIow they have come to srich a knowledge let others tell ; but they speak of them, of tlieir ' turn out,' and their horsemanship, and note their dress and style, and can tell the ' Skittles ' ponies at a distance, and the precise hour at which she drives into the Park; how she wears her hat, the colour of her horse and habit, and even go so far as to dress after her, taking their cue from her as if they envied her her power of attraction. It is notorious that many of the changes which we have witnessed of late years in hats and petticoats have originated from celebrities of this kind, and we fear it is an indication of a disposition on the part of our heuu monde to take a leaf out of the book of the h'-uu moude of Paris. There was also a symj^tom of a like tendency in the strange freak which so engrossed all our fine ladies a few years ago when nothing would satisfy them but 'a niglit at Cre- morne.' They were possessed by a strange and most ill-advised curi- osity to know something of its at- tractions, and to acquaint theniFelves with one of the popular haunts of the dcmi moinle. It is true that our noble countrywomen shut out for the time its usual patronesses, and monopolized it to themselves, and that in this respect tliey did not go so deep into the mire as our foreign neighbours would have done, who would have preferred it un-Eom- fordized ; but in other respects it exhibits the same tendency to over- step the barrier between them and their frail sisterhood, which we would earnestly implore them never to lower for any consideration. We think that, taking all things into account, the disposition which exists to trample out of sight all the finer lines which until lately regulated the social intercourse of the upper classes, and the very great licence which is given to the tongue, t)y which the fine edge of modesty is blunted, we shall do well to look at homo before we are so loud in our condenuiation of others. Burns's "lines to the ' unco' guid ' are never out of season— ' A" j-e wha are sae giiiii yoursel, Sae pious and sae ln)ly ; Ye've nocbt to do but mark and tell Your neebours' faults and folly.' If we have as yet escaped the contamination which must, we fear, precede such an act as that by which the hcau momle of Paris degraded itself, it is still an undoubted fact that we are not standing on such a pinnacle of superior sanctity and morality that we can reasonably congratulate ourselves that we are ' not as other men.' I Balls in Vienna. BALLS IN VIENNA. * FEW years ago and no Euro- 1\ pean capital was less visited by our coniiti\\men and countrywomen than Vienna. In the days of Met- tcrnioh despotisms, malice ivei^cnse iifrgravatcd the inevittble pains of locomotion with a machinery well calculated to keep the Austrian frontiers clear of mere holiday travellers. So that in the days of passports and police, few strangers came to the Imperial city except on business. Vicmia contained, it is true, a colony of r< ppnctable English, who had settled (ni the banks of the Danube for purposes of economy or pleasure. But since j)aper money has driven away the metallic coinage, low prices have taken to themselves wings, so that Vienna is at present the dearest of European cities, except St. Petersburg, for any one who cannot renounce home luxuries and comforts. Since, too, those Magyar grandees, who.se brilliant genial hospitality gave Vienna her ancient social reputation, have, in conse- quence of political enmities, com- pletely dipappeaied from the scene, the Tustigo Wien lias lost most of her trarlitioiial attractions in this kind. Then the remnant of society which still survives cleaves more closely than ever to the surprising machinery of the exclusive system, and shows, besides, a Chinese dislike of strangers. Thus the upper ten thousand — or, to speak by the card, the upper three hundred— are prac- tically unaj)pruachable by foreign interlopers who (io not possess the open sesame of cx<'eptional privilege. Hence no one now comes to Vienna either to save money or to disport himself in gilded s-aloons. On the other hand, despite the want of proper hotel acccjmmodation at cer- tain periods of the spring and autumn, the Graben and the Prater are almost as full of strangers as the Corso at Easter, or the Cascine at Whitsuntide. Then comes the British tourist, armed with the crimson strabo of Albemarle Street, which at once marks him out as a proper subject for imposture and extortion decorated with the favourite apparatus of straps, pouches, and other articles of orna- mental sadlery, accompatiied by a female train, whose rosy cheeks and rainbow toilettes excite the wonder of all the population. For energy and rapidity of performance ho stands alone. He and his shove their way through the Kohlmarkt without apologising to the asto- nished persons for the thumps and pushes inflicted on the slow, cour- teous Austrians. They rattle through the Stefan's kiiche, almost knocking down the acolytes, and drowning the litanies with their jabber. They rush into the vaults of the church ot the Capucines, and, rattling their umbrellas on the silver coffins of twenty fossil Hapsburgs, chaff the guardians of these venerable relics of K. K. greatness, about the pleats of the historic Austrian lip. Then plunging into the depths of the Belvedere, they remark the vulgarity ' of Titian's Ecce Homo in coojpari- son with Mr. Olman Unfs Light of the World, and the bad drawing oi the acromion process in Bubens' snarling crocodile — that miserable Exaliosaurian so completely eclipsed by Turner's Dragon of the Hespe- rides. Looking to the point of national pride, we may rejoice that the British tourist does not come to close quarters with the aristocracy of Austria. And yet if the contact could be, advantage would result to both sides; for as our country people might pick up manners, so the Austrians might pick up ideas. However, the business which specially concerns us hero, is trans- acted in Vienna with a high degree of intelligence, and in this depart- ment of human excellence the- English come in with the ruck of the European race. The Ball, as an institution, seems to be a distin- guishing mark of the modern civili- sation of the west. According to oriental notions the gasping and agitated movements of the dance degrade the dignity of the human person, and may not be publicly ex- hibited except by a professional 66 Balls in Vienna. class. A like notion prevailed in the Greek and Hebrew world. Turkish diplomacy has made con- cessions to European habits, so that the representatives of the Sublime Porte are permitted to give balls, and the younger Ottomans are some- times tempted to indulge in a fur- tive waltz. But, as a rule, decent Easterns may not trip it on the light fantastic toe. In this respect, we of the west have surely chosen the wiser course. For, barring the inci- dental objection attaching to late hours, which are no necessary part of Terpsichore's practice, the ball is the most reasonable of social enter- tainments. Now that conversation has lost its salt, and that society is nothing but a hustling, hurrying crowd, it is better to go where music, dancing, truffles, and cham- pagne await us, than to stiff gather- ings of what Byron calls ' the polisUcd horde Formed of .two mighty tribes, the bores and bored.' For women balls may sometimes be full of disappointment and dis- gust, but they are the paradise of men. At balls the fair sex put on their best charms of manner, their fi-nest attire, their most massive chignons, and, in a word, open all the batteries of female seduction. The general radiance of feeling and behaviour is diffused, even over those who do not partake in the special business of the night. Under such circumstances gossip forgets some of his twaddle, stiffness loses some- thing of her starch, flirtation becomes a more spontaneous and more gush- ing flood. Especially is this the case amongst the Cephalopodous Viennese, whose brains seem to be located in their heels. There are striking spectacles of the ball sort to be seen in Vienna. The annual Gala Ball given at the Hoft)urg, and the public Biirger, or Citizens' Ball at the Redouben Saal are of matchless splendour and outer in- terest. The social code of Austria, which is no less severe than the laws of the Modes and Persians, does not permit the close contact of plebeians with the nobility and K. K. Court, Sixteen quarteriiigs on the shield, in other words, a double current ot blue blood, at least eight genera- tions, or a pedigree two hundred years long, are the warrant for ad- mission to good society and the presence of the Imperial House. However, into the annual ball, even such profane vulgar as Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parhament, Foreign Ambassadors, and the like, are usually smuggled; so tliat the company present on these occasions swells in dimension and degrades in gentility to the English aud French standards. The Burg is a plain, rambling palace of the barrack class, with staircases and approaches ot analogous style, and devoid of posi- tive decoration except carpets and whitewash. On a ball night the main streets of Vienna are choked byjtiks of carriages and fiacres streaming up from every region of the city to the Franzens platz of the Burg. The entrance gained, an almost equally endless line of corridors, guarded by Heydrics in the liveiy of the double eagle, leads to the first of a snaky series of apartment.^, which must be traversed before the liitter Saal, or great hall of cere- mony can he reached. The Saal is of spacious and lofty proportions encircled by a range of Corinthian columns, with an orchestral tribune at the extreme end, the whole con- struction being lined witli white scagliola, and lighted from rows of burners set along the entablature below the ceiling. The company is arranged in horseshoe shape to await the coming of the Court. Down the sides of the Saal are benches rising in an amphitheatre fashion, aud occupied by the ladies of the aristocracy, to whom, accord- ing to their respective rank, specific places are assigned. Below them stand the gentlemen of the Court, nobles, Hofraths, and other official staff, great military personages, and the officers of the regnneuts in gar- rison, besides strangers from the adjacent provinces of the empira; the curve of the horseshoe is formed by the foreign diplomatic body, the ambassadors with their respec- tive suites standing just beneath the tribune, the ambassadors' wives and other official ladies, or female visitors ot distinction, being close at Balls in Vienna. 67 hand. While the company gathers a hum of muffled conversation is heard; but the gaiety proper to the opening of a ball is chilled to the icy tone prescribed by palatial etiquette. At length sometliing agitates the distant margin of the sea of heads ; a way is cut through the close crowd as sud- denly as if a battery of gvms Viad opened fire upon its mass; a clond of chamberlains, thrown out as skir- mishers in advance, widen the lane into a road by civil entreaties, sugary threats, and the gentle pressure of their wands of office. The Imperial cortege advances in closer order, a blazing column of coloured uniforms embroidered with silver and gold, led by their Imperial Majesties in person. The company express their loyalty by profound obeisances, which are graciously acknowledged by the K. K. pair, who tread slowly and solemnly up the Saal, followed by their glittering retinue, till the ranks of the foreign ambassadors are reacheii. Here the Emperor falls off to greet the gentlemen of the diplomatic body, the Empress in like manner moving towards the female representatives of foreign countries. His majesty shakes hands with the ambassador who has been longest resident at his court, makes a few inquiries about the health of the royalty at home, with whom his excellency is assumed to be in close correspondence, and then pauses in order to allow the presentation of per-ons of the ambassadorial suite. Having asked every such individual whether his sojourn in Vienna pleases him —a question usually answered with a strong affirmative — his majesty proceeds to the latitude of the ambassador next in order, and repeats the same exciting ceremony. Afterwards he apiDroaehes the minis- ters-plenipotentiary, and then, with that grace of manner which is his most marked characteristic, addresses a few words of recognition to the gentlemen who have already had the honour of making his Imperial acquaintance. Eoyal memories, generally so empty of things, are usually guided by instincts in respect to persons, which seem little less than miraculous for accuracy and extent. During this time the Empress gratifies, first the foreign ladies, then the foreign gentlemen, with a like exchange of compliments. As she advances with the tread which Virgil attributes to the queen of the gods, her face and figure full of comraauding majesty and smiling giaoe, bowing to right and left with swan-like elegance of motion, a sup- pressed murmur of admiration runs thiough the great assembly. A few clouds of tulle, fastened with jewels that might furnish an empire's ran- som, a nnsegay ^f camellias luixed with hanging brilliants, an India of rubies and diamonds blazing through a coronet of lustrous brown hair — such are the adornments of this paragon of imperial creatures, the most beautiful of a beautiful Ba- varian race. A soft, yet sorrowful voice, which addresses every stranger in his o-A n language with rare purity of accent, intonation, and happy choice of words, completes the charms of this enchanting and right royal ravishment. When the for- malities of presentation compliment are concluded, their majesties pass to the ranks of the domestic guests, where, however, they make Imt a short stay. This interlude finished, the orchestra strikes up, a space is cleared in front, and the Empress, accompanied by the archduchesses present, and the several ambassa- dresses, takes her place on a sofa to see the dancing. On these occasions, whether from the fear of doing irre- parable damage to priceless tunics and flounces of Cluny and Valen- ciennes, or from the presence of that formidable army of unknown lookers- on, which gives the ball the publicity of a ballet, there is an absence of the brio proper to private assemblies, and a reluctance to step into the magic circle. The whole scene al- most surpasses the splendi>urs of operatic pageantry. No uniforms are so brilliant at night as t ho- e of Austria, nowhere else is there a finer flaunting of silks, brocades, and satins, nor a more glittering display of pearls, emeralds, and dia- monds. There is not mucli beauty of a striking sort amongst the Austrian ladies, but their forms are well grown, and the younger peo[ile 68 Balls in Vienna. present the true type of aristooratic distinction, both in manners and ap- pearance. Heaven geuotally bestows compensations on its creatures, and the Au:>tria!is. so empty of brains and know le I ^'0, excel in dancing. The elder people p o end that tlie adop- tion ot steci petticoats luni trailing skirts lias cans 1 1 a visible decline in the t-killed pra 'ti 'c of this delightful art, but a s'raiiiier is more likely to woniicr at the jierfection of the pre- sent tlian to sig:i for the refiueiueiits of the past. Dancing, likn singing, cannot l)u pioperly cultivate! in narrow and cro^viled rooms, so that our own dcLrraded style of execution may well be pardoned. English- men have rarely enough tar for lun.sic to recoijnize the dilference of rhythm that separates the polka from the waltz, although they can somotimes detect, empirically, the jingle of a familiar tune. In Vienna it iievtr happens that a danciug Dundreary, after listening without result to an orchestral strain, is driven to in piire the nature of the dance about to be performed. The Vieni.ese are not addicted to music of a liigii (dass, bat tlieir hearing is of the keenest, b;)th for melody and time. wli« never their perceptions are spurred by the sLimulus of dancing. Jean I'iWil j-aid every Englishman was an island and in like inaniier it may be said that eveiy Englishman, and every Phiglisluvoman too, have their own way of dancing. Some dancers have no car at all, the ma- jority step without precision, one has a snaky slide, another a sparrowy hop, one likes a solemn andante, another a wriggling presto; this eontiilent damsel clings clo.se to her partner, that bashful virgin struggles as she moves to evade the impro- priety of a too close embrace. Under such anarchical circuaistunces there is no chance for the development of a refilled and congruous sty le of art. Then, as the education of the heels hardly satisfit s the requirements of an English social career, our youth are too about munching acorns, and keeping com- pany with the K. K. deer, for the out-door species of Austrian hog is a sociable creature. Huts are erected at the point.'