touch here, a hit there, a miss almost every- one of the diners-out, and is contradicted in where; the Honorable Sniftky turning the turn by the baronet; the foreign count is head of mamma with affected compliments, in deep conversation with a hard featured and hobnobbing to himself without intermis- man, supposed to be a stockjobber; the sion. After a sufficiently tedious interval, clergyman extols the labors of the host in the long succession of wasteful extrava- the matter of the Cannibal Islands, Aborigi gance is cleared away with the upper table-nes Protection Society, in which his revercloth; the dowagers, at a look from our ence takes an interest; the claimant of the hostess, rise with dignity and decorously dormant peerage retails his pedigree, pulretire, miss modestly bringing up the rear-ling to pieces the attorney general, who the man at the foot of the table with the has expressed an opinion hostile to his prehandle of the door in one hand, and a nap-tensions. kin in the other, bowing them out.

In the mean time, the piano is joined by a harp, in musical solicitation of the company to join the ladies in the drawing room; they do so, looking flushed and plethoric, sink into easy chairs, sip tea, the younger beaux turning over, with miss, books of Beauty and Keepsakes; at eleven, coaches and cabs arrive, you take formal leave, ex

Now the host sings out to the Honorable Sniftky to draw his chair closer and be jovial, as if people, after an oppressively expensive dinner, can be jovial to order. The wine goes round, and laudations go with it; the professed diners-out inquire the vintage; the Honorable Mr. Sniftky intrenches himself behind a rampart of fruit dishes, speak-pressing with a melancholy countenance ing only when he is spoken to, and glancing inquisitively at the several speakers, as much as to say, "What a fellow you are to talk" the host essays a bon mot, or tells a story bordering on the ideal, which he thinks is fashionable, and shows that he knows life; the Honorable Sniftky drinks claret from a beer glass, and after the third bottle affects to discover his mistake, wondering what he could be thinking of; this produces much laughter from all save the professed diners-out, who dare not take such a liberty and is the jest of the evening.

your sense of the delightfulness of the evening, get to your chambers, and forget, over a broiled bone and a bottle of Dublin stout, in what an infernal, prosy, thankless, stonefaced, yellow-waistcoated, unsympathizing, unintellectual, selfish, stupid set you have been condemned to pass an afternoon, assisting at the ostentatious exhibition of vulgar wealth, where gulosity has been unrelieved by one single sally of wit, humor, good nature, humanity or charity; where you come without a welcome, and leave

without a friend.

When the drinkers, drinkables, and talk The whole art of the gentility-mongers are quite exhausted, the noise of a piano of all sorts in London, and á fortiori of their recalls to our bewildered recollections the wives and families, is to lay a tax upon ladies, and we drink their healths; the social intercourse as nearly as possible Honorable Sniftky, pretending that it is amounting to a prohibition; their dinners foreign post night at the Foreign Office, are criminally wasteful,and sinfully extravawalks off without even a bow to the assem- gant to this end; to this end they insist on bled diners, the gentility-monger following making price the test of what they are pleashim submissively to the door; then returned to consider select society in their own sets, ing, tells us that he's sorry Sniftky's gone, he's such a good natured fellow, while the gentleman so characterized gets into his cab, drives to his club, and excites the commiseration of every body there, by relating how he was bored with an old ruffian, who insisted upon his (Sniftky's) going to dinner in Bryanston Square; at which there are many "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" and "what could you expect?-Bryanston Square!-people of fashion. served you right."

In the mean time, the guests, relieved of the presence of the Honorable Sniftky, are rather more at their ease: a baronet, (who was lord mayor, or something of that sort) waxes jocular, and gives decided indications of something like "how came you so;" the man at the foot of the table contradicts

and they consequently cannot have a dance without guinea tickets, nor a pic-nic without dozens of champaigne. This shows their native ignorance and vulgarity more than enough; genteel people go upon a plan directly contrary, not merely enjoying themselves, but enjoying themselves without extravagance or waste; in this respect the gentility-mongers would do well to imitate

