amongst them, and said he would give warning rather than carry the books to that church any more.

The furnishing of the house was not done without expense.

And, ye gods! what a difference there was between Sackville's dreary French banquets in Pimlico, and the jolly dinners at the Oval! No more legs of mutton, no more of "the best port-wine in England;" but entrées on plate, and dismal twopenny champagne, and waiters in gloves, and the Club bucks for companyamong whom Mrs. Chuff was uneasy and Mrs. Sackville quite

silent.

Not that he dined at home often. The wretch had become a perfect epicure, and dined commonly at the Club with the gormandising clique there; with old Dr. Maw, Colonel Cramley (who is as lean as a greyhound and has jaws like a jack), and the rest of them. Here you might see the wretch, tippling Sillery champagne and gorging himself with French viands; and I often looked with sorrow from my table (on which cold meat, the Club small-beer, and a half-pint of Marsala form the modest banquet), and sighed to think it was my work.

And there were other beings present to my repentant thoughts. Where's his wife, thought I? Where's poor, good, kind little Laura? At this very moment-it's about the nursery bed-time, and while yonder good-for-nothing is swilling his wine—the little ones are at Laura's knees lisping their prayers; and she is teaching them to say-"Pray God bless Papa."

When she has put them to bed, her day's occupation is gone; and she is utterly lonely all night, and sad, and waiting for him. O for shame! O for shame! Go home, thou idle tippler. How Sackville lost his health: how he lost his business; how he got into scrapes; how he got into debt; how he became a railroad director; how the Pimlico house was shut up; how he went to Boulogne, all this I could tell, only I am too much ashamed of my part of the transaction. They returned to England, because, to the surprise of everybody, Mrs. Chuff came down with a great sum of money (which nobody knew she had saved), and paid his liabilities. He is in England; but at Kennington. His name is taken off the books of the Sarcophagus long ago. When we meet, he crosses over to the other side of the street; and I don't

call, as I should be sorry to see a look of reproach or sadness in Laura's sweet face.

Not, however, all evil, as I am proud to think, has been the influence of the Snob of England upon Clubs in general:Captain Shindy is afraid to bully the waiters any more, and eats his mutton-chop without moving Acheron. Gobemouche does not take more than two papers at a time for his private reading. Tiggs does not ring the bell and cause the librarywaiter to walk about a quarter of a mile in order to give him Vol. II., which lies on the next table. Growler has ceased to walk from table to table in the coffee-room, and inspect what people are having for dinner. Trotty Veck takes his own umbrella from the hall-the cotton one, and Sidney Scraper's paletot lined with silk has been brought back by Jobbins, who entirely mistook it for his own. Waggle has discontinued telling stories about the ladies he has killed. Snooks does not any more think it gentlemanlike to blackball attorneys. Snuffler no longer publicly spreads out his great red cotton pocket-handkerchief before the fire, for the admiration of two hundred gentlemen; and if one Club Snob has been brought back to the paths of rectitude, and if one poor John has been spared a journey or a scolding-say, friends and brethren, if these sketches of Club Snobs have been in vain ?

CHAPTER LAST.

How it is that we have come to No. 45 of this present series of papers, my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly knowbut for a whole mortal year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.

The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. “Where are your Theatrical Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical

and Chirurgical Snobs; your Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs ; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical Snobs; your Sporting Snobs ?" write my esteemed correspondents: "Surely you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit showing up your Don Snobs who are coming, cap in hand, to a young Prince

of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their renowned University ?" writes a friend who seals with the signet of the Cam and Isis Club: "Pray, pray," cries another, "now the Operas are opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs." Indeed, I should like to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to have a palaver.

When these were done there
The labour is endless. No

But what's the use of delaying? would be fresh Snobs to portray. single man could complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks-and a pyramid to build. It is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said his good thing,-as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into private life in the height of their popularity,-as Prince Albert, when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,—as the poet Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too tumultuous to describe, blesses his kyind friends over the footlights: so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid the shouts and the plaudits of a people—triumphant yet modest—the Snob of England bids ye farewell.