^ where the fore.st paths and glades intersect eacii other; and on the oi'casion of a grand battue Imperial JMajesty, and as many of the eighteen archdukes as may be available, take their sta- tions in the aibresaid huts. The peaceable and I'eluctant wild swine being then driven past in battalions, are satisfictonly slaughtered by breech-loaders till the vindictive humours of the ruler's soul have pas.sed. Poor Austrian out-door hog! It is said that from motives of economy his oeast-garden at Hntteldorff and elsewhere will be dismantled, so that ne will pre- sumably be free to roam about the tace of the empire. But hogs and capercailzies should only'concern us in respect of their esculent proper- ties. Amongst the specialities of Aus- trian dancinghfe should be men- tioned the balls given in the many assembly ro,)ms of the city. In ad- dition to the so-called ' pic-nics ' of tiie aristoci'acy, a sort of Austrian Almack's, there are public balls got up by and for specific classes of the population. I^or instance, the stu- dents, the tourists, the artists, the burgliers, each of these classes has its separate ball. Tlio artists' ball is the ino.st interesting, as the ce- lebrities of the corjiv de ballet appear and dance in the costume of ordinary life, arrayed, too, with a richness of silk^, satins, and laces that cannot be surpassed by tne most expensive efforts of aristocratic crinoline. Tiie biirger ball is hei' I in the lledoubeu Saal, an assembly-room belonging to the apartments of the Burg, and let out by the competent K. K. Beamten to individuals or committees. The great room is surrounded by a con- Becollectiona of a Bachelor. 71 tinnons gallery, from which the ladies of tlie aristocracy, who could not degrade themselves by contact wiili the (lancers, watch tiie pro- ceedings of the middle classes at the liiii'ger ball. This ball offers an admirable bird's-eye view of the class in qne-tion. A stranger, who visits it on two or three consecutive occasions will probably come to tlie conclusion that the amalgamation of the Austrian aristocracy and middle class will not be achieved imtil the latter make more show than tliey do at present of copying the outward appearance and manners of the former. It is hardly conceivable that anything short of a convulsivm would throw the two orbits into one. However repugnant Austrian practice in this resjiect may be to Ji'nglish notions, it is doubtful if our ways would suit the banks of the Danube. While the nobles decline to stoop, the middle class does not much desire to chml). Far from the faults of the social strata being a source of bitterness to those be- low, they are accepted as harmless, if not useful, interruptions of a con- tinuity which no one desires to establish. EECOLLECTIONS OF A BACHELOE By Jack Easel. TO be twenty years of age, with a sound digestion, a light heart, and a latch-key, seetns to me, in certain moods, the aummmn honum of earthly enjoyment. I am not going to remark that a man at that lime of life is cleverer, or more vir- tuous, or a niore profitable member of society than when his beard begins to grizzle. I only fay he is happier : that he ha« probably never been .'-o haf)|>y before, and that he certainly will never be so agaiu. The jollity of .schoolboys is, I fancy, over-ratfc)th Mnemosyne and Lethe in one breath. ' Let me,* cries he, 'remember all the good I have done, and foreet my errors.' And. after this fashion, we indulge in a retro.'-pect of cricket and round jackets. We call to mind the de- lig-'its of ' breaking-up day,' our un- jinpaircfl appetite for pastry, the glow of pleasure with which we recti red our prizes (yini may guess how many fell to my share), but we {ox^i t the miseries we endured ; the horrors of Propria qua/, marihits and Pons asinorum; the fussy plati- tudes of that old pedagogue in a trencher cap ; the brutal conduct of the young sixth-form tyrant for whom we had the honour of fagging ; the depressing chill of enrly ' cha- pels;' the cruel scars which were left upon : no; not even if Mr. Gunter himself we i"e to offer me the whole contents of his shop bride- cakes and all ; not if I might be captain of the school eleven ; not if I c 'uld read 'Euripides' as easily as the ' Times' newsjinper; not for the rosiest cheeks in the world, the most generous ' tips ' that could be hoped for, — nay, not to be that model of scholastic perfection, Mr. Thomas Brown himself, — would I go back to fifteen again! But to call oneself man for the first lin)e; to wield the razor with a consciousne-^s of real necessity (boss used to shave in 184 — ); to live in lodgings or chambers on one's own account,— go out or coniu home when ojie likes; to enter upon life with a keeii zest for life's en- joyments, with health, spirits, hope, and a tolerably easy conscience — ah ! that is the true golden age ; those are the rosy hours when, taking old Father Time kindly by the hand, setting his scythe and hour-glass in the chimney-corner, and i)assing the loving-cup across the table to him, most of us would 72 JRecollections of a Bachelor, cry, ' Here, venerable sire, here let us linger !' I believe a common protest ' is raised from time to time, by old loge.vs, tliat young men in this country are not what they used to be; and, upon my word, though I disregai'ded the notion a cbzen years ago, i begin to have snne faith in it now. One faculty, at least, they Stem to be losing— the faculty of enjoyment. Look at Young England in a ball-room, at the theatre, or during a pic-nic. Does he look happy, amused, or impulsed in any way? or is he a mere listless young dandy, hlasS, and bored — or affecting to be 60— with everything and everybody around him ? I vow there are some young gentlemen of this description whom 1 never see without feeling a strong desire to slap them heartily between the shoulders (can't you imagine their horror at such a greeting ?), and ask what on earth they think worth caring for. Early in the last decennium, we young fellows, whose whiskers were just beginning to bud, not only enjoyed life, but didn't mind showing that we enjoyed it. Our tastes were none of the most intellectual, I am afraid. We courted the muses after a rough and ready fashion— over pipes of bird's-eye and tankards of pale alo. There weren't so many novels to read then as there are now; but somehow I fancy they had better stuff in them. I know we looked forward eviry month to the appear- ance of Mr. Thackeray's two yellow leaves, and Mr. Dickens's two gr; en leaves, with a zest which is un- known to the rising generaHon. There was not a chapter in ' David Copperfield' that we didn't dis- cuss, laughing at Peggotty and Mr. Micawber, indignant with Uriah Heep, pitying poor little Dora, and deeply touched by the fate of hand- some, reckless, proud, misguided Stur forth. Pendennis we voted somewhat of a prig ; but his friend, George Warrington — was not that a chaiacter to study, to almire, and emulate? I believe when the great satirist of our day, in his profound •world-wisdom, sketched that life- like portrait, half the interest with which he invested it was due to the fact that he was unconsciously describing himself. Only a few of us had kept up our Latin; and T^aikesmere, of the State Sinecures Office (who went up from East- minster to Osford, but left that university, for reasons which need not here be named, without taking his degree), was mighty apt with his quotations from Horaco when we met at tlie Cimbrian Stoies to dine, or sat gossiping round some third-floor fireplace in the Temple. ' Nunc est bil>eudum !' he used to cry, blowing off the froth from his pewter; and most of the young artists who heard him, not having themselves had the advantage, as the phrase is, of a classical educa- tion, regarded that thriftless repro- bate as a miracle of wit and learn- ing. But when we came to talk of books in our own mother-tongue — of English poets, from Chaucer down to Mr. Tennyson— my good- ness, what a chattel ing there was! what a fierce puffing of three- penny cheroots ! what an outpour of earnest, frank, and beer-inspired arguments! The Cimbrian Stores was an old-fashioned tavern, where an eighteenpenny ordinary was held at six o'clock. The bitter ale (and a very decent tap too) came to four- pence, and one ga\'e twopence more to the waiter, which, you see, ex- actly made up the two shillings — a modest but sutficient item in our daily expenses. I've had worse dinners in my time, I can tell you. They gave us soup or fish, a cut off the roast, vegetables, and a famous piece of Cheddar cheese. There was wine at a moderate tariff for those who liked it. Mr. Vokins, the respected landlord, took the chair precisely as the quaint old maho- gany-caed clock in the coiner struck Ihe hour, and, rap()ing the table with his carving-knife, said a brief but impressive grace. It was a snug and cosy little set that gathei'ed round that table. A few middle-aged personal friends of Mr. V. sat right and left of him. On the subject of their respective pro- fessions I was then, and am still, completely in the dark. They en- Becolledtons of a Bachelor. 73 tered the room jnst five minutes before dinner-time, and fell half asleep over t*!tir grog, wh(:n we youngsters went back to our books and drawing- boards, or oftener, if my memory doesn't deceive me, to the pit of some thtatre, especially in the winter season, when we made a point of visiting all the panto- mimes. I am thankful to say that I have not yet lost my jelish for panto- mimes. Burlesques, I admit, bore me horridly. It wasn't so with dear Planche's inventions. Y/is wit was elegant and scholar-like; ///s jokes, if not proloiiiid, had a genuine sparkle about them quite indepen- dent of the mere liunbh tntcir/rc; the stories which lie chose ior illus- tion were a^lmirably adapted for his purpose. You didn't want a break- down nigger dance, or an infant prodigy, or an optical illusion to set them off. The days of Vestris, the days of Harley, oi Mdlles. St. George, Reynolds, and Horton,— ^/i«i! was the golden age of burlesque writing and burlesque acting. Those artists played their parts as if they enjoyed the ijn themselves. Your modern actors and actresses feem only to condescend to theirs. They enun- ciate those wretched little milk- and-water puns as it tliey were ashamed of them— and well they may be, for, as a rule, weaker balderdash has never passed for wit. Jokes indeed ! why yoti uu'ght make a gross of them in an hour. They are not jokes — they are not even puns— but a silly jingle of sounds. The audience don't laugh at this stuff: they can't. I defy any one with a grain of sense to do so. They only utter a dismal groan, which runs round the dress-circle like a banshees wail. But a panfnmimc, a rf al, genuine, well-orgauized iiantimiime, with a regular traustbrmation scene and plenty of harlequinade, is a national institution which 1 trust may never become extinct. It is not an intel- lectual amusement, perhaps ; to enjoy it you need be familiar neither with politics nor the pages of Dr. Lempriere's dictionary. It is simple nonsense, if you wdl — but then it prttmds to be nothing else. We can't always (thank goodness) com- bine instruction with amusement, like the amiable pedagogues who invent geographical games, and playfully beguile little boys into the rule of three. No; a pantomime is solely intended to make us laugh, and the man who refuses to laugh at it once a year, and in the pre- sence of children, must be a gloomy misanthrope. For my part I con- fess to no little sympathy with Mr. Blerryman in his various escapades. 1 like to see him purloining sausages, geese, and legs of mutton, and ad- mire the adroitness with which ho tr.insfers those comestibles to his capacious pocket. I am pleased when he divides the fish with Panta- loon, and, with a great semblance of fairness, reserves by far the larger share for himswlf. I rejoice when he is fired out of a cannon or pressed fiat in a mangle, because I know by exj^erience that his constitution can stand these triah, and that ten to one he will be livelier tor them in the next scene. As for Columbine, I have always regarded her as one of the most fascinating women in Christendom, and could desire no better late than to go through life with such a partner, pirouetting up and down the world dre.'^sed in a tight suit of spangles, hke that kicky dog Harlequin, who can leap into a clock-face, or disappear through a shop- shutter as quick as lightning— whenever it suits his convenience. A halo of intense respect surrounds the memory of those old Cimbrians as I picture them to myself^ seated on sturdy Windsor chairs, in that home- ly but hospitable parlour panelled high with English oak, and beai'ing on its walls fair copies of the Lely portraits at Hampton Court. They were very strong in pohtics— those stout and ancient Britons — a subject which, judging from my own ex- perience, interests the art-student but very little. So we let them say their say, and wag their venerable old heads with solemn earnestness, as they discussed the merits of Sit Robert Peel, and entered at length upon the great Chartist question. As for nous autres, we kept our conversation pretty much to our- 74 Recollections sfa Bachelor. eelves. Sometimes a dozen of us, painters, suckiug barristers, govern- ment-office clerks, and a medical student or two, would form a little conclave at one end of the table, and, content for once to spend a quiet evening, would sit on, gossiping, long after the old hahitucx of the I^lace (the e.vtra-ordi/ian'cs, as we used to call them, in playful allusion to the nature of the banquet) had toddled home. It was at one o'clock, I think, when Eobert, the head waiter, used to come in, rubbing his eyes, with a ' Now gennlemen, if you please!' the usual form of warning which he gave us pre- viously to turning off the gas. I fear a good deal of what military men call 'pipeclay,' and civilians ' shop,' was talked on all sides, and the artists had the best of it. It ■will, I believe, be admitted that the failing is natural to us as a class. Scarcely any other calling can be said to furnish a theme for work and play to the same devotees. When Mugwell, the ri'^iug young lawyer, 'goes off to Switzerland for the* long vacation, do you suppose he troubles his head with Black- stone on the Wengern Alp, or pops a brief into his pocket before step- ping on board the boat at Lucerne ? You might travel all day with those eminent medical celebrities, Dr. Pil- lington and Mr. Lancelot Probus, and never find out that one gentle- man obtained a livelihood by writing hieroglyphics at a guinea a page, and that the other would be ready at any moment to cut you up— not meta- phorically, but in the flesh — with- out the slightest remorse ? I have known even sober and unimpeach- able divines modify their costume to no small extent as soon- as they have crossed the Channel, exchange the conventional white choker for an easy silk neckerchief, replace the stern chimneypot with a comfort- able wideawake, and wear an ordi- nary shooting-coat instead of the more orthodox paletot. Barring a slight tendency to intone his con- versation, you would hardly recog- nize his reverence in the fraiik and genial talker who sits next you at the table d'hote. If our young clergy have their little failings they certainly do not intrude ecclesiastical intelligence upon you between the wine and walnuts, tliat is, unless you begin the subject. But what does an artist like to talk aliout so much as his art? How delighted he is sure to be if, agreeing with the theories which he |)fopounds, yoi; endorse his opinion that Madder Brown is a great genius! With wliat mingled pity and. ccntempt ho will itgard you it yoii liai)pen to ad mile the landscapes of Stipplerl ' What, my dear fellow, that man's work like nature ? Nonsense I I tell you there isn't a bit of nature in it! It's the feeblest, most common- place stuff you ever saw ! I don't suppose he ever drew anything but a cork correctly in all his life! Colour, indeed ! the fellow's got no sense of colour in him. That fore- ground of his thing last year— hung on the line too, by Jove!