The exertions a gentility-monger will make to rub his skirts against people above him; the humiliations, mortifications, snubbing, he will submit to, are almost incredible. One would hardly believe that a retired tradesman, of immense wealth, and enjoying all the respect that immense wealth will secure, should actually offer large sums of

money to a lady of fashion, as an induce- late a subserviency of spirit and of manner, ment to procure for him cards of invitation which naturally directs itself into gentility. to her set, which he stated was the great ob-mongering: where realities, such as medical ject of his existence. Instead of being in- experience, reading, and skill, are remotely, dignant at his presumption, the lady in or not at all, appreciable, we must take up question, pitying the poor man's folly, with appearances; and of all appearances, attempted to reason with him, assuring him the appearance of proximity to people of with great truth that whatever might be his fashion is the most taking and seductive to wealth, his power or desire of pleasing, he people not of fashion. It is for this reason would be rendered unhappy and ridiculous, that a rising physician, if he happen to have by the mere dint of pretension to a circle a lord upon his sick or visiting list, never to which he had no legitimate claim, and has done telling his plebeian patients the advising him, as a friend, to attempt some particulars of his noble case, which they more laudable and satisfactory ambition. swallow like almond milk, finding it an excellent placebo.

All this good advice was, however, thrown away; our gentility-monger perse- As it is the interest of a gentility-monvered, contriving somehow to gain a pass-ger, and his constant practice, to be attendport to some of the outer circles of fashion-ed by a fashionable physician, in order that able life; was ridiculed, laughed at, and he may be enabled continually to talk of honored with the soubriquet (he was a pi- what Sir Henry thinks of this, and how anoforte maker) of the Semi-Grand! Sir Henry objects to that, and the opinion

We know another instance, where two of Sir Henry upon t'other, so it is the young men, engaged in trade in the city, business of the struggling doctor to be a took a splendid mansion at the West End, gentility-monger, with the better chance of furnished it sumptuously, got some despe- becoming one day or other a fashionable rate knight or baronet's widow to give par-physician. Acting on this principle, the ties at their house, inviting whomsoever poor man must necessarily have a house in she thought proper, at their joint expense. a professional nighborhood, which usually It is unnecessary to say, the poor fellows succeeded in getting into good society, not indeed in the Court Circular, but in the -Gazette.

abuts upon a neighborhood fashionable or exclusive; he must hire a carriage by the month, and be for ever stepping in and out of it, at his own door, keeping it purposely There is another class of gentility-mong- bespattered with mud to show the extent ers more to be pitied than the last; those, of his visiting acquaintance; he must give namely, who are endeavoring to "make a dinners to people "who may be useful," connexion," as the phrase is, by which and be continually on the look-out for those they may gain advancement in their pro- lucky accidents which have made the forfessions, and are continually on the look-tunes, and, as a matter of course, the merit, out for introductions to persons of quality, of so many professional men. their hangers-on and dependents. There is He becomes a Fellow of the Royal Societoo much of this sort of thing among medi- ty, which gives him the chance of converscal men in London, the family nature of ing with a lord, and the right of entering whose profession renders connexion, a lord's (the president's) house, which is private partiality, and personal favor, more turned into a sandwich-shop four times a essential to them than to others. The year for his reception; this, being the lawyer, for example, need not be a gentility-nearest approach he makes to acquaintance monger; he has only to get round attor- with great personages, he values with the neys, for the opportunity to show what he importance it deserves. can do; when he has done this, in which a little toadying, "on the sly," is necessary -all the rest is easy. The court and the public are his judges; his powers are at once appreciable; his talent can be calculated, like the money in his pocket; he can now go on straight forward, without valuing the individual preference or aversion of any body.

