does not belie her looks; were she in Madame de Genlis's Palace of Truth, she would not alter a phrase nor unbend a single smile. Amid a world of deceit, her benign looks are bent upon her new inmate with an absolute integrity of sincerity; nor are her numerous servants less cordial, emulous, and reverent. Is it winter, the guest's great coat and hat are taken from him, and cautiously suspended: one excites the fire into a cheerful and blazing recognition of his presence, while another spreads a screen before the door, that "the airs of heaven may not visit him too roughly." Is it summer, the blinds are pulled down that he may be sheltered from the sun, and the window thrown open that he may be fanned by the cooling breezes, while a paper is placed before him containing the very latest news from each extremity of the earth, to prepare which for his morning's perusal, many fellow-creatures of great technical skill, and some of intellectual eminence, have been sleepless all night. By the side of this record submitting the events of the wide world to his perusal, is placed the bill of fare, tendering the productions of the universe to his palate. The four elements, the four seasons, the four quarters of the earth, are ransacked and laid under contribution for his instant gratification. The wishes of Cinderella, however wild and extravagant, were not more promptly realized; the cap of Fortunatus and the wand of Harlequin are less magical than his enchanted finger. He points, and the depths of the sea yield him up their tenants; the air surrenders its feathered rarities; earth pours out its cornucopia at his feet; and fire,

like a ministering spirit, waits to receive his orders for their concoction. Mankind seems to be at his disposal not less than the animal and vegetable world. How many weary months have the crew of an East Indiaman been shut out from the sight of land, how many storms have they encountered, to bring home that pickle of which he swallows a mouthful, not to gratify but promote hunger, that he may devour some production imparted at equal cost from another hemisphere. Lives, more valuable perhaps than his own, may have been sacrificed to pamper his appetite. Some fisherman's boat may have perished in the night-storm before that turbot was torn from the raging billows; the poacher may now lie mangled or dead who stole that pheasant from the preserve; and the glass he is lifting to his lips may be blushing with the blood of the smuggler. Those who do not die for him seem to live for him; from the snow-covered hunter of the North to the sunburnt vintager of the South, all offer up to him the sacrifice of their toils and dangers.

Nor is it only in this remote worship that he is undergoing a living apotheosis. The waiters bow down before him: "præsens habebitur divus"--a present Deity the walls resound; and even the subterranean cooks, scullions, and kitchen-maids, though they do not chaunt hymns with their lips, enact them with their hands; they talk with their fingers and digitate quotations from Shakspeare-" Laud we the gods, and let our crooked smoke climb to their nostrils."

How delightful the contrast of all this heartfelt ho

mage, this perfect and spotless candour of hospitality, with the hollow, sordid, and treacherous professions of the world, the lip-love of rivals, the warm words and cold looks of pretended friends; the Judaslike salutations of those who contract their hearts while they extend their arms; the falsehood of relations, who, while they wish us many happy new years, are secretly pining for our death; the duplicity of acquaintance, who are delighted to see us, and wish us at the devil; the forbidding looks of the wife if we go uninvited to a dinner; the broad hints of the husband if we protract our visits beyond the stipulated day; and the scowl of the servants wheresoever and whensoever we are doomed to accept of their bad offices. Enthroned in a tavern chair, we seem to have dominion over mind as well as matter; to command the hearts as well as the hands of our species: thus uniting the charities and affections that delight the soul, with all the luxuries and gratifications that can recreate the

sense.

And who is the happy individual whose presence commands this species of instant adoration from all things animate and inanimate? Is it the prodigal son, for whose unexpected return hecatombs of fatted calves are to be slain? Is it some benefactor of his race, some patriot or hero, some grandee or sovereign of the country? Far from it. Any obscure or absolutely unknown individual may enjoy this temporary deification, if he have but a few thin circular pieces of metal in his pocket. I question whether the advantages of the social system are ever concentrated into a more

striking point of illustration; or the supremacy, the omnipotence of gold, ever more undeniably manifested, than in this accumulation of power, by which the whole range of nature, with all its varieties and enjoyments, is converged into the narrow space of one room and one hour, and placed at the absolute disposal of the humblest individual in society.

So much homage and luxury, alike flattering to the spirit and the sense, form a dangerous possession to those who are not habituated to their enjoyment. A gentleman, in the enlarged sense of that word, will have comprehension enough of intellect to distinguish between the substance and the accidents of human nature; he will know to what fortuitous circumstances his own elevation is attributable; and will never for a moment forget that a general urbanity and courteousness are the distinctive attributes of his character. There is an autocratical gentleman of a very different description, whose patent is in his pocket, and who, as if conscious of his total want of all other claims to re

spect, seems determined to evince that he possesses all the wealth that can be typified by arrogance and coarseness. As he swaggers into the room, making the floor resound with his iron heels, he stares at the company with an air that seems to be shaking his purse in their faces. The brass in his own is Corinthian; it is a mixture of other metals, in which gold seems to predominate, and the precious compound actually appears to exude from every pore of his body. Swelling with self-importance, he gives the bell a violent pull, summons attention with a loud authoritative voice, puffs

out the breath from his inflated cheeks, and might almost burst with the tumour of consequence, had he not the waiter on whom to vent the superflux of his humours. As to the quid pro quo, or any system of equivalents, reducing the relations between himself and the landlord to one of simple barter or exchange, he understands it not. He is lavishing his money of his own free will and bounty, and has surely a right to take out the full value in insolence. Nothing is so genteel as fastidiousness; he abuses every thing, pretends to be poisoned with the viands, turns up his nose at the wines, wonders where the devil such trash was brewed, and thinks to obtain credit for a familiarity with more exalted modes of life, by undervaluing the miserable luxuries of a tavern, although an inference diametrically opposite would certainly be much nearer to the truth. In addressing the waiter, his tone varies from downright brutality to a mock and supercilious civility; though he is generally most delighted when he turns him into ridicule, and converts him into a butt for the exercise of his clumsy wit.

The object of his horseplay and rude raillery is himself not unworthy observation. As the butcher generally becomes fat and florid by inhaling the odours of raw flesh in the open air, the waiter commonly exhibits a stunted growth and sodden complexion, from battening on the steam of dressed victuals in a close coffee-room. Not unfrequently his shin bone assumes that projecting curve which a medical friend of mine terms the Tibia Londinensis; his sallow face expresses shrewdness, selfishness, and a fawning imperturbable