— was no- thing but a sheer piece of cabbage from Fogley's picture, and as for his greens ' &c., dkc. The artist-diners at the Cimbrian Stores outnumbered all the others put together. Law and medicine held their own sometimes ; and when the gossip turned on general literature, we met on common ground. But art was the favourite subject of conversation, or ' jaw,' in the polite language ot the Cim- brians. Our occasional visitors, per- haps, found it a little too much of a good thing sometimes, hut most of them were very good-tempered on this point, and listened in meek astonishment to tlie astounding ex- press-ions of sentiment which came pouring forth from our lips in a fragrant cloud of tobacco. Once, and once only, was there any marked or oftensive allusion to this habit, when that mufi', Piaikesmere, would insist on bringing his friend, young Tuttleigh Hunter, also of the S-nec-ie Office, to dine with us. The idiot came in evening dress, with a jewelled shirt-front, antl looked round upon our tweed coats and hairy faces with a mixed look ot surprise and contempt. Wu were civil enough to him at first, but he scarcely deigned to speak I;) one oi us, and, winking at Eaikes- mere after dinner (he had been Becollediona of a Bachelor, (l^ill1^ins pretty freely), remarked that tlit:ie was a d— d smell of paiut in the loom. I don't think any one of us would have seen the allusion, but that the fool began to chuckle (as fools will) when he had uttered tliis spleiuliil piece of witticism. I was sittinj; just opposite him, and my old schonlfellow, Dick Dew- berry, of the Middle Temple, was by my siile. Dick had been at Oxford with Tultleigh, and knew his line. Moiv over, Dick was an amateur painter of no inconsiderable merit, and had a fellow-feeling for our cause. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' cries Mr. Dewheriy, -very stiffly, across the table ; ' I think you said that ' ' That there was a smell of paint. Yes, I did,' sa.vs the grinning dandy; ' perhaps you don't object to it ?' ' To which, sir, the paint or your remark?' asks Dick, pretty smartly. Eaikesmere turned crimson. ' 'Pon my life I don't know,* drawled Hunter. ' You seem to take offence. Are you a painter?' * Why, no, sir, but I'm a gentle- man,' cries Dick, lighting his cigar ; ' and a few of my friends here are both.' ' Then I s'pose you're accustomed to paint,' sneers Hunter, unabashed. Eaikesmere was n^ldging his el- bow, and telliug him to shut up. ' Perhaps so,' retorts Dick ; ' but there are some things we are not accustomed to, and don't mean to endure. Eaikesmere, if your friend wants the fi esli air, there's plenty of it down stairs in the street.' Tuftleigli, pouring out another glass of wine, muttered something about a public room being public property, and that he'd be !)lanked before he moved to oblige anybody. He wasgetting rapidly drunk. Dew- berry rang the bell. ' Eohert,' said he, when the waiter made liis appearance, ' is the bil- liaril-rooin engaged ?' ' Not a soul but the marker in it, sir,' says old Bob. ' Very well. Then what do you say to a game of pool, gentlemen ?' We all started up, glad of the opportunity to avoid a row, and left this imcivilest of civil servants alone with his friend. Eaikesmere came after us with an ample apology, but it was the last time he ventured to bring one of his dandiacal ac- quaintances to dine with us. * Confounded puppy 1' growled Dewberry, when he had got back to his chambers ; ' I wish I had punched his head. I would if he could have stood wp and taken care of himself. There's no love lost between us, I promise you.' 'Ever seen him before?' I asked, for I felt sure there was some old grudge rankling in Mr. Dewberry's bosom. 'Well, yes, I have,' said Dick, somewhat mysteriously. ' He was pointed out to me at the Crystal Palace last Thursday.' ' By whom ?' said I. Mr. Dewberry blushed a little, and, in reply, asked me whether I could keep a secret. ' To be sure, especially when a lady is in the case,' I said, for the honest fellow had turned as red as a peony, and I saw at once that we were on delicate ground. * The fact is, Jack,' continued D. D., ' that that fellow has been annoying a very great friend of mine for some time past, and in such a way that it would be very awkward, and, in fact, almost im- possible for her— you're right, it is a lady — 01 for me, on her behalf, to take any notice of it.' I now ventured to ask for a full explanation, having in the mean- time mixed myself a glass of toddy, at Mr. Dewberry's express desire. ' You must know, then,' said Dick, after a pull at his own tum- bler, 'that 1 have some friends living at Kensiugton, not far from where this fellow. Hunter, lives. In tact, they attend the same ctiurch of St Didymus. Their pew is in one ot the aisles, and he generally manages to get a seat close by. Well, fancy, for some weeks past the horrid snob has been in the habit ol staring in an impudent manner every Sunday during service at this lady, who is very young, yon know, .lack, and — ahem! — really very pretty ; and she hasn't any father or brother, by the way — yes, by Jove! in such a manner as really to annoy her very much, and she 76 Recollections of a Bachelor. has 'tried to frown him down, but he won't be frowned down, and keeps on staring worse than ever. Now isn't it a disgusting shame, and don't you think it ought to be put a stop to in some way or an- other ?' 'Most decidedly,' said I. 'Couldn't you call him to account yourself, or send a message by Rai'.resmere ?' ' Wliy, no,' cries Dick; 'that's just the rub. I'd do that directly if I might, but Miss Pet worth won't let me ; and when one comes to think of it, you know, Jack, it would be rather awkward to mix a lady's name up with such an aifair at all ; because, of course, he'd deny that he meant to be rude, and say it was an accident, or something of that kind, and so get off without receiving his deserts. I want to teach him a lesson which he shan't forget in a hurry.' 'Well, what do you propose?' I asked. ' Why,' continued Mr. Dewberry, ' I've been thinking the matter over lately, and I see only one way of tackling it. It appears that Mr, Hunter's rudeness is not confined to one object. He has annoyed other ladies in the same way. Now I don't like the notion of anonymous letters, but really in a case of this kind I think the end would justify the means. He seems to be such a donkey, that I really think if he re- ceived a letter written in a woman's hand he would believe it came from one of those ladies whom he is always ogling, and then we could make as much fun of him as we chose.' ' I confess I don't exactly see how,' said I. ' Why, you old stupid,' cries Dick, ' don't you see that a man of this kind would be vain enough to keep any appointment anywhere, from the top of the monument to the bottom of the Thames Tuimel, in the fond belief that a lady had fallen in love with him, if he thought he was going to meet her. Supposing the rendezvous chosen was the Temp:e Gardens ' ' And you prepared with a tremen- dous horsewhip, I suppose,' said I. ' Why, no/ retorts Mr. Dewberry, 'that wouldn't be exactly fair — to inveigle a man, cad as he is, into a quiet place, and then lick him at one's leisure. No; I'm not going to do that. But there's nothing in the world to prevent liis becoming a fund of amusement to us as he struts about waiting for his imagi- nary Dulcinea, while we are quietly watching and laughing at him from these windows.' * Capital notion, upon my word,' observes Mr. Dewberry's humble, servant. ' But it't; easier said than done. Mr. Hunter mayn't be quite such a fool as he looks.' 'We can but try,' answers D. D ' Suppose we put out a bait to begin with. We might sketch out a pre- liminary note, asking him to give evidence of the sincerity of his affec- tion in some sign wliich I should be able to recognize.' 'And when are these documents to be drawn upV I aslced. 'There is no time ' said Mr. Dew- berry, fetching an inkstand from a side table, ' like the pre.senfc.' Down we sat accordingly, and in the course of half an hour the fol- lowing billet was indited in a deli- cate female hand, on a sheet of superfine Bath post. ' Sir, — The experience which a nature such as yourfi must ere this have derived from a contemplation of the confiding impulses to which a ivomatis heart is occasionally sub- ject may, I trust, be deemed some excuse for the exceptional character of this communication. It were im- possible i)t me to witness iveek after loc.ek the jiattering, because unsoli- cited, attention witli which you re- gard the writer of these lines with- out becoming aware that yoia take an interest in her welfare which has not been -may I say— altogether tmappreciated ? Should uiy suspi- cions— 1 had nearly written my hopes — be not without fonuilation, will you kindly oblige me by wear- ing a pea-green tie (my favourite colour) r(juud your neck on Sunday next? Aftt )■ ^ Cling it I shall feel free to tell you inoi-e. ' Till then I remain, ' I'our unknown friend, ' Belinda. Recollections of a Bachelor. 'P.S. Isn't Belinda a pretty- name? I'm afraid yoii won't think mine half so pretty mlun you lotuw it 1' ' By J(>ve I don't think he would if he enow it/ says Dick, laugh- ing. ' Ciipihil note upou my word, in th(j bent style of a Complete Let- ter-writer, with plenty of luider- lining. If he believes tliaf, he will deserve any thiug he gets. Of course next Sunday I shall go to St. Didy- raus and see if the bait has taken.' ' Do you intend to tell the young lady'?' I asked. 'Not a word, my dear fellow, not a word,' said Dick, 'and for the best possible reason, tliat she would highly disapprove of the whole pro- ceeding. Besides, what good would it do? At present the note may have come from any oue of the girls to whom he has " made eyes." But if I told Miss P she would cer- tainly betray herself by blusliing or showing some ccmfusion next Sun- day, and then the whole thing would be spoiled. No, I must not com- promise her in any way. What a joliy sell it will be, though, for him, if he falls into the trap ! Can't you fancy liim in his pea-green tie? I chose that colour because he usually wears crimson silk.' Well, a week after the above con- versation Dick and I met again at his chambers by appointment. He told me that Mr. Hunter had obeyed the request so literally that he thought if we had begged him to wear a bonnet instead of a hat we might have expected compliance. The time was now come for a second letter, which was couched in the following elegant language. * Sib,— How can I express to you in adequately eanips^ terms the great satisfaction, nay, the pleasure, which I felt in recognizing on your part, through the medium of a sign which I myself had suggested, an evidence of what, until I kiiew it, I did not dare to anticipate? I am going with my aunt (an old maid, very kind in her loay, but unfortunately indifferent to the feelings of young people) into the City on Tuesday next, and I will try to be in the Temple Gardens between two and three in the afternoon. I know it is indiscreet in me to say this, but I feel confident that I can rely on your secrcy and good faith. Peihops I may be enabled to tell you t!iis in person, but if not I am sure you will believe 'Your unknown but sn? cere friend, ' Belinda.. 'P.S. If I am unfortunately de- tained until four or half-past you won't nnnd, will you ? What a lovely colour that pta-green tie was, and Iww ludl it bicume you! Of course / couldn't luiih propriety take any notice of you, but I felt con- scious that you had not forgotten me.' 'I'm afraid he'll see through it,* said Dick, as he folded up the letter. 'However, old fellow, you'll turn up here at any rate on Tuesday, and we'll keep a look-out for the young gentleman.' * * * * On Tuesday, the — th of January, 185- (you see I purposely refrain from giving the date in full, out of consideration for Mr. Tuftleigh Hun- ter's feelings, as he may, for augiit I know, by this time be married, and have become the father of a family: if so, it will be far better for Mrs. T. H.'s happiness if she remains ia ignorance of her husband's ante- cedents), on this bleak and frosty winter's day, as I was saying, two young and notaltogether ill-favoured Englishmen might have been seen ensconced behind the ample folds of a red curtain which decorated a window in one of those qnaint but historically interesting windows that command a view of the Temple Gar- dens. A pile of calf-bound tomes piled in careless confusion on an adjoining table indicated the legal studies in which one at least of the striplings was ostensibly engaged. But the remains of an nnexception- ably grilled sttak, and of what had once been a symiiiotiieal pyramid of mashed potato, flanked by a tan- bard of foaming stout would have inspired the most careless observer with a conviction that both these young gentlemen had lunched, while a recently-opened box ot cigdis, and a delicious perfume which hung 78 Recollections of a Bachelor. upon the noonday air, suggestive of the well-known Havannah plant, might have been accepted in evi- dence that the less necessary but more refined wants of civilized life were being amply satis Red.* ' How goes the time, Jack '?' asked Mr. Dewberry, blowing rings of smoke out of an elegantly-carved meerschaum pipe. ' 1 let my watch fall in the racket-court, yesteniay, and broke the mainspring, I think.' ' Ten miuutes past two,' said I, after consulting my own chrono- meter. ' Then I give him up,' said Dick, rather gloomily ; ' but hark ! what is that strilcing now ? You're a little fast, I believe, like some of my other friends. It is but just two o'clock, and— hallo, why there he is, I declare. Punctuality is not only the soul of business, but the very quintessence of confiding affec- tion : and I say, my dear Jack, do look here,' adds Mr. Dewbtrry, bursting into a roar of laughter, 'I'm hanged if he hasn't sported the pea-green tie, as a delicate attention. Ah! my exquisite Mr. Tuftlcigh, I really begin to pity you. Tliis is verdant with a vengeance.' It was too true. The misguided young man had apjieared in full iig, and clad after a manner anything but suited to the inclemency of the weather, in order, I presume, to show off his figure to the best advantage. He was walking about with the air of a stage gallant, evidently rejoiced that he had arrived before his «?- amorata. After he had strolled up and down for about a quarter of an hour, however, he pulled out his watch and began to walk quicker, and no wonder, for it was int/^nsely cold. Another interval, somewhat shorter than before, having elapsed, the elegant Tuftleigh again ascer- tained the time, and, to make as- surance doubly sure, referred to a piece of paper which he drew from his coat-ijocket, and which we felt * The coiiiposition of this laj-t paragiMph is not, I admit, in my usual style. But it is a style which, at the period ref^'iTed to, found so mucli favour amono; a certain class of Kni;lish novel readers that I felt an irresistible temptation to imitate it to the best of my humble aljility. convinced was the letter that had lured him to his fate. Mr. Dew- berry and I, who \\ atched these pro- ceedings with unremitting attention (except, indeed, during the brief mo- ments in ^^llich we reapplied our- selves to bottled stout), could not help remarking that the longer Mr. Tuftleigh stayed, the more fre- quently he looked at his watch, and the oftener he looked at his watch the further he extended h'swalk up and down. At la^t it liegau to grow dark, and Mr.Tuftleigh (we conld see) began to grow impatient. He quick- ened his pace, stamping on the ground as he went, and warming the upper part of his frame after the fashion of London cabmen, who in winter time ajipcar to be perpetually rehearsing with great ve- hemence the embracing of imaginary friends At last, when it was be- coming almost too dark to see any- thing, Sir. Tuftleigh disappeared, after having afforded us infinite amusement. 'Well, what is the next thing to be done ?' said Mr. Dewberry, after the half-hour had struck, and our hero had disai^pcared. ' Do you think he'd stand another letter?' 'I should hardly think so; but you know best, Dick,' said I. After a short consultation we wrote another note, with many apo- logies from the fair unknown, stating that her aunt had disajipointed her, and that she had been unable to make her way that afternoon to- wards the Temple Gardens, but pro- mising faithfidly to be there the fol- lowing Friday at the same hour, hoping to meet her correspondent, to whom she (of course) owed ten thousand obligations, &c. &c. I must confess that Mr. Hunter showed a sound discretion in taking no notice of the last epistle. But we could not allow the matter to drop here. It was absolutely neces- sary to put the ingenuous youth on his guard for the future. lie had been allowed to take an unconscious part in this little farce. It now re- mained for us to read him the moral. liOtter No. 3 was in these words. 