same. My dear Jones, ask any of those whom you have the honour of knowing, if such be not the case.

Iam far from wishing that their Graces should treat me in a similar fashion. Splendour is a part of their station, as decent comfort (let us trust), of yours and mine. Fate has comfortably appointed gold plate for some, and has bidden others contentedly to wear the willow pattern. And being perfectedly contented (indeed humbly thankful-for look around, O Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and point-lace; surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing besides. The poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to strut on palaceterraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the sunshine.

The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never since the days of Æsop were they more numerous in any land, than they are at present in this free country.

How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand-the Dinner-giving Snob ? The imitation of the great is universal in this city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the remotest corner of Brunswick Square. Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and shrill, genteel scream. O you misguided Dinner-giving Snobs, think how much pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural forced-meats, and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship (let alone health) and the destruction of hospitality and good-fellowship-you, who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away as much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy!

When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and dinner-receiving Snobs; if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is; the dishes and the drink, and the servants and the plate, and the host and hostess, and the conversation, and the company,-the philosopher included.

The host is smiling and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties lest the wines he has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater, by making some bévue, should disclose his real quality of green-grocer, and show that he is not the family butler.

The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is speculating with terror lest there be any disaster there. If the souffle should collapse, or if Wiggins does not send the ices in time-she feels as if she would commit suicide-that smiling, jolly woman!

The children up-stairs are yelling, as their maid is crimping their miserable ringlets with hot tongs, tearing Miss Emmy's hair out by the roots, or scrubbing Miss Polly's dumpy nose with mottled soap till the little wretch screams herself into fits. The young males of the family are employed, as we have stated, in piratical exploits upon the landing-place.

The servants are not servants, but the before-mentioned retail tradesmen.

The plate is not silver, but a mere shiny Birmingham lacquer; and so is the hospitality, and everything else.

The talk is Birmingham talk. The wag of the party, with bitterness in his heart, having just quitted his laundress, who is dunning him for her bill, is firing off good stores; and the opposition wag is furious that he cannot get an innings. Jawkins, the great conversationist, is scornful and indignant with the pair of them, because he is kept out of court. Young Muscadel, that cheap dandy, is talking Fashion and Almack's out of the Morning Post, and disgusting his neighbour, Mrs. Fox, who reflects that she has never been there. The widow is vexed out of patience, because her daughter Maria has got a place beside young Cambric, the penniless curate, and not by Colonel Goldmore, the rich widower from India. The doctor's wife is sulky, because she has not been led out before the barrister's lady; old Doctor Cork is grumbling at the wine, and Guttleton sneering at the cookery.

And to think that all these people might be so happy, and easy,

and friendly, were they brought together in a natural unpretentious way, and but for an unhappy passion for peacocks' feathers in England. Gentle shades of Marat and Robespierre! when I see how all the honesty of society is corrupted among us by the miserable fashion-worship, I feel as angry as Mrs. Fox just mentioned, and ready to order a general battue of peacocks.

CHAPTER XXI.

SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS.

Now that September has come, and all our parliamentary duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high feather as the Continental Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an innate longing too to quit the island along with those happy Snobs). Farewell, dear friends, I say, you little know that the individual who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother.

I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the Queen of the French; many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in four hours; they will inundate the Continent next week; they will carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall not see them—but am with them in spirit; and indeed there is hardly a country in the known and civilised world in which these eyes have not beheld them.

I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting boots, scouring over the Campagna of Rome: and have heard their oaths and their well-known slang in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and picknicking under the pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of every window in the court-yard of Meurice's in the Rue de Rivoli; or roaring out "Garsong, du pang," "Garson, du vang;" or swaggering down the Toledo at Naples; or even how many will

be on the look-out for Snooks on Ostend pier,-for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the Queen of the French.

Look at the Marquis of Carabas and his two carriages. My lady Marchioness comes on board, looks round with that happy air of mingled terror and impertinence which distinguishes her ladyship, and rushes to her carriage, for it is impossible that she should mingle with the other Snobs on deck. There she sits, and will be ill in private. The strawberry-leaves on her chariot-panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart. If she were going to heaven instead of to Ostend, I rather think she would expect to have des places réservées for her, and would send to order the best rooms. A courier, with his money-bag of office round his shoulders a huge scowling footman, whose dark pepper-and-salt livery glistens with the heraldic insignia of the Carabases-a brazen-looking, tawdry French femme-de-chambre (none but a female pen can do justice to that wonderful tawdry toilette of the lady's maid en voyage)—and a miserable dame de compagnie, are ministering to the wants of her ladyship and her King Charles's spaniel. They are rushing to and fro with Eau-de-Cologne, pockethandkerchiefs which are all fringe and cypher, and popping mysterious cushions behind and before, and in every available corner of the carriage.

The little Marquis, her husband, is walking about the deck in a bewildered manner, with a lean daughter on each arm the carroty-tufted hope of the family is already smoking on the foredeck in a travelling costume checked all over, and in little lackertipped jean boots, and a shirt embroidered with pink boa-constrictors. What is it that gives travelling Snobs such a marvellous propensity to rush into a costume? Why should a man not travel in a coat, &c.? but think proper to dress himself like a harlequin in mourning? See, even young Aldermanbury, the tallowmerchant, who has just stepped on board, has got a travelling dress gaping all over with pockets; and little Tom Tapeworm, the lawyer's clerk out of the City, who has but three weeks' leave, turns out in gaiters and a bran new shooting-jacket, and must let the mustachios grow on his little snuffy upper lip, forsooth!

Pompey Hicks is giving elaborate directions to his servant, and asking loudly, "Davis, where's the dwessing-case," and "Davis,

you'd best take the pistol-case into the cabin." Little Pompey travels with a dressing-case, and without a beard; whom he is going to shoot with his pistols, who on earth can tell? and what he is to do with his servant but wait upon him, I am at a loss to conjecture.

Look at honest Nathan Houndsditch and his lady, and their little son. What a noble air of blazing contentment illuminates the features of those Snobs of Eastern race! What a toilette Houndsditch's is! What rings and chains, what gold-headed canes and diamonds, what a tuft the rogue has got to his chin (the rogue! he will never spare himself any cheap enjoyment!) Little Houndsditch has a little cane with a gilt head and little mosaic ornaments-altogether an extra air. As for the lady, she is all the colours of the rainbow: she has a pink parasol, with a white lining, and a yellow bonnet, and an emerald green shawl, and a shot silk pelisse; and drab boots and rhubarb-coloured gloves; and party-coloured glass buttons, expanding from the size of a fourpenny piece to a crown, glitter and twiddle all down the front of her gorgeous costume. I have said before, I like to look at "the Peoples" on their gala days, they are so picturesquely and outrageously splendid and happy.

Yonder comes Captain Bull; spick and span, tight and trim, who travels for four or six months every year of his life, who does not commit himself by luxury of raiment or insolence of demeanour, but I think is as great a Snob as any man on board. Bull passes the season in London, sponging for dinners, and sleeping in a garret near his Club, Abroad, he has been everywhere; he knows the best wine at every inn in every capital in Europe; lives with the best English company there; has seen every palace and picture-gallery from Madrid to Stockholm; speaks an abominable little jargon of half-a-dozen languages-and knows nothing-nothing. Bull hunts tufts on the Continent, and is a sort of amateur courier. He will scrape acquaintance with old Carabas before they make Ostend; and will remind his lordship that he met him at Vienna twenty years ago, or gave him a glass of Schnaps up the Righi. We have said Bull knows nothing: he knows the birth, arms and pedigree of all the peerage, has poked his little eyes into every one of the carriages on board