country school, where they cultivated pease and only used twopronged forks, and it was only by living on the Continent where the usage of the four-prong is general, that he lost the horrible

custom.

In this point-and in this only-I confess myself a member of the Silver-Fork School ; and if this tale but induce one of my readers to pause, to examine in his own mind solemnly, and ask, "Do I or do I not eat pease with a knife?"-to see the ruin which may fall upon himself by continuing the practice, or his family by beholding the example, these lines will not have been written in vain. And now, whatever other authors may be, I flatter myself, it will be allowed that I, at least, am a moral man.

By the way, as some readers are dull of comprehension, I may as well say what the moral of this history is. The moral is this Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.

If I should go to the British and Foreign Institute (and heaven forbid I should go under any pretext or in any costume whatever)-if I should go to one of the tea-parties in a dressinggown and slippers, and not in the usual attire of a gentleman, viz. pumps, a gold waistcoat, a crush hat, a sham frill, and a white choker-I should be insulting society, and eating pease with my knife. Let the porters of that Institute hustle out the individual who shall so offend. Such an offender is, as regards society, a most emphatical and refractory Snob. It has its code and police as well as governments, and he must conform who would profit by the decrees set forth for their common comfort.

I am naturally averse to egotism, and hate self-laudation consumedly; but I can't help relating here a circumstance illustrative of the point in question, in which I must think I acted with considerable prudence.

Being at Constantinople a few years since-(on a delicate mission), the Russians were playing a double game, between ourselves, and it became necessary on our part to employ an extra negotiator-Leckerbiss Pasha of Roumelia, then Chief Galeongee of the Porte, gave a diplomatic banquet at his summer palace at Bujukdere. I was on the left of the Galeongee, and the Russian agent, Count de Diddloff, on his dexter side. Diddloff is a dandy who would die of a rose in aromatic pain: he had tried to have me assassinated three times in the course of the negotiation; but of course we were friends in public, and saluted each other in the most cordial and charming manner.

The Galeongee is—or was, alas! for a bow-string has done

for him—a staunch supporter of the old school of Turkish politics. We dined with our fingers, and had flaps of bread 'for plates ; the only innovation he admitted was the use of European liquors, in which he indulged with great gusto. He was an enormous eater. Amongst the dishes a very large one was placed before him of a lamb dressed in its wool, stuffed with prunes, garlic, asafoetida, capsicums, and other condiments, the most abominable mixture that ever mortal smelt or tasted. The Galeongee ate of this hugely; and pursuing the Eastern fashion, insisted on helping his friends right and left, and when he came to a particularly spicy morsel, would push it with his own hands into his guests' very mouths.

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I never shall forget the look of poor Diddloff, when his Excellency, rolling up a large quantity of this into a ball and exclaiming, "Buk Buk (it is very good), administered the horrible bolus to Diddloff. The Russian's eyes rolled dreadfully as he received it: he swallowed it with a grimace that I thought must precede a convulsion, and seizing a bottle next him, which he thought was Sauterne, but which turned out to be French brandy, he drank off nearly a pint before he knew his error. It finished him; he was carried away from the dining-room almost dead, and laid out to cool in a summerhouse on the Bosphorus.

When it came to my turn, I took down the condiment with a smile, said "Bismillah," licked my lips with easy gratification, and when the next dish was served, made up a ball myself so dexterously, and popped it down the old Galeongee's mouth with so much grace, that his heart was won. Russia was put out of court at once, and the treaty of Kabobanople was signed. As for Diddloff, all was over with him: he was recalled to St. Petersburg, and Sir Roderick Murchison saw him, under the No. 3967, working in the Ural mines.

The moral of this tale, I need not say, is that there are many disagreeable things in society which you are bound to take down, and to do so with a smiling face.

LONG since, at the commencement of the reign of her pres ent Gracious Majesty, it chanced "on a fair summer evening," as Mr. James would say, that three or four young cavaliers were drinking a cup of wine after dinner at the hostelry called the "King's Arms," kept by Mistress Anderson, in the royal village of Kensington. 'Twas a balmy evening, and the wayfarers looked out on a cheerful scene. The tall elms of the ancient gardens were in full leaf, and countless chariots of the nobility of England whirled by to the neighboring palace, where princely Sussex (whose income latterly only allowed him to give teaparties) entertained his royal niece at a state banquet. When the caroches of the nobles had set down their owners at the banquet hall, their varlets and servitors came to quaff a flagon of nut-brown ale in the "King's Arms " gardens hard by. We watched these fellows from our lattice. By Saint Boniface 'twas a rare sight!

The tulips in Mynheer Van Dunck's gardens were not more gorgeous than the liveries of these pie-coated retainers. All the flowers of the field bloomed in their ruffled bosoms, all the hues of the rainbow gleamed in their plush breeches, and the longcaned ones walked up and down the garden with that charming solemnity, that delightful quivering swagger of the calves, which has always had a frantic fascination for us. The walk was not wide enough for them as the shoulder-knots strutted up and down it in canary, and crimson, and light blue.

Suddenly, in the midst of their pride, a little bell was rung, a side door opened, and (after setting down their Royal Mistress) her Majesty's own crimson footmen, with epaulets and plushes, came in.

It was pitiable to see the other poor Johns slink off at this arrival! Not one of the honest private Plushes could stand up before the Royal Flunkeys. They left the walk: they sneaked into dark holes and drank their beer in silence. The Royal Plush kept possession of the garden until the Royal Plush dinner was announced, when it retired, and we heard from the pavilion where they dined, conservative cheers and speeches, and Kentish fires. The other Flunkeys we never saw more

My dear Flunkeys, so absurdly conceited at one moment and so abject at the next, are but the types of their masters in this world. He who meanly admires mean things is a Snob— perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.

And this is why I have, with the utmost respect, ventured to place the Snob Royal at the head of my list, causing all others to give way before him, as the Flunkeys before the royal representative in Kensington Gardens. To say of such and such a Gracious Sovereign that he is a Snob, is but to say that his Majesty is a man. Kings, too, are men and Sr.obs. In a country where Snobs are in the majority, a prime one, surely, cannot be unfit to govern. With us they have succeeded to

admiration.

For instance, James I. was a Snob, and a Scotch Snob, than which the world contains no more offensive creature. He appears to have had not one of the good qualities of a man— neither courage, nor generosity, nor honesty, nor brains; but read what the great Divines and Doctors of England said about him! Charles II., his grandson, was a rogue, but not a Snob; whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary,-the great worshipper of Bigwiggery-has always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.

I will not, however, take instances from our own country of Royal Snobs, but refer to a neighboring kingdom, that of Brentford-—and its monarch, the late great and lamented Gorgius IV. With the same humility with which the footmen at

the " King's Arms gave way before the Plush Royal, the