'Sir, — Your disregard of 'Be- linda's' last assignation is tolerably good evidence^, that you are now A Week in a Country House. J9 aware how completely her first ap- pointment made you the victim of a well-deserved hoax, ' You have for some time past been in the habit of annoying more than one lady by a species of rude- ness which is all the more cowardly because it is difficult to define or bring home to you, and that, too, at a time and in a place which render your offence doubly inexcusable. Without entering into further par- ticulars it is sufficient for you to know that these ladies have found a champion in one who, sorrv as he would be to proceed to extremities, will assuredly take an early oppor- tunity of calling you to account in a practical and not very pleasant manner if you have the temerity, after this v^^arnipg, to continue your impertinencies. And, believe me, nothing but my desire to save these ladies from further annoyance has saved you, up to this time, from the chastisement which you richly de- serve. It is scarcely necessary for me to add that they are quite un- aware of the means which I have thought iit to adopt for their pro- tection. ' I have the honour to be, sir, ' Your most obedient servant, ' A Rod in Pickle.' The effect of this last epistle was so satisfactory that Mr. Tuftleigh Hunter ceased to frequent the church of St. Didymus entirely, and I trust has since abstained from the offensive practice of ogling alto- gfctlier. That ladies, especially when they happen to be young and pretty, are not utterly averse to being looked at with respectful admiration I candidly admit. Indeed, judging from my own experience, I have always found that , but there, I won't go on further. You see, I'm turned of thirty, and the subject awakens sentiLaents in my heart which lead me to decline revealing all the Eecollections of a Bachelor! A WEEK IN A COUNTRY HOUSE. WHEN the London season is over, and the dying notes of the session become distinct, all the world rushes off hither and thither to obtain relief from the trammels of London life, or to repair the ravages of late hours at watering- places at home or abroad, or to enter into all the healthy pursuits of a country life, and enjoy the re- laxation which they afford, or to comply with the rules of fashion, which prescribe that no one who aspires to the distinction of belong- ing to the fiishionable world can remain in town after a certain time, and also retain his reputation and position as a member of that most exclusive circle. There is nothing more absurd than the extent to which some persons bow to the decrees of fashion. Instances are by no means rare in which persons who have been detained in London by some unforeseen necessity or by accident during the ' recesses ' of Easter or Whitsuntide, have been known to draw down their blinds or shut their shutters, and live in some remote or back part of their house, that they may be supposed to have complied with the usages of ' society,' and to have left London for their ' seat in the country.' When Eotten Row is no longer fre- quented, and the throng of carriages in Bond Street and Regent Street is so diminished as not to interfere with the traffic nor peril the lives of the passers-by, and a certain carelessness in the arrangements of the shop-windows betrtiy the fact that the rich and idle are gone beyond the reach of their tempta- tion, country houses become in their turn the centres of festivities and of that social intercour.'-:e which knits families together. During the most bewitching time of the year the claims of the country have been overlooked, and it is therefore but fair that they should be recognized at last. In London 'society' is so exif/einif in her de- mands upon those who go in fw it' that people become her slaves, lose 80 A Week in a Country House. mach of their individuality, and are utterly unlike tlieiu8elves. Few people can withstand tho ordeal of a London life. The ceaseless ronnd of dis^sipation and the multitude of interests, great and small, wliich constitute its claims, are so engross- ing, that the instances are rare in which the same aspect is main- tained in town and country. None are made to feel this more keenly than country cousins who come up to IjOiiil 'M, at rare intervals, for a short time to see the sights and hear the news, in the expectation of finding their friends equally inte- rested in them and their affairs, as devoted to tliemasever, and willing to resume the tliread of their in- tercourse where it had hcen broken off. Vain exiiectation ! Every one knows that in a vast metropolis like London, society is divided and sub- divided into a multitude of different cliques or circles, and that each one is distinct from the otliers, and that every one wlio lives outside any particular circle is as much an alien to it as if he lived in Japan. Hence it arises that country cousins do not fiml themselves on the same level with their relations to whom they are an invaluable ac- quisition in the country, and by ■whom they are fehd ; but seem suddenly t(j have dropped oiit of the mind and heart of those who suffer themselves to be engrossed and carried away by the rapid whirl of a London season. London fine ladies and gentlemen are quite a class sni (/t inn's. They live in a world of their own, obey a law of their own, and speak a language of their own. Excitement follows ex- citement, and anything like com- fortable and rational intercourse is scarcely known among those who give themselves up entirely to the claims and usages of society. It is in country houses, where there is less of that cxclnsiveness which pre- vails in London, and is its bane, that we niust look for that interchange of thoughts and ideas which makes society pleasant. We do not, of course, pretend to deny that Lon- don contains within itself all that is necessary to constitute tho most agreeable society in the world. Where so much talent and such varied gifts are collected together it could not bo otherwise; but wo maintain that, as a rule, the fashion- able world is not tlie soil in which that hii^hest order of intellectual gifts nourishes, nor the atmosphere which is the most conducive to its free expansiou Although eveiy country huu-o has its own especial friends, and its hihif-ui.'s belong more or less to a particular class, there is moie geniality, more reality, more thoroughness in tho inter- course. It is more earnest, more human, and therefore pleasanter and more satisfactory. Jt is not the same hollow, outside work which goes on in London, and it is as Well that there should bo seasons of interruption to that kind of life which fosters what is artificial, and must in the end stifle nature. It was after a season of unusual gaiety, that Mrs. D and her son left Ltmdou and went on their own devices to recruit or amuse them- selves. i\Irs. D went, in the first instance, to the seaside to re- store the colour to her faded cheeks and renovate the strength which had been impaired by what she considered to be tho duties she owed to society. She was a devoted mo- ther, and her chief thought and study was how to advance the interests of her well-beloved son, Arthur; but shemanat:ed with con- siderable tact and eleverness to combine this with providing for herself as much amusement as she could enjoy. Arthur duly appre- ciated his mother's gifts and talents, which xvere considerable, and had alwnvs secured for her a ready ad- mission to the best society ; nor was he less touched by her devotion to himself. Under her protecting wing he had become a welcome guest in many pleasant houses, and Mrs. D showed her worldly wis- dom and savoirfdirf wlien at her in- stigation they parted company for a time with a mutual understanding to keep each other du courant of all that happened. Their letters became a source of the greatest amusement to thera. Their position, age, and circumstances, as well as the different society into which they A WteJc in a Country House. 81 went, secured for tliem the greatest variety of inciilents, wbich they were well able to nuike the most of. It was not long after IMrs. D • had left Brighton, where she devoted herself exclusively to the care of her health, that she yielded to the many pressing invitations which she had recoi veil from her old friends the Gar- ringtons. The Garringtons were plea- sant people; they were hospitable, and knew how to make the best use of the appliances within their reach. They had children in abundance, of all sizes and ages, and two grown- np daughters, who were among the most popular girls in Eelgravia, were the immediate cause of those dinners and concerts and the's dan- Aiintes for which the Garringtons had made themselves fomous. These young ladies were always surrounded by a knot of Cumlieres servantes, who were ever ready to fetch and carry, but these retrievers were for the most part poor, younger sons studying at the bar. However, Lady Garrington was not disquieted on their account, for she had too much conQdence in her daughters' common sense, and in the principles she had inculcated, to have the slightest fear of their making a wrong move in the game of life which lay before them. Our friend Mrs. D was a great acquisition in a country house, for she possessed a fund of good humour, was always ready to bo of use, had a remarkable talent for conversation, as well as other resources, which made her the lifo and soul of whatever society she frequented. It was soon after her arrival at Garrington Manor that she sat herself down to write to ' her boy,' as she always called her son. lier letters were more or less of a journal, but as they are descriptive of the scenes in which she played so conspicuous a part, we will let them speak for themselves. ' Mr DEAU BHY, — Your mother has so much confidence in your care for number one that she will not begin her letter in the old style, "this comes hopping you are well as it leaves me;" but I will tell you my adventures since I left the Pail Mall of the seaside. Here I am at last at Garrington Manor, after the many pressing invitations which I have till now left unheeded. It was by no means a dithcult journey, which, however, Eachel ' (her maid, Ed. L. S.) 'made even less diflicult than it would have been, for her pretty face captivated guards and porters to such a degree that we received the greatest consideration and attention from them, and I doubled it down in my memory as a thing to be re- membered that elderly women who arc addicted to travelling about should secure the attendance of a jDretty girl as lady's maid. On my arrival at the station I found every- thing ready for the removal of my- self, bag and baggage, to the Manor; and when we arrived at the door a bevy of the most polite and obse- quious servants awaited me, hasten- ing to relieve me of my inseparable bag, and assuring me that Lady Garrington had been anxiously ex- pecting me. Before I could tiu-n round I found myself greeted in the warmest manner pos:-ible by my lady, who would insist upon my coming to her own room and having some tea (she knew my weak point), away from all the raclcet and noise which the young people were said to bo making over croquet on the lawn. After sufficient time had been al- lowed for Rachel to unpack, I took refuge in my own room, having ascertained at what hour I was ex- pected to make my appearance. I found Eachel in high glee, getting over her duties with wonderful alacrity, from which I inferred that she had again made a favourable impression, and that men are the same everywhere. You know I al- ways like to be in time, and hate rushing down at the last moment into the midst of a crowd of people whom I don't know ; so when Rachel had turned me off to her satisfaction, and I had been properly got up a giiatre epinc/lcs, I de:-cended to the drawing-room and found that I had it all t» myself. Presently, how- ever, the door opened, and a hand- some youth, whom I had never seen before to my knowledge, sauntered in. It would be incorrect to say ho walked in, it would be more trae to say he rolled himself in. W e looked 82 A Weeh in a Country House. at each other, and the handsome youth seemed to grow afraid of me, for instead of approaching the part of the room where I sat, he rolled himself on towards tlie window, while he drew a cambric handker- chief from his pocket and tenderly smoothed his young moustache. Again the door opened, and a fair and pretty girl tripped in, looking light and airy as a gossamer. She came towards me ; I rose, we curt- seyed, we sqiiiiidled, and said a few nothings to each other, and then the handsome youth began to thaw in the presence of beauty, and we all talked together of la pliiie tt le beau tanjis till the gong sounded, and many steps Avere heard ap- proaching, and the Brownes and the Whites and the Garringtons all flocked in and greeted me. At din- ner the handsome youth sat on my right and Beauty next to him. He was supercilious, and she listened devoutly to his dull platitudes, and I speculated upon how small an amount of thoughts and ideas, when in combination with beaux yeux the tender passion can take root in and exist. Well, all things come to an end, and so did my first evening at Garrington Manor, which I was not sorry for. 'The next morning, after having given spofial directions to Eachel to have my room ready as soon as she could, that I might write my letters, I went down to breakfast, and, to my dismay, found the whole party assembled, busily engaged in discuss- ing their breakfast, but in almost solemn silence. The Garringtons, pere vt mere, were absorbed in their letters, while the rest waited pa- tiently for sucli scraps of news as were vouchsafed to them at inter- vals. It was a solemn affair, and I l)ccame more convinced that it would be a wiser custom for people to eat their breakfast in their own rooms and not appear in public till they had been sustained and forti- fied by it. However, my late en- trance created a diversion. I found your letter on my plate and put it into my pocket after I had satisfied myself that you were all right No Booner \yas breakfast over than I found myself seized upon by the second Garrington girl, who en- treated me to go with ttiem. " Where in the name of heaven am I to go ?" I inquired, thinking all the while that I had only just come, and long- ing to be quiet in my own room. After having quelled iVliss Helen's energetic entreaties by an assurance that I would do whatever was re- quired of me, I found myself engaged to go to Vere Abbey, a beautiful old ruin, I was told, w.'iere it was pro- posed to have a pic-nic. You know my horror of pic-nics, where people try thfir best to make themselves as uncomfortable as they can under the pretence of amusing theijiselves. The handsome youth was attacked by Beauty with numberless inquiries whether he could make a fire of damp sticks and boil a kettle, and I was amused at his look of consterna- tion. However, there is no use in contending with the inevitable, so I quietly acquiesced and came down at the appointed hour duly equipped. The handsome youth and I began to fraternise, and I could not deny my- self the malicious pleasure of teasing him by assuming that pic-nics were his metier, a^d that we all looked to him for help luider the host of pro- bable difficulties which I described as vividly and painfully as I could, while he sat on thorns at the pros- pect before him. When the carriages came round we were not long in arranging and disposing of our party. We all tried to be as merry as we could, and, luckily for us, the sun shone out brightly. After lionising Vere Abbey, which is really a beau- tiful ruin belonging to the old family of the De Veres, we disposed of our- selves according to our inclinations, and the whole party was scattered here and there, on the understand- ing that at a given time all should reassemble for luncheon. I had for- tunately brought my drawing-book and prepared to sketch the ruin, when I was interrupted' by some of the younger Garringtons, who as- sured me they delighted in nothing so much as watching a person draw. " Had I any colours ? Oh ! yes, I see, there they are. May we look at them ?" A thousand questions were asked about what colours made what shades. "Had I a spare sheet of A Week in a Country House. 