His servants, with famine legibly written. on their brows, are assiduous and civil; his wife, though half-starved, is very genteel, and at her dinner parties burns candle-ends from the palace:*

If you pay her a morning visit, you will have some such conversation as follows:

* In a wax-chandler's shop in Piccadilly, opposite St. James's Street, may be seen stumps, or, as the But a profession where men make way Scotch call them, doups of wax-lights with the anthrough the whisperings of women, and announcement "Candle-ends from Buckingham Palinexhaustible variety of sotto voce contri-ace." These are eagerly bought up by the gentilitymongers, who burn, or may be, in the excess of their vances, must needs have a tendency to cre- loyalty, eat them!

is there any news to

"Pray, Mr. Joe Stimpson is a tanner and leather selday?" ler in Bermondsey, the architect of his own "Great distress, I understand, through-fortune, which he has raised to the respecout the country." table elevation of somewhere about a quar"Indeed-the old story, shocking-very.ter of a million sterling. He is now in his -Pray, have you heard the delightful seventy-second year, has a handsome house, news? The Princes-Royal has actually without any pretension, overlooking his cut a tooth!"

"Indeed ?"

"Yes, I assure you; and the sweet little royal love of a martyr has borne it like a hero."

"Positively ?"

tanyard. He has a joke upon prospects, calling you to look from the drawing-room window at his tanpits, asking you if you ever saw any thing like that at the west end of the town; replying in the negative, Joe, chuckling, observes that it is the finest "Positively, I assure you; Doctor Try- prospect he ever saw in his life, and although iton has just returned from a consultation he has been admiring it for half a century, with his friend Sir Henry, upon a particu- he has not done admiring it yet. Joe's calarly difficult case-Lord Scruffskin-case pacity for the humorous may be judged of elephantiasis I think they call it, and of by this specimen ; but in attention to butells me that Sir Henry has arrived ex-siness few can surpass him, while his hospress from Windsor with the news."

"Indeed!"

"Do you think, Mr. a general illumination ?" "Really, madam, I cannot say."

pitality can command a wit whenever he chooses to angle for one with a good dinthere will be ner. He has a wife, a venerable old smiling lady in black silk, neat cap, and polished shoes; three daughters, unmarried; and a "There ought to be, (with emphasis.) You couple of sons, brought up, after the Lonmust know, Mr. Dr. Tryiton has for- don fashion, to inherit their father's busiwarded to a high quarter a beautifully boundness, or, we might rather say, estate. copy of his work on ulcerated sore throat; Why the three Miss Stimpsons remain he says there is a great analogy between ulcers of the throat and den-den-densomething, I don't know what-teething, in short. If nothing comes of it, Dr. Tryiton, thank Heaven, can do without it; but you know, Mr. it may, on a future occasion, be useful to our family.'

unmarried, we cannot say, nor would it be decorous to inquire; but hearing them drop a hint now and then about visits, “a considerable time ago," to Brighthelmstone and Bath, we are led, however reluctantly in the case of ladies now evangelical, to conclude, their attention has formerly been If there is, in the great world of London, directed to gentility-mongering at these one thing more spirit-sinking than another, places of fashionable resort; the tan-yard it is to see men condemned, by the necessi- acting as a repellant to husbands of a social ties of an overcrowded profession, to sink position superior to their own, and their to the meanness of pretension for a despe- great fortunes operating in deterring rate accident by which they may insure worthy persons of their own station from success. When one has had an opportunity addressing them; or being the means of of being behind the scenes, and knowing inducing them to be too prompt with refuwhat petty shifts, what poor expedients of sals, these amiable middle-aged young living, what anxiety of mind, are at the ladies are now on hands," paying the pebottom of all this empty show, one will no nalty of one of the many curses that pride longer marvel that many born for better of wealth brings in its train. At present, things should sink under the difficulties of however, their "affections are set on things their position, or that the newspapers so above ;" and, without meaning any thing continually set forth the miserably unpro- disrespectful to my friend Joe Stimpson, vided for condition in which they so often Sarah, Harriet, and Susan Stimpson are cerare compelled to leave their families. To tainly the three least agreeable members of dissipate the melancholy that always op- the family. The sons are, like all other presses us when constrained to behold the sons in the houses of their fathers, steady, ridiculous antics of the gentility-mongers, business-like, unhappy, and dull; they look which we chronicle only to endeavor at a like fledged birds in the nest of the old reformation-let us contrast the hospitality of those who, with wiser ambition, keep themselves, as the saying is, "to themselves;" and, as a bright example, let us recollect our old friend Joe Stimpson.