But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated author whom I admire very much-who has been taking leave of the public any time these ten years in his prefaces, and always comes back again when everybody is glad to see him. How can he have the heart to be saying good-bye, so often? I believe that Bunn is affected when he blesses the people. Parting is always painful. Even the familiar bore is dear to you. I should be sorry to shake hands even with Jawkins for the last time. I think a well-constituted convict, on coming home from transportation, ought to be rather sad when he takes leave of Van Diemen's

Land. When the curtain goes down on the last night of a pantomine, poor old clown must be very dismal, depend on it. Ha! with what joy he rushes forward on the evening of the 26th of December next, and says "How are you?-Here we are!" But I am growing too sentimental:-to return to the theme.

THE NATIONAL MIND IS AWAKENED TO THE SUBJECT OF SNOBS. The word Snob has taken a place in our honest English Vocabulary. We can't define it, perhaps. We can't say what it is, any more than we can define Wit, or Humour, or Humbug; but we know what it is. Some weeks since, happening to have the felicity to sit next to a young lady at a hospitable table, where poor old Jawkins was holding forth in a very absurd pompous manner, I wrote upon the spotless damask "S-B," and called my neighbour's attention to the little remark.

That young lady smiled. She knew it at once. Her mind straightway filled up the two letters concealed by apostrophic reserve, and I read in her assenting eyes that she knew Jawkins was a Snob. You seldom get them to make use of the word as yet, it is true; but it is inconceivable how pretty an expression their little smiling mouths assume when they speak it out. If any young lady doubts, just let her go up to her own room, look at herself steadily in the glass, and say "Snob." If she tries this simple experiment, my life for it, she will smile, and own that the word becomes her mouth amazingly. A pretty little round word, all composed of soft letters, with a hiss at the beginning, just to make it piquant, as it were.

Jawkins, meanwhile, went on blundering, and bragging, and boring, quite unconsciously. And so he will, no doubt, go on roaring and braying to the end of time, or at least so long as people will hear him. You cannot alter the nature of men and Snobs by any force of satire; as, by laying ever so many stripes on a donkey's back you can't turn him into a zebra.

But we can warn the neighbourhood that the person whom they and Jawkins admire is an impostor. We can apply the Snob test to him, and try whether he is conceited and a quack, whether pompous and lacking humility-whether uncharitable and proud of his narrow soul. How does he treat a great man-how regard

presence of

a small one? How does he comport himself in the His Grace the Duke; and how in that of Smith, the tradesman ? And it seems to me that all English society is cursed by this mammoniacal superstition; and that we are sneaking and bowing and cringing on the one hand, or bullying and scorning on the other, from the lowest to the highest. My wife speaks with great circumspection-"proper pride," she calls it-to our neighbour the tradesman's lady; and she, I mean Mrs. Snob,-Eliza-would give one of her eyes to go to Court, as her cousin the Captain's wife did. She, again, is a good soul, but it costs her agonies to be obliged to confess that we live in Upper Thompson Street, Somer's Town. And though I believe in her heart Mrs. Whiskerington is fonder of us than of her cousins, the Smigsmags, you should hear how she goes on prattling about Lady Smigsmag,-and "I said to Sir John, my dear John; " and about the Smigsmags' house and parties in Hyde Park Terrace.

Lady Smigsmag, when she meets Eliza,-who is a sort of a kind. of a species of a connexion of the family, pokes out one finger, which my wife is at liberty to embrace in the most cordial manner she can devise. But, oh, you should see her ladyship's behaviour on her first-chop dinner-party days, when Lord and Lady Longears come!

I can bear it no longer-this diabolical invention of gentility which kills natural kindliness and honest friendship. Proper pride, indeed! Rank and precedence, forsooth! The table of ranks and degrees is a lie and should be flung into the fire. Organise rank and precedence! that was well for the masters of ceremonies of former ages. Come forward, some great marshal, and organise Equality in society, and your rod shall swallow up all the juggling old court gold-sticks. If this is not gospel-truthif the world does not tend to this-if hereditary-great-man worship is not a humbug and an idolatry-let us have the Stuarts back again, and crop the Free Press's ears in the pillory.

If ever our cousins, the Smigsmags, asked me to meet Lord Longears, I would like to take an opportunity after dinner and say, in the most good-natured way in the world:-Sir, Fortune makes you a present of a number of thousand pounds every year The ineffable wisdom of our ancestors has placed you as a chief.