83 drawing-paper? Would I let them have it?" To all of which I was as complaisant as possible, and soon I saw my colour-box in a mess, my brushes saturated wiili water and paint, the spare sheet daubed over, and in despair I gave up the attempt on finding that I was expected to give a drawing lesson to my young friends, who rau off the moment luncheon-time drew near, leaving me to tidy it all as best I might. Then followed luncheon, when we sat on the damp grass or on the car- riage-cushions, eating cold chicken and pies ami salad, which is always on such occasions associated in my mind with slugs and earwigs. After the cravings of hunger had been satisfied we dispersed again, while the servants regaled themselves and packed up the knives and forks, &c., when we were hurried off, Lady G in despair that it was already so late, as a party of neighbours were expected to dinner, and unless we made great haste there would be scarcely time to dress, which was a subject of the greatest importance in Lady G 's estimation. We did arrive, and, happily, before the in- vited guests, so Lady G was tolerably composed, and with hasty glances at the clock we all rushed off to get ready for dinner. Rachel is invaluable at a pinch, and I was among the first to reach the drawing- room ; but what with the sim, the drive home, and the hurry of dress- ing, I felt scorched and anything but comfortable. However, it was all part of the play, and I was in for it. We were in no lack of subjects for conversation. Vere Abbey, its past history and its present state, was a safe subject, and you will be glad to hear that your mother did not, as you say, " put her foot into it." She was wonderfully cautious and circumspect, and I am sure earned for herself the reputation of being the most matter-of-fact of dames. As far as I was concerned all would have gone on smoothly enough but for one contrdemjjs. Something, I don't know what, per- haps I had canght cold from sitting on the damp grass, or some spiteful fly may have provoked my nose; anyhow something made me sneeze, and in the greatest hurry I had re- course to my pocket hamlkerchief, when to my dismay I found it was the one which I had had in the morning, and which in my hurry I had caught up and put into my pocket. It was all over paint, thanks to my young would-be artist friends. ' The handsome youth looked at me with astonishment, and then hurst into a loud fit of laughter. Beauty was startled at such an un- wonted exhibition, and inquired into the cause, which he was quite unable to explain; and I, seizing the bull by the horns, declared myself to be the innocent occasion of it, and, making a sign to him not to betray me, kept them all for some time on the tiptoe of curiosity, which I at last gratified, when they seemed to me to be vastly disap- pointed that it was nothing worse. ' The next day I thought 1 should have to myself; so I planned ex- actly what I would do, and again gave Rachel strict injunctions to have my room got ready as soon as possible. After breakfast was over, and I had seated myself in my chair, and had collected round me all that I needed, I began to comfort myself with the thought that I should have, at all events, an hour or two to myself, when I heard a gentle tap at the door, and a lovely child with golden hair came in, inquiring whether she might come and sit with me a little while, as her sisters and the governess were gone into the village, and her mamma had said that if she could find Mrs. D , she was sure she would tell her some stories; and mamma says no one can tell a story as well as you. " Will oo tell me one?" added she, implorii.'gly. Who could resist such an appeal ? So I looked at my books and my pen and ink, and all my preparations, and again surrendered myself to the inevitable, but not without a sigh. I moved to the open window, placed my young friend on a chair by my side, and began my story ;■ when again another tap at the door, and another child came in search of her sister, and entreated that she, too, might be allowed to remain and listen to the story. No one ever had 84 A Week in a Country Home. better listeners, so I ought to have been satisfied. I had nearly finished my task, when anot her knock at my door interrupted us, and the eldest of the sisters came to say that her mother wished me to come and sit with her in her room, till luncheon- time, if I was not otherwise en- gaged. At the entreaty of my young friends, I wound up my story and complied with Lady Garrington's request. So that morning v/as gone, and the afternoon was devoted to another excursion, after which we were all expected to play at croquet till dressing time. The next day it was the same thing over again. I got up earlier than usual, to write one or two letters which I could not put off. and after breakfast again took refuge in my room, in the hope of a few moments' peace, which I thought I had secured, for I began a letter to you, which I hoped I might finish before post- time; but at about half-past eleven I was interrupted by a tap at my door, and the door was slowly opened by the eldest daughter, who " hoped she did not disturb me," that I was not particularly engaged, because "mamma" had sent her to ask whether I would make a sketch of her. She already had one which I had done, of her eldest son, who was then with his regiment in India, and she would so like me to do one of her; and she went on to ask whether I would object to Beauty's coming too, to watch how 1 did it. Of course I was only too glad to be of use, and begged her to go and fetch her friend Beauty, while I got my materials ready. So, in sheer vexation of spirit, I put the letter I had begun to you into the fire, and got my paper, and chalk, and paints all ready for the operation. 1 knew well enough what Beauty's coming meant. It was only a prelude to my making a sketch of her ; so I prepared with a good grace to re- ceive all the hints which oozed out in due time. This occupied me the remainder of my mornings whilo I stayed at the Manor; and as ilm afternoons were devoted to driving and croquet, and the evenings to dancing and singing, I had no tinw to myself, but was kept in a con- tinual whirl of occupation which had nothing to do with the many things I wanted to do. Poor Lady Garrington! she is kindness itselt, and very warmhearted, but she does not realize the fact that peoplts have their own interests and pur- suits which they may wish to attend to. She has an idea that there cannot be any happiness in the world without some sort of gaiety ; that the moment breakfast has been disposed of a carte must be ar- ranged for the disposal of every hour of the day ; and that a country house must be the abode of dulness unless one is always on the trot hunting after amusement and diver- sion of some kind. There never can be any repose where she is, and I am no longer surprised at the way in which Lord G shuts himself up in his own room and is scarcely visible except at meal-times. Yet her kindness is so great, and she has so much real desire to make her guests happy, and takes so much trouble to effect it (though it must be confessed that she likes to do it her own way and not theirs), that one cannot quarrel with her, or be otherwise than touched by her wish to make her house pleasant.' * * * The remainder of Mrs. D 's letter related to matters which con- cerned only herself and her son, and possess no interest for others. Her week at Garrington Manor is a fair sample of life at some country houses, where there are marriage- able daughters, and where frantic efforts are being made for the amusement of the company. To those who are neither in their pre- miere jeuncsse nor have daughters on hand, such a life is a positive penance, from which one is only too glad to escape in spito of all its hospitality. Visits in Country Houses. 85 VISITS IN COUNTRY HOUSES. No. II. WHEN Mrs. D and her son separated after the London season, each bent upon as full an enjoyment of country life as could be obtained, they made a compact to acquaint each other with their experiences. Mrs. D fulfilled her part of the contract in the letter which she wrote to her son Arthur from the Garringtons, in which she described very vividly one phase of society in country houses. Arthur's first visit was to one of his oldest friends, who was a millionaire and a large landed proprietor in the West of England. Sir Archibald Edmons'one had been Arthur's friend at Eton and at Oxford, and now it rarely happened that either of them went to Eichmond, or Ascot, or Epsom, or, in fiict, any party of pleasure in which the other was not liis companion. Scarcely a day passed without their mieting either at their respective homes, or in Rotten Row, or at their clubs. No brothers were ever more insepa- rable; and the first move which Arthur made out of London was in the direction of Garzington Hall, where' he was to pick up Sir Archi- bald and accompany him to Scotland. Garzington Hall was a large mo- dern house, situated in the mid-st of a fine old park which had belonged to the EdmoDstones for generations. It was a place to be proud of, for it was very beautiful, surrounded by the most magnificent woods, and, from some points, commanding very fine views of the sea, wliich was about eight miles off as the crow flies. Sir Archibald was about a year older than his friend. His house was still the home of his brother and sisters, who did all they could to make it pleasant to their brother and his friends. He deserved this of them, for there never was a more dutiful son nor a kinder brother; and his great wish was that when he came of age there should be no change in the old ways. Often had his mother re- monstrated, saying it was better for her to get out of the way betimes before his wife came to turn her out ; to which remonstrance he in- variably replied, ' Time enough, mother, time enough, I love mj 86 ■■:;'.:«> V,;., v. Visile in Country Houses, liberty too well to part with it just yet.' The Edmonstone family consisted of three sisters and a younger brother, who was still at Eton, They were a racketting lot. Two of the sisters were ' out,' and the third and youngest on the very verge of that interesting moment in every young lady's life, when she bids adieu for ever to tlie scho;)l room and mixes in the gay and giddy world. They were rather ' fast,' and ratber noisy; greater favourites with the gentlemen than with those of their own sex, who were somewhat afraid of tbein. They could ride weU, and across country, too, some- times; they could pull an lar across the lake which formed the southern boundary of ttie garden ; thoy could skate, and had been known to shoot, and were not bad sliots either. They were almost invincible at croquet; and the knack with which they sent their adversaries' hall flying across the ground was the envy of many of the gentlemen. Thev could play at billiards, too ; and yet the more feminine accomplishments of singing and di\awing had not been by any means neglected. Their mother, Lady Theodosia, was a very clever woman— rather blue, but de- cidedly clever and original, and with a horror of conventionalisms which prevented her seeing any objection to many of the amuse- ments in which her daughters ex- celled, but for which many of her friends blamed her and them behind their backs, denouncing them as man ish, unladylike and noisy girls, and congratulating themselves and thanking Heaven and blessing their stars that thdr daughtei's had more regard for the cDureituuccs of society and for what they called ' decoium.' But the Bliss Eiunonstoncs were as good, honest, warm-hearted, and generous girls as could be found, singularly fiee from the petty jea- lousies which disfigure so many of their own age and sex. Nor were they by any means devoid of talent ; they inherited a fair share of their mother's cleverness, and could con- verse as pleasantly and rationally as most people and much more plea- santly than most girls of their age. They were free from maitvatsc lontc, and yet by no means free and easy. Devoted to their brother, they were always ready for any fun of his sug- ges-ting, confident that he never would mislead them into doing anything that was really unbecoming, or could compromise them in the remotest degree. Such was the family by whom Arthur was always well re- ceived as one of their brother's oldest and best friends. At this time there was a large gathering for certain cricket matches which usually came off about this time. To make them a more popular in- stitution in theneighbourhood, Lady Theodosia collected as many young people together as she could, and while the days were devoted to cricket, which was anxiously watched by crowds of neighbours and guests for whose accomuio lation marquees had been conveniently placed, the evenings were f-ptnt in talileauxand dancing, which left little time for repose, and made Garzington Hall the most popular place in the county. All the country belles lookoil forward to these annual gatherings and festivities as their 'red-letter days;' and as specula- tions upon them were the j^eneral theme of conveisation before they took i^lace, so tlieir reminiscences were canvassed over and over again. It was fromJGarzington that Arthur's first letter was dated. 'My dearest Mother, — You are woniiering why I don't write, and have been abusing me like a pick- pocket for my silence; but if you only knew what we have been doing day after day your wonder would turn altogether the other way. Even now I am uriting at 4 a.m. with only one eye open, the other being fast asleep, for I am dead tired, and if I had any time to thiid^ ahout anything I dare say I shouM tiiid out that I had every coneeivjibju ache that over-fatigue can proilncc. But don't let your maternal heurt become anxious o)i my account. 1 am very v^ell, though nearly worn out with the endless racket of this place. Cricket by day and dancit'g by night leave one's legs very little time to rest. Luckily, Lady Theo- Visits in Country Houses. 8^ dosia is very meroifal, and gives ns some law at brcakfast-tinie. I am generally the last, and, if I flared, would be later still, for, houiehow, I am more tired when I get up than when I go to bed. At about 11.30 the wickets are pitched, and by 12 o'clock we are at work. The weather has been fino, and almost too hot. Unluckily, I liave alway.s been on the Icsins,- side, but we have had capital matches. You will care more for a dcsi riptiou of thu foik, their names, weiglits, and colours, than for any accmuitof the lua'ches, which are the engrossing subject here; and yet I think you will like to know the sort of life it is. There has been a cricket match every day, and as it generally lusts till dressing- time there is really vtry little time for anything else. Then dinner is succeeded by prepaiations for " tableaux," which are in their turn followed by dancing. I honestly confess that I think this is too much of a good thing. On one or two occasions, when thecriiket was over sooner thai", usual, we were instantly bad in request for croquet matches, in which the ladies certainly ex- celled. Tlieo. Edmonstonsi is the best croquet-player I ever saw. I wish you could have seen how well she put down ttat conceited young puppy Parker. It was as good as a play. You must know that " Happy Parker," as he i.s called, considers himself an awful swell. He is rich, rather good-looking, and has been, I am told, the spoilt cliild of fortune. He is in the Blues, and is made a fuss with because he has lots of money, good horf^e?;, good shooting, and a good temper. He thinks the whole world is ready to be his hum- ble servant. He had never i^een at Gaizington before, and scarcely kncAvs Edmonstone, never saw Lady Thcodosia, and was once introdu.ced I0 the second girl, Nina, who holds him in special aversion. I never saw aiiy one so cool, free and easy, and off hand as he is. He swaggers about as if he was bent on showing off his paces, and behaves as if he was the most intimate friend of the family iusteal of what ho is, almost a stranger. One night, when Theo. Edmonstone had been looking after some of the guests, and had been getting partners for some of her country neij^hbours, and was stand- ing alone and apart from the dancers, " Happy Parker" comes up with an air and a grace, and in a cool, off- hand way frays to her, •' You're doing nothing; would \(m like to dance with me? Come aloi:g." To which she quietly replied, loD^ing him fidl in the face, " No I thank >ou; tliat would indted be one degree wnrso' than doing not ling." He looked awfully sold ; Imt. he had lound his match, for she i.s the la^t girl to stand any nonsen.