ones, out of place; neither servants nor masters, their social position is somewhat equivocal, and having lived all their lives in the house of their father, seeing as he sees, thinking as he thinks, they can hardly be

that gives assurance of the nearest approach to what is understood by home. The sons, released from business, arrive, shake you heartily by the hand, and are really glad to see you; of the daughters we say nothing, as there is nothing in them.

expected to appear more than a brace of with ribands in her cap, who smiles a hearty immature Joe Stimpsons. They are not, it welcome, and assures you, though an utter is true, tainted with much of the world's stranger, of the character of the house and wickedness, neither have they its self-sus- its owner. You are conducted to the taining trials, its hopes, its fears, its honest drawing-room, a plain, substantial, honeststruggles, or that experience which is ga-looking apartment; there you find the old thered only by men who quit, when they couple, and are received with a warmth can quit it, the petticoat string, and the paternal despotism of even a happy home. As for the old couple, time, although silvering the temples and furrowing the front, is hardly seen to lay his heavy hand upon the shoulder of either, much less to put his finger on eyes, ears, or lips-the two first being yet as "wide awake," and the last as open to a joke, or any other good thing, as ever they were; in sooth, it is no unpleasing sight to see this jolly old couple with nearly three half centuries to answer for, their affection unimpaired, faculties unclouded, and temper undisturbed by the near approach, beyond hope of respite, of that stealthy foe whose assured advent strikes terror to us all. Joe Stimpson, if he thinks of death at all, thinks of him as a pitiful rascal, to be kicked down stairs by the family physician; the Bible of the old lady is seldom far from her hand, and its consolations are cheering, calming, and assuring. The peevish fretfulness of age has nothing in common with man or wife, Your cherry-cheeked friend and another, unless when Joe, exasperated with his evan- both in the family from childhood, (another gelical daughters' continual absence at the good sign of the house,) and looking as if class-meetings, and love-feasts, and prayer- they really were glad and so they are-to meetings, somewhat indignantly complains, have an opportunity of obliging you, do the that " so long as they can get to heaven, servitorial offices of the table; you are sure they don't care who goes to -," a place of a glass of old sherry, and you may call that Virgil and Tasso have taken much for strong beer, or old port, with your pains in describing, but which the old gen-cheese-or, if a Scotchman, for a dramtleman sufficiently indicates by one empha- without any other remark than an invitation tic monosyllable. to "try it again, and make yourself comfortable."

Joe is a liberal-minded man, hates cant and humbug, and has no prejudices-hating the French he will not acknowledge is a prejudice, but considers the bounden duty of an Englishman; and though fierce enough upon other subjects of taxation, thinks no price too high for drubbing them. He was once prevailed upon to attempt a journey to Paris; but having got to Calais, insisted upon returning by the next packet, swearing it was a shabby concern, and he had seen enough of it.

He takes in the Gentleman's Magazine, because his father did it before him-but he never reads it; he takes pride in a corpulent dog, which is ever at his heels; he is afflicted with face-ache, and swears at any body who calls it tic-douloureux.

When you go to dine with him, you are met at the door by a rosy-cheeked lass,

The other guests of the day come dropping in-all straightforward, business-like, free, frank-hearted fellows-aristocrats of wealth, the best, because the unpretending, of their class; they come, too, before their time, for they know their man, and that Joe Stimpson keeps nobody waiting for nobody. When the clock-for here is no gongstrikes five, you descend to dinner; plain, plentiful, good, and well dressed; no tedious course, with long intervals between; no oppressive set-out of superfluous plate, and what, perhaps, is not the least agreeable accessory, no piebald footman hanging over your chair, whisking away your plate before you have done with it, and watching every bit you put into your mouth.

After dinner, you are invited, as a young man, to smoke with the "boys," as Joe persists in calling them. You ascend to a bedroom, and are requested to keep your head out o' window while smoking, lest the "Governor" should snuff the fumes when he comes up stairs to bed: while you are "cranning" your neck, the cherry-cheeked lass enters with brandy and water, and you are as merry and easy as possible. The rest of the evening passes away in the same unrestrained interchange of friendly courtesy; nor are you permitted to take your leave without a promise to dine on the next Sunday or holiday-Mrs. Stimpson rating you for not coming last Easter Sunday, and declaring she cannot think "why young men should mope by themselves, when she is always happy to see them."