^o of that sort, and it is time for him to 1 e brought to his bearings. You talk of not having a moment to you 1 self Like Miss i^Iiggs, jou consider you are always toiling, moiling, never "giving satisfaction, never having time to clean Aour.-e!f— a potter's wessel ;" but what would yoii think of this Hfe? It would kill the strongest man in no time at all, and would flog Bautii g out of the field. You are hunted from cricket to croquet, from croquet to tableaux and charades, and then to dancing, and the intervening time is devoted to dre>sing and dining, and you are lucky if you cet to litd by 4 o'clock A.M. ; for, after the ball, we men ad- journ to the smokine-rnom, where we wind up the festivities with cigars and cooling boveiages, and talk over the events of the day, and criticise some fair dcbnt'tntc who has blossomed for the fust time at the Garrington Ball. To night, the last of the series, we wound u]> with Sir Roger de Coverley, sang God save the Queen and Jolly Do^s all in chorus, and gave sundry cheers for Lady Theodosia and the house of Edmonstone. 'But now about the "ot'^cr folk." The house has been as fidl as it can liold, and feveral men sleep over the stables, your humble servant among the number. Lord anil Lady Camelford and thi ir son and daugh- ter. Lady Bliinche Pioss and her husband. Lady neor,i>ina Roach and her two daughters, besides the^ Thompsons, tho.se very pretty Miss Nashes, and Lord and Lady Fair- light, and some coimtry neighbours. There are, of courae, a lot of men. 88 Visits in Country Homes. " loose men " as Lady would call them, some of whom are in- vited because of their skill at cricket. Tom Lee and young Dry- sfix are among the number. As usual, Tom Lee is the autocrat of the cricket-field, t'le ball-room, and Kmokiiig-room. He lays down the law in tli(^ most insufferable manner, and considers no one has any right to do anything of a ly kind without his permif^sion. 1 cannot imagine why he i^ asked everywhere, for very few peoplu like him, as his cool indifference with regard to the likes and dislikes of his neighbours almost amounts to impertinence. His success hist year when he was on the Northern Circuit has made him more unbearable than ever. But as he is too unpleasant a subject to dwell upon, I will tell you about the tableaux. La )y Fairlight and the youngest of the three Miss Nashes were the belles. You can- not imagine any tiling more beautiful than Lady Fairlight as Mary Queen of Scots at lier execution. Lady Camelford's daughter and the Miss Roaches were Iter maids of honour, and young Lord Tufton was the executioner. Lady Fairlight was dressed in black velvet. In the first tableau she appeared absorbed in prayer while her maids of honour stood weeping around her; and in the second she was in the act of giving her "beads" to one of her ladies. 1 never saw anything like her expression in this last scene. It was a combination of resignation at her own f^ad fate and tender com- passion ibr tho-e she was about to leave for ever. The next tableau was froui the " Rape of the Lock," in which the yo'ingcj-t of the Nashes represented Beliutla. She was ex- quisitely dressed, find as her fore- head is low the effect of her hair being drawn otf away from her face was exceedingly good, especially as she has a good brow. Altogether with powder, and flowers jauntily set on the top and side of the moun- tain of coiffure which she wore, and with patches, and sac, and short petticottts displaying a small foot and neat ankle, she was as lovely a sight as could be seen. Tom Lee did his part well. His unwhiskered face came in admirably for such a tableau. He was capitally dressed, and so were Miss Nash's two sisters, who filled up the back- ground. The last tableau was of Elaine as ahe was V)orne along in her barge. Ellen Pendarve's fine outline came out beautifully as she lay upon the bier, and Lord Camel- ford's masculine head and features with the addition of a snowy beard well represented the "dumb old servitor" who steer'd the dead " upward with the flood." • In her right hand the lily, in her left The letter — all her bright hair streaminK down — And all ihe coverlid was cloth of gold Down to her waist, and she herself in white All hut her face, and that clear- featured face Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled.' I am not sure it was wise to finish the tableaux with one so sad— for it was not easy to shake off the im- pression quickly, and it was only by a kind of an effort that we returned to jollity. However, we did manage to recover ourselves, and were as jolly as ever, dancing away merrily to fiddle and fife. Our charades were even better than the tableaux ; . and some of the acting was admirable. Young Drystix made a first-rate conspirator in "Counterplot," and Lord Tufton a capital man milliner. The passages between him and Theo. Edmonstone were admirable. " The Peer," as Tom Lee, his bear leader, calls him, has a quantity of black, greasy-looking hair, a bright colour, good features, and an inci- pient moustache, which he is al- ways manipulating tenderly; and altogether he well represented that peculiar class of mankind which is devoted to measuring tapes and laces by the yard and to proffering their goods to the fair sex in the most irresistible manner. It seemed to me quite his metier to unfold silks and satins, and assure the pur- chasers that they were " the newest style," the "ntost fashionable," "quite distinguished,'' &c., &c. Theo. Ed mous tones contemptuous banter of him, and reckless incon- siderateness in making him display his goods, without the remotest in- tention of purchasing any, exhibited Visits in Country Souses. 89 to the life the mode in which some ladies of our acquaintance conduct themselves in certain shops which profess to provide them with all that is requisite to their success and reputation in society. And now, dear mother mine, I must shut up and get to bed, for Edmonstone and I are off early to-morrow on our way to the North. I will write to vou again as soon as I can, but if we are worked as hard at Staple- ton's as we have been here, I shall not have much time to write. What a pity and a bore too, it is that some of the kindest- hearted and most good-natured people in the world make life such a toil to them- selves and their fiit nds. There are people who are always striving to get fourteen pence out of every shilling, and so there are others whose sole object is to get more hours out of every day than is to be got, aud so it is all " hurry scurry " after amusement of some kind.' Arthur and Sir Archibald set off early, and travelled as luxuriously and comfortably together as it is possible in this most luxunoixs age. By dint of proper precautions, in direct contravention of the orders and regulations issued by the direc- tors, and in contempt of the penal- ties and anathemas annexed to any infringement of those orders, the two friends were able to propitiate the guards so as to secure for them- selves the undisputed and undis- turbed possession of one compart- ment, in which they slept and smoked and talked and read as they felt inclined ; and in due course of time they arrived at their desti- nation, where they had been invited for grouse-shooting and deer-stalk- ing. The nickname by which ' the Lodge ' was known among a certain set of familiar friends was 'Liberty Hall,' because the owner aud master of it piqued himself upon allowing every one to do just what he liked, and neither more nor less than he pleased. The bee might be as busy as he would, and the drone as idle. It was from Liberty Hall that Ar- thur despatched his second letter to his mother. * Dearest Mother, — It seems to me the world is always in extremes. At Garzington we were never al- lowed a moment to ourselves. We were hunted from pillar to post, never might be sulky or indulge any wayward fancy of one's own ; and here we are allowed to do what we like, go where we like, and indulge any passing mood. I have been here a week, and have very little to tell you; but you will rail at me, and return to your old charge again-t all men, aud say that they can never be pleased, if I say that I do not think the absence of all rule and law, as it exists at " Liberty Hall," conduces to one's comfort The fact is, than when the maNter of the house surrenders his right to plan and devise for the amusement of his guests, every one is at a loss to know what to do, and the practi- cal result is that we either go about amusing ourselves in a "shilly- shally" kind of way, or else sub- mit to the dictation of some ruling but less scrupulous individual who forces his own views upon others as to what is or is not the thing to be done. We have at this moment an instance in point. Hervey Gray, a cousin of our host, presumes upon his relationship, and absorbs all the "gillies," and directs us all with much more imperiousness than his cousin ever would assume. At the beginning of our visit we were left very much to ourselves, and had each of us a gilly of our o^vn, and whatever else we wanted, but there was no plan— no combination, — and it did not answer, especially as the master of " Liberty Hall " is not himself much of a sportsman, and has taken " the Lodge " more for the honour and glory of the thing than for his own special love of sport; but now Hervey Gray rules us with a rod of iron, and, though fond of shooting, but very ignorant of the noble art of deer-stalking, lays down the law for us, for the keepers, for the gillies, for every- body and everything, and his law is not always good or pleasant. In short, I am altogether rather out of humour, and think that it is possible to have too much of one's own way, and that Hervey 90 Visits in Country Homes. Gray is not a ^ood substitute for the laird of "Liberty Hall." ' Arthur D was quite right in saying that it does not conduce to comfort when the master is not master. It is like an arch without its keystone ; there is no centre, no point of union. The combination of law and liberty is rare, but where it exists, it promotes happiness. It sounds almost absurd to use such grand words and ideas for the expression of a very pimple fact — that the pleasantest houses are those in which the owners occupy themselves for the comfort and entertainment of their guests, and arrange for them what shall be done, and at the same time make it quite appreciable by all that each one is at liberty to say "yea" or "nay" according to the bias of his own mind. It is difficult t6 steer clear of the two opposite evils of which Garzington Manor and Liberty Hall are the types ; but there are houses in which the gifted hosts and hostesses contrive to pro- vide for their guests whatever shall be most conducive to their enjoy- ment without fussiiiess or dictation. No one is nrglected ; all are consi- dered ; and life passes so easily and pleasanlly, without noise or confu- sion, that we thinking people are scarcely conscious of the amount of tiict, consideration, and fore- thought which they ought to place to the credit of those who make it a part of the business of their life to contribute, as far as they can, to the social enjoyment of their friends. ' Tom Slkmjkb.' Visits in Country Houses. 91 VISITS IN COUNTRY HOUSES. No. III. AFTER having mntually fol- lowed their own devices, Mrs. D and her son Arthur agreed to meet at Hornby Castle, where the Dnku of Broadlands entertained a large party, to celebrate the comins of age of his eldest son, Lord Prmulacre. Hornby Castle well represented the family to whom it had belfnged for so many years. It was a stately, turreted castle, which had been built about a century ago, on the site of an old hou.se which, for many generations, had satisfied the more mode-rate requirements of those who were then lords of the manor of Hornby ; for ' Hornby Manor ' had not then developed into 'Hornby Castle.' It was left to after gene- rations to form alliances, and accu- mulate wealth and laud, which placed the Duke of Broadlands on a level with the most noble and wealthy. By a marriage with the greatest heiress of her day, and the sole representative of an ancient house, whose alliance had been universally courted for many pre- ceding generations, they took the name of ' Goldust ;' and after adding field to field, and enlarging their borders, they pulled down the old house, which had sheltered them and theirs with its ancient respec- tability for so long a time, and whose walls had resounded with the merry voices of all the children who had grown up under its roof, and built a gorgeous castle, which, as we have already said, well repre- sented the estate of its noble occu- piers. It was a handsome building, if turrets and towers, and a huge ma^s of masonry, covering a con- siderable area, constitute beauty of any kind. All who appreciate what is genuine, and hate pretension, turned away from it, if not with disgust, at all events with dissatis- faction at there being so little to interest them. It was impossible to help being attracted by its im- mensity. It overawed the beholder as it stretched itself out along the valley, occupying, with its stablesand outbuildings, which were all built in the same ma .-.ive and imposing style, with its gardens, and lawns, and pleasure-grounds, a vast extent of land, infinitely greater than any one would suppose Irom merely looking down upon it from the heights above. Nature had proved herself a kind friend to Hornby Castle, for nothing could surpass the beauty of the park and its sur- rounding scenery. Wood and water, fern, heather, and gorse, undulating ground, well- wooded hills protecting it from the cruel north winds; and on the southern side an extensive view over a rich and beautifully- wooded country, which melted away into the blue distance of the far horizon. Such a prospect could rarely be seen, and many an eye rested on it in silent pleasure, glad to turn away from the castle itself, which afforded so little interest. All that wealth could accomplish had been done to adorn the castle. In- side and out it told of money, but, great and imposing as it was, it sunk into less than insignificance in the presence of Nature. Hornby Castle now appeared in its most attractive form; for so large a house, filled as it was throughout, from top to bottom, and in every nook, with a goodly assemblage of persons of all ages, bent upon enjoying themselves, and doing all possible honour to the occasion which called them together, could not fail in affording amuse- ment and pleasure to its guests. It was so large that, when fully in- habited, it seemed almost to contain the population of a small town ; and this circumstance in itself was a security for success, because every one was sure to find some congenial society. The young are easily pleased, and ready to find some good in everything. To them every cloud has a silver lining; and no- thing is wholly evil in their eyes. But their elders are neither so easily satisfied nor so well disposed. 92 Visits in Country Houses. They are more critical, and more exifjeant — more something which interferes with their enjoyment of life. But at Hornby Castle he mnst have been very ciabbed and hard to please who could not find something pleasant and congenial in the varied society which was now collected in honour of Lord Proudacre's having attained his majority. Mothers with lovely daughters— and of course all mothers think their daughters lovely — were in a flutter of delight, for who could tell that the youug mil- lionaire might not be eprii^ with one of them? At all events, it was not impossible, and, to many minds, what is not absolutely impossible soon becomes hopeful. It had been a profitable tiuie for the milliners, for no expense was spared by the 'chaperons' to embellish the ap- pearance of their lovely charges. Everything that could set off their wares to the best advantage on so important an occasion was universally voted to be money well spent, which might, possibly, return a high inteiest. There was that vulgar Lady Chesterfoid with her daugliter, no longer young, but who imagined she pof^sessed the gift;, of eternal youth, and who always selected the last and most popular debutante as her ' dear friend,' as if all the rest were too old to be her companions. She was always, like her mother, dressed in the most outre fashion ; and it was said, and generally believed, that poor Lord Chesterford, who had nothing but his pension as a retired and now superannuated cliancellor, found himself nearly swamped by the cost- liness and variety of the toilettes of his wife and daughter. He was a somewhat prosy man, but could tell a story well; and his everlasting reminiscences oL)tained for him a certain amount of succors. He was one of the Duke of Broad lands' oldest political friends, and they used to retire into remote corners to eettle the affairs of the state, which, if the expie-sion of their faces, and the solemnity of their manner might be taken as any indi- cation of its condition, it might be inferred that the country was on the very verge of ruin. Then there was Lady Caroline Hardy and her daughter, who is one of the beauties of the day, but who, for some inex- plicable reason, is not popular. Whether she is dull or ill-tempered it is impossible to say, because opinion is divided, but she has not the success to which her Itcauty entitles her. Her mother was a celebrated beauty, but not over- wise ; and it was always said that her husband was not sorry to die, and used to say, with a double entendre in h.is words, that he had prayed for many years lor his re- lease. Mr. and Lady Barbara Bucket and their son and daughter con- tributed their share to the enter- tainment of the company at Hornby Castle. She was an ambitious woman, who was always aiming at bemg the grande dame of the county in which she lived. She was a discreet woman, for she never let any one know the inside of her mind. It was possible it had no inside ; but if it had she guarded it well, so that no one should look into it. She had an eternal smile, of a peculiar kind, in which the thin upper lip seemed lost in teeth ; and say what you would, of sorrow or joy, you were sure to be greeted by the same inexpressive smile. Her sole object in life was to become the reigning queen of Swampsbire. Her husband was a man who lived upon the news ho gleaned from other men, and he had a peculiar way of creeping up to people who were engaged in con- versation, that he miglit learn the subject of it. His thirst for inform- ation was unbounded, and he was generally known as ' the Swamp- shire Investigator.' He would have made an admirable reporter had his lot in life been cast differently. As it was, he was always welcomed by those who live upon other people's affairs, and room was always made for him in certain coteries of tea- drinking elderly women, who in- variably greeted him by saying, 'Ah, here's Mr. Bucket; he is sure to know all about it. He will tell us. Oh, Mr. Bucket, we are so glad to see you. Have you heard whether it is true that Lady Jones called her husband Sir Henry an old fool. Visits in Country Houses. 9a because he lost thirty shilh'ngs at whist to Sir Eal pit (jambler? And do you know whether it is true tliat Lord and Lady Goosey are going to be separated because tliey are al- ready tired of each other ? You are sure to know, because you know everything.' Then Mr. Bucket would twiddle his watch-key, and would say that he 'did not know, but had heard,' &c. All these people furnished a fund of amuse- ment to tliose who appreciated their propensities, or liked 1o pJay them off for the entertainment of others. Mrs. D and her sou weresnch pleasant, cheery, and unpretentious people that they were always well received ; besides whicli they were so pleasant to themselves and one another, that they were, without any eltbrt on their part, agreeable com- pany generally. Mrs. D— — , who had a natural gift for private theatricals, was in great request; and as she loved burnt cork, foot- lights, and everything connected with the stage, she was in her element at once, ready to give a help- ing hand wherever it was wanted. She could improvise a dress out of very scanty materials, and could compose the most successful pro- logue on the shortest notice. She could arrange a tableau with true artistic skill; and as tableaux and private theatricals were a part of the programme of the festivities, she was in hourly requisition — the referee on all disputed points, who could, with her consummate tact, make people do exactly what they were required to do. She and her son Arthur, in the meanwhile, enter- tained themselves each day by comparing notes, and commenting on the events as they occurred; and the daily reunions between mother and son were the best com- mentary of the proceedings which took place on the momentous occa- sion of Lord Proudacre's attaming his majority. Not only in the immediate neigh- bourhood of Hornby Castle, but throughout the length and breadth of the county of Tuftunsh're the Duke of Broad lands was hold in great awe and respect. His word was law; his disapproval a grave calamity. Surrounded by small squires and self-important clergy, he reigned like a king over the whole county ; and they who were so fortunate as to be admitted within the gracious precincts ot Hornby Castle, and into the Duke's confidence, were the envy of all their neighbours, and themselves elated at the notice that was taken of them. It was quite a tradition in the county that the mind ctf his Grace, on all local politics, shouM be taken before any one woul I venture to move in any matter; and when, on a certain memora\)le occasion, one of the squires of Tnitantshire presumed to have an opinion of his own, and to endeavour to maintain it against the Duke of Broadlands, the whole of that deferential county was aghast at his presumption, and was in haste to propitiate the favour of the Duke, and assure him that it was but an isolated instance of a man daring to think for himself. The clergy and the gentry were, in fact, more or less dependents of the great man. They who were in favour were flattered by it to their very bent, and they who were not lived on hoping, even against hope, that their turn mi«ht come some day. The submissiveness and deference of these good people, their anxiety to propitiate the rising sun, and to do all honour to the Goldast family, was a source of great ai.iur5ement to Mrs. D and her son, who commented on the flunkey ism of these country folk in no measured terms. ' Mother,' said Arthur D one day, as he sat in Mrs. D 's room, in the interval before dressing-time, talking over the events of the day, and canvassing the various guests who had arrived,— 'Mother, did you see what a fix that poor Mr. Luvtin was in when the " great man " called on him to repeat what he was saying to that young liberal, Harry Phree- think ? How he stammered and spluttered; and how sold he wa?' when Harry, enjoying the fun, said that Mr. Luvtin was agreeing with him in thinkmg that there should be an extension ot the franchise, but that they had only as yet agreed 94 Visits in Country Houses. that a bill should be introduced, but had not settled the details.' 'Oh ! that was it, then, that made the Duke give one of his ominous "Ah's!"' 'Yes; and did you see how it shut up poor old Luytin ? I pitied the man. He won't sleep a wink while he is in the house, because he will feel he has regularly put his foot into it. How I did enjoy it, though !' ' It was a shame, though, my dear Arthur, of your friend Harry to make so much mischief.' ' Miscliief, mother ! why, bless you, it will blow over in no time.' ' Never, Arthur. The Duke never allows the clergy to think for them- selves. Besides, if I mistake not, Mr. Luvtin has one of the Duke's livinus.' Arthur gave no reply, save a pro- longed whi.stle. ' What are you going to do, mother, about that young Itaffles? He'll never know his part, and he is such an awful stick. In that love scene with Eva Eobarts (by Jove, mother, what a pretty girl slie is!) he provokes me out of all patience.' ' No doubt, my boy ; I can well believe it. Would you like to take his place ?' 'Nonsense! I don't mean that. I am not such a fool as that. Why, the girl has not a penny, mother.' 'I admire your philosophy, Ar- thur ; and, after all, '' her fa^e is her fortune," as the old song fa.ys.' ' I want to ask you, mother, who is that Doctor Medlar, that seems to be such an authority in arranging some of the tableaux?' 'I cannot tell, except that he is a great friend of the Duchess's — her own pet doctor that she swears by, and who seems to have the run of the house.' ' I hate the man !' 'So do I.' ' Did you see how he took hold of Emily Fitzgibbon's chin, and said, " A little more this way, if you please -a l(;etle more still. Thank you ; that will do. Now the head a little thrown back ; thank you. Allow me," and again the fellow took hold of her chin to arrange her pose as he liked. I had no piitience with him.' ' And how did Emily Fitzgibbon like it?' 'Like it! She looked as if she could have knocked him down. Did you hear that after it was over she went up to Lady Lavinia Gol- dust, and said she must decline taking any further part in the tableaux?' ' No ; did she though ! I wonder whether that is really true, because Lord Proudacre seems rather taken with her, and I don't somehow think she would like to affront them.' ' Perhaps not ; but I can tell you she was awfully put out; and when that little doctor came forward after- wards, to assure her that it was the best tableau of the evening, she scarcely vouchsafed him any reply, but gave him a look expressive of ineffable contempt. I think it was, after all, your fault, mother.' ' Mine! How could it bo mine? What could I have to do with that man?' ' You could have prevented his interfering.' ' Lady Lavinia and her mother assigned to us our proper places, and, as you know, I am mistress of the robes, and have to arrange all about the dresses. I am the genius that presides over calico, cotton, velvet, and the rouge-pot. But there goes the dressing-bell, and if you don't hurry off I shall not be in time for dinner, and shall again offend against the laws of Hornby Castle, of which punctuality is one.' ' I say, mother, what a pompous, stiff old prig he is.' 'Yes; but a most kindhearted man. I have known him do the most generous acts, in spite of his character for stint and screw.' ' Well, I must be off, else I shall offend his mightiness.' Every day they sat down fifty to dinner. There was a magnificent state dining-room, capable of accom- modating a vast number, and even this large party was not out of pro- portion to it. It was built of stone, with richly groined roof, and hand- some oak panelling occupied one- third of the walls. A huge fireplace Visits in Country Houses. 95 and richly-carved stone chimney- piece filled up the centre uf the room, reaching almost np to the ceiling : while a large oriel window opposite the fireplace, and another of the same character, only larger still, at right angles to it, added to its appearance. It was one of tlioso rooms which strike the beholder with awe. It required numbers to be able to grapple with its oppres- sive magni licence, and a smaller party would have been silenced by it. As it was, the room resounded with the sound of merry voices, and there was no lull in the laughter and merriment that prevailed. The first day the Duke of Broadlands seemed bewildered by the unwonted sounds, and, had he dared, would have been tempted to read the Riot Act; but his astonishment gave way before the resolute determina- tion of every one to enjoy himself, and be was carried away by the strong current, and found himself at last taking part in the surround- ing revelry. As the Duchess left the dining- room, she went up to the Duke and begged him not to remain there long, as so much had to be done in the way of entertainment for the large company of neighbours who were expected to arrive for the tableaux and ball which was to succeed them. The tenantry had been already regaled in the most sumptuous manner. The preceding day, which was the important one in Lord Proudacre's life, had been devoted to feasting the tenants and the poor on the estate. Each poor family had beef and bread, plum-pudding and beer, and a week's wages ; and every cottage bore ample testimony to the unwonted generosity and liberality of the Duke of Broad- lands. The tenants had been as- sembled in a large iron room which bad been erected for the occasion, and all the company at the Castle dmed with them, and it was gene- rally voted to have been great fun. The Duke relaxed somewhat from his wonted dignity of manner, and actually condescended to some play- ful witticisms in his intercourse with Jiis tenants. Lord Proudacre acquitted himself more than credit- ably ; and there were some who were malicious enong'ti to say that there were indications of his views be- coming more liberal than any which bad hitherto prevailed at Hornby Castle— a suspicion which never en- tered the Duke's head, happily both for himself and Lord Prouilacre; for if such an idea had suggested itself to him as a possibility, it must have led to distrust and estrangement, as the Duke looked upon political con- sistency as the greatest of moral virtues, and would have preferred any esdandre to the abandonment of the family tradition. No sooner had the gentlemen left the dining-room, than Mrs. D was hurried off to her green-room, where, with rouge-pot, paint, and powder, she was soon busily em- ployed in putting the finishing touches to those who were to figure in the tableaux. Dr. Medlar was busy on the stage, in front of which a large gold frame was fastened, across the inside of which some crape had been strained. But the little doctor was the presiding genius, giving offence to all save the Duchess, who could see no fault in her 'dear Doctor Medlar.' He wa^' a little man. with bright eyes, a hook-nose, and brilliant com- plexion; not unlike a Jew, very unlike a gentleman, with effemi- nate, would-be-insinuating manners. Mrs. D was referred to very often, because the spirit of rebellion against the doctor was very general, and none of the ladies, young or old, liked to be twisted and twirled about at his pleasure, as if they were nothing better than lay figures. There was the scene between Jeanie and Effie Deans in prison ; between Sir Henry Lee and Alice, where she kneels at his feet, while he sat in a wicker arm-chair, listen- ing to a respectable old man whose dilapidated dress showed something of the clerical habit ; and another in which the Fair Maid of Perth listens, in an attitude of devout attention, to the instructions of a Carthusian monk. But one of the happiest of all was a Dutch picture, in which a family group was repre- sented, some engaged in needle- 96 Visits in Country Homes. work, others playing at cards, while some younger ones played with their toys on the floor, as their elders slept soundly in their arm- chairs, with half-emptied glasses by their side. The grouping, the varied dresses, all the accessories told so well that it took every one by sur- prise, and elicited the most enthu- siaslic applause. After these were over, they adjourned to the diaw- ing-rooms, and then reassembled in the saloon, where dancing was kept up until a late hour. The next morning, Arthur D felt disicclined to join the party in the racket- court, and, yawning from sheer fatigue (for he had been in great request for the tableaux, and was an inveterate dancer), he saun- tered leisurely into his mother's room, saying — • Well, mother, will you bet? Is Prourlacre going to marry Emily Fitzgibbon ?' ' Marry Emily Fitzgibbon ! — not he. Why, no Goldust ever married e Whig. The Duke would dieot it.' ' But, mother, ftUows sometimes think lor themselves on such mat- ters.' ' Perhaps so : but that will never be. I should pity her it that were to take place, for she would not have a comfortable berth of it.' ■ Why so ?' 'Becaui^e the Duke takes upon himself the responsibility of think- ing for all his family, and he would never forgive the intrusion of such thorough Whig blood into his house.' ' Is he such a bigot in politics?' ' Yes, indeed ; in politics, in reli- gion, in everything. Don't you see in what awe he is held by all the county-people?— how they bow and scrape when they come within a hundred yards of him ?' ' By-the-by, did you see what a fright young Snobere was in, when he nearly knocked his Grace over as he was waltzing with that gay Mrs. Neerdowell? He stammered his apologies as if his last hope of heaven was on the very verge of being lost. He was in such an awful fright.' ' Who is it you are speaking of, Arthur? Is it that round, chubby- faced youth who asked you, when you were in the green-room, wbat sort of tap they kept at Hornby Castle ?' ' Yes, mother, the same. He was the fellow you paddtd so nicely for the sk-epy Dutchman m tlie "Family Group." ' ' I reuiember ; and who has beea making such violent love to Blanche Oxen ford.' ' Exactly ; whenever, at least, Mrs. Neerdowell will let him.' ' By-theby, Arthur, who is that Mrs. Neerdowell? She is very pretty ; but rather dangerous, isn't she?' ' Well, there are all sorts of stories about her. Some say she is a widow ; others that she is a divorcee ' 'What? a divorcer at Hornby Castle! Why, the very walls would fall upon us if such a thing were even suspected. But what is she ?' ' I cannot tell : I have been try- ing to find out. She came with those Merewethers that the Dulie was so civil to.' * And she is determined to take our fat Dutchman by storm ; and he, foolish fellow! is flattered by it. Arthur, you men are silly fellows.' 