Honor to Joe Stimpson and his missus! | when ostentation and expense are the meaThey have the true ring of the ancient coin sures of respect, when men live rather for of hospitality; none of your hollow-sound-the world's opinion than their own, poverty ing raps; they know they have what I want, becomes not only the evil but the shame, a home, and they will not allow me, at their not only the curse but the disgrace, and board, to know that I want one: they com- will be shunned by every man as a pestipassionate a lonely, isolated man, and are lence; every one will fling away immorready to share with him the hearty cheer tality, to avoid it; will sink, as far as he and unaffected friendliness of their English can his art in his trade; and he will be the fireside they know that they can get no- greatest genius who can turn the most mothing by me, nor do they ever dream of an ney. acknowledgment for their kindness; but I owe them for many a social day redeemed from cheerless solitude; many an hour of strenuous labor do I owe to the relaxation of the old wainscoted dining-room at Bermondsey.

Honor to Joe Stimpson, and to all who are satisfied with their station, happy in their home, having no repinings after empty sounds of rank and shows of life; and who extend the hand of friendly fellowship to the homeless, because they have no home!

This illustration, borrowed by Sir James Mackintosh from chemical science, and so happily applied, may serve to indicate the undoubted truth, that talent is a growth as much as a gift; that circumstances call out and develop its latent powers; that as soil, flung upon the surface from the utmost penetrable depths of earth, will be found to contain long-dormant germs of vegetable life, so the mind of man, acted upon by circumstances, will ever be found equal to a certain sum of production-the amount of which will be chiefly determined by the force and direction of the external influence which first set it in motion.

It may be urged that true genius has the power not only to take opportunities, but to make them: true, it may make such opportunities as the time in which it lives affords; but these opportunities will be great or small, noble or ignoble, as the time is eventful or otherwise. All depends upon the time, and you might as well have expected a Low Dutch epic poet in the time of the great herring fishery, as a Napoleon, a Demosthenes, a Cicero in this, by some called the nineteenth, but which we take leave to designate the "dot-and-carry-one" century. If a Napoleon were to arise at any corner of any London street, not five seconds would elapse until he would be "hooked" off to the station-house by Superintendent DogsNOSE of the D division, with an exulting mob of men and boys hooting at his heels: if Demosthenes or Cicero, disguised as Chartist orators, mounting a tub at Deptford, were to Philipicize, or entertain this motley auditory with speeches against Catiline or Verres, straightway the Superintendent of the X division, with a posse of constables at his heels, dismounts the patriot orator from his tub, and hands him over to a plain-spoken business-like justice of the peace, who regards an itinerant Cicero in the same unsympathizing point of view with any other vagabond.

What has become of the eloquence of the bar? Why is it that flowery orators find no grist coming to their mills? How came it that, at Westminster Hall, Charles Philips missed his market? What is the reason, that if you step into the Queen's Bench, or Common Pleas, or Exchequer, you will hear no such thing as a speech-behold no such animal as an orator-only a shrewd, plain, hard-working, steady man, called an attorney-general, or a sergeant, or a leading counsel, quietly talking over a matter of law with the judge, or a matter of fact with the jury, like men of business as they are, and shunning, as they would a rattlesnake, all claptrap arguments, figures, flowers, and the obsolete embroidery of rhetoric ?

The more we reflect upon this important subject, we shall find the more, that external circumstances have an influence upon intellect, increasing in an accumulating ratio; that the political institutions of various countries have their fluctuating and contradictory influences; that example controls in a great degree intellectual production, causing after-growths, as it were, of the first luxuriant crop of master minds, and giving a character and individuality to habits of thought and modes of expression; in brief, that great occasions will have great instruments, and there never was yet a noted time that had not noted men. Dull, jogtrot, money-making, commercial times will make, if they do not find, dull, jog-trot, The days of romantic eloquence are fled money-making, commercial men: in times-the great constitutional questions that

VOL. II. No. I.

3