'Because, dear mother, you wo- men are so pleasant. Isn't that it?' * I don't know why it is ; only that there is no man that a clever woman cannot male most likely to a'tiact tlie atten- tion of an intelligent fo- reigner, on his Hr.st visit to ihe metropolis, 1 should un- liesitatingly answer — an a laiUngs. We sons and daughters of perfidious Al- i" ''ion (or of Merry England, A it you like it better), can ' I'ardly realize to ourselves * he sense of extreme novelty vhich Mossoo must expo- lience at finding himself in I city where he is con- lemiied to walk or di'ive ■lirough endless grows of iron. Turn in wliat direc- lon he will through habit;- ible London, whether with- u the dingy, but eminently fashionable purlieus of May- iair, the spick-and-span iiew district of Tyburiua, itelgravia the aristocratic, iiloomsbury the respect- able, Barnsbury the genteel, (Mapham, Peekham, Ful- 'am, Bronipton, Hoxton, u'ixton, Islington, Ken- .-iijgton, Kenuiijgton, — north, south, east, or west — ui> o!).-er\;uit eye will rest on an interminable row of cast-iron spikes* The fact in itself is not a pleasant one to con- template; and when Mossoo finds out that, behind these grim em- blems of war, cellars are dug to a depth of some ten or twelve feet from the pavement level, in which cellars at least half the inhabitants of every house pass the greater part of their time, can't you imagine how he shrugs his shoulders, and opens his eyes with astonishment ? But is it true, then, of these English, that they burrow in the ground for habitation, and condemn their domestics to reside in those oubliettes there? Parbleu! what a fate! Yes; it is even so; and Mossoo knows very well that honest Jules, who brushes his clothes at home, or Babet, who, with nothing on her head but a snow-white cap, frilled to a nicety, takes his children out for a walk in the Champs Elysees — either of these good creatures, I say, would griimble roundly, even if they didn't altogether pine away under such an infliction. Whereas Sairey-Jane, who comes up from her father's cottage on Dartmoor, with a pair of rosy cheeks and a strong Devonshire accent, accommodates herself kindly to her new situation — say that of deputy sub- assistant under scullery-maid, at eight poumis a year and her beer; gives up the green turf and purple heather of Iier native soil, for the prospect of a dull brick wall and coal-cellar door, only, enlivened by the hasty glimpse which she gets of the lower halves of passing crinolines, and of peripatetic boots and trousers, worn by people who, from the knee upwards, axe invisi- Upstairs and Down. 103 ble to her. This is Saii-ey-Jane's fate, and that of master Tom, the page, who perhaps had the run of an orchard before he bloomed into buttons ; though, to be sure, he does answer the front -door bell some- times, and even goes out for an airing exactly three paces behind his ' missus,' which is so far an ad- vantage to him. I wonder how many of the upper ten thousand — those who live at the top, iustead Oi the bottom of the kitchen-stairs —try to realize the effect oi this semi-subterraneous ex- istence; and which ol us who are placed in authority over servants ; who say to one ' do this,' and he doeth it (or doesn't do it, as the case may be) — which of us has explored, even in imagination, those gloomy labyrinths of the basement story ? We are separated by, say twelve inches of floor carpentry, fxom a little world of beings possessed of the same physical and moral sense as ourselves; with desires, hopes, fears, and digestions like our own, and we take no more count of these last than we do of the works of a watch. The use of a watch is to tell us the time ; but as for the mainspring, the lever action, the double escapement, the wheels and chain, or what you will, inside, do you, my dear lady, ever trouble your head one whit regarding thnn? Of course not. How should they concern you? Some chronometers — like that of your medical man, for instance— are made for use; others, like that of the pretty trinket at your waist, for ornament chiefly. So long as each serves its turn, neither you nor Dr. Glibb, I think, will meddle with its interior. Similarly, honest John Thomas, of Bellevue Cottage, Hammersmith, who is coachman, grooii), and gardener by turn, has evidently been destined by nature to make himself generally useful; while Mr. Chawles Plush- ington, who stands airing his calves under a certain i)orch in Eaton Square, may be regarded as a purely ornamental feature ii^ your establish- ment. All thi- is the result of fate. But the private disposition of these gentlemen, the quality of thjfir re- spective temperaments, the number of their brothers and sisters, and, in short, their individual relations out of livery — are details which, confess now, have no interest ijr your lady- ship. Indeed, in our present ad- vanced and highly enlightened state ot civilization it would be unrea- sonable to expect otherwi.se. But. as a pure matter of speculation, has it ever occurred to you what these humble retainers think of you ? whether they may, perchance, have over the kitchen-fire, discussed your merits as a wite, a mother, the mis- tress ot a household ? The notion is an extravagant one, I admit, fraught with danger to, and subversive of the first interests of good Society ; but, nevertheless, not altogether impossible. You remember, no doubt, that amusing story of your n>irsery days about a certain Palace Oi. Truth, in which wnoever spoke was, by an irresistible impulse, compelled to say just what he or she thought, neither more nor less. Conceive for an instant the etfect of such an influence down-stairs and in your presence. What would they say? — good gracious! what might they not presume to say V — those cotton- velvet and bombazine-clad servitors, about those in authority over them — about you and me, for instance ! Flace-aux-damesl Let US take the ladies first. There is Maria, your own maid, who, for a wage of some eighteen pounds a year, laces your corset, does your back-hair, selects your ball-dress (taking care, of course, that you don't appear twice during the season before the same people in the same costume), alters your bonnets of February to suit the requirements of March, and insists on your ordering another befitting the month of April ; who briuiis that fragrant cup of tea to your bedside every morning; who knows where you keep the sal-vola- tile and kalydor, and with whom you condescend to chat a little as she unrobes you at three a.m. twice a week during the season. Ah! dear, good, patient Maria! sweet- spoken and sandy-haired s.vcophant! cease your kindly prattle about ribbons, and bandoline, Irizettes, Valenciennes, and sansflectum ju- 104 Ujpstairs atid Doien. pons, and tell your mistress what you really think of her. She is young, pretty, and engaging : will you dare to say slie is a giddy and affected flirt? She is middle-aged, wealthy, and well-born: but have you ever called her a patchcd-up, imperious, skinflint ? I trow not. The smile with which jon greet her has been assumed so long, and with such excellent effect ; that rising indig- nation has been so studiously re- pressed; that uuimpassioned de- i'erence has told so well in regard to vails and perquisites — that I some- times fancy you deceive yourself among the rest of the world, and, for the time, actually imagine the middle-aged lady whom you make up for evening-iDarties, and take to pieces at two p.m., is a model of femi- nine perfection. Women, you seo, are born actors : their most effective arts are so natural to them ; their simplest natures often so graceful and artistic, that, from the humblest servant-maid to the most accom- plished lady of the laud, we can't easily distiuguish, I believe, that it might not be always desirable to distinguish between what they really are and wliat they seem to be. In point of fact, I don't think they always know themselves. But trusty John Thomas, and profusely-powdered Chawles, only hide their spleen, their indignation and contempt, in the presence of their betters. In the butler's pantry, at the ale-liouse round the corner, across the hammer-cloths of their respective chariots— sentiments are expressed which neither you nor I, dear Paterfamilias, could listen to unmoved. I know an old gentle- man—an irascible old gentleman — who, standing by chance one after- noon inconveniently near the top of the kitchen-stairs, after summon- ing his brougham for the second time that day, heard a favourite footman exclaim to the confidential valet, ' I'm blest if that infernal old noosance ain't ordered out the car- riage again !' Now you know that was by no means a pleasant remark to reach one's ears in the decline of life, uttered by a paid lacquey, the but- tons of whose very coat were adorned with the lamily crest ; but I am not at all sure that the old gentleman to whom I refer was justified in the severe retaliation which he adopted. The wretched Jenkins (let us call him) was dismissed on the spot, and had nothing but a month's wages to console him in his adversitr. The consequence was, no drmbt, that he repaired to the Black Lion that evening, and entertained his liveried friends with a very disrespectful, if not perverted account of the affair. I dare say his late master became the laughing-stock of the bar-par- lour ; that his wig and wizen face, his gout and gaiters, his peppery disposition and general peculiarities were discussed in a manner which was anything but pleasant. Sup- 15o,se, instead of taking so summary a revenge, he had retired to his study, swallowed a gla.ssof Madeira, just to steady his nerves, rung the bell, and told Jenkins not to talk so loud down-staiis if he wished to keep his place. Can't you imagine how crestfallen the poor minion would have been? what an old trump the man he served must thenceforth bo considered in his ej cs ; and with how much zeal he might have continued his service ? But, ' who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and furious,' as the Thane of Cawdor once justly asked, ' in a moment ?' No man. And upon my word, when one comes to think of it, the provocation was very great. Personally, I must admit I have no great affection for the London flunkey of fashionable life. It is the most im fortunate stage of a man- servants career. As a page he may be slim and interesting. As a butler he may become stout and benevolent. But a great, bread-shouldered, black-whiskered fellow of six feet, who thrusts his brawny calves into pink silk stockings, pla tors his hair with flour and pomatum, and covers himself with tags and gold lace, to hang on behind a carriage — bah! one fancies a man was made for some better business than this. It isn't his fault, no doubt, you will say. 1% is his betters who are to Upstairs and Down. lOS blame: they rig him up in this ridiculous costume ; they set him to do this senseless work ; they conduct their households on such a plan that it is difficult for him to help being what ne is — mean, idle, often insolent. There are, in short, some excuses for him. Aijd so, no doubt, a good deal might be said in favour of the wasp (black and yellow, by- the-way, is the orthodox colour for modern hvery waistcoats), but that would not lessen the annoyance of its sting. Your ornamental foot- man is an institution: but the institution is a bore, and it is not exactly easy to say why it has be- come so. Any of us who have conned over, or seen enacted the comedies which were written at the close of the last century, can testify to the pleasant, alfable character which the stage servant of that period assumed. His master joked with him, thrashed him, confided in him, called him ' knave ' and ' rascal ' by turns ; and yet the poor fellow not only remained in his place, but stuck by the gallant cap- tain through thick and thin ; helped him in his little intrigues, l)am- foozled his creditors, rushed into all sorts of risks for his sake. Can this be said of any of our liveried re- tainers of the present day? Can we imagine Jeames or^Jhawles convey- ing a hiJlet-doiix, with the slightest interest as to its success ? standing meekly to receive our blows (clouded canes are gone out of fashion now) ? scheming to get a dun out of the house ; or even remaining a single day beneath the roof of a gentleman in urgent pecuniary difficulties ? I say that type of retainer is obsolete. You can no more find it now than you can find a living specimen of the dinornis or megatherium. What ! confide our tendr esses to a fellow who blacks one's boots ? — talk familiarly about debts and obligations to a man who stands behind your chair at dinner ? Impossible ! Whft the very next morning he would take you by the button-hole and call you 'old cove.' The present state of society no longer admits of such relations. Women, I expect, do occasionally lapse into confidences of this kind. How otherwise could Miss Gad- about, with whose family I am tolerably intimate, have been in- formed of the fact that Lady Flaring has not paid her milliner's bill for the last three years ; or that Comet Spanker, of the Blues, had been twice refused by the wealthy widow, Mrs. McChequers? These little scraps of domestic intelligence are surely picked up on the second floor^ be- fore the toilet-table, between lacing 106 Upstairs and Down. and bandolining, late nocturnal soup and early morning Pekoe. Ah! ladies, ladies ! if you would only be a Utile more discreet with your wait- ing-maidsj,! If you would only re- member that that dapper little crea- ture who 'does' your back- hair, lugs out your ball-dress, selects your bracelets, ties your sasli, twitches that bewitcliing skirt into shape, hands you your gloves, and scents that little scraj) of cambric and lace which you carry with such a fas- cinating air -if you could only bring yourself to believe that your patient, useful, clever Abigail is — as great a gossip as yourself; that the harmless prattle with which you entertain her ana indulge yourself. will assuredly find its way down- stairs into the servants'-hall, and be carried next day to the dainty ears of a dozen of your female friends (or enemies, as the case may be) — would you — could you be utlers would at once petition to wear it. A due and palpable distinction between the two places must be kept up, or the kitchen would be in a state of anarchy. What! a dr<>l) coat or a stripe 1 vest the badge of slavery? The badge of fiddlesticks! A do- mestic servant is not moro rigidly tied to his duties than a soldier, or a government-office clerk, or a bar- rister, or a poor curate, who is often harder worked than a London footman, and not nearly so well remunerated. We don't call a red jacket, or a tie-wig, or a stuff gown the badge of slavery : why should an honest suit of livery be so stig- matized? Prate as they will about their free-born rights and i^rivileges, servants are the first to respect these relics of ancient feudalit^m. Not long ago a cook who was out of a situation asked a lady to assist her in getting one. Before long, a place was found, and a consultation held on the subject. 'Pj-ay mum,' asked Mrs. .Cook, 'does the family 'ave cresses f ' Water-cresses for breakfast ? I'm sure I don't knuw,' answered her kind patron, ' but what can it signify ?' ' t'xcuse me, mum,' interposed the applicant, ' I don't think I make myself understood. / mean cresses Upstairs and Dovm, 111 on their carriage, note-paper, liv'ry, and ceterer— ' ' Oh ! armorial bearings, you meau?' said the lady. '1 really cannot tell you.' ' Because 'm, I reely couldn't undertake a situation where there wasn't a cress kept. You see, ev'ry genteel faiu'ly 'as a cress; and ' ' And jou positively make that a condition ? ' asked the lady, quietly. ' Sutt'nly, mum,' says Mrs. Cook. 'Footman kep; washing put out; beer, tea, and fam'ly cress.' ' Then, 1 really think, Mrs. Cul- lender,' said the lady, smiling, ' that you had better look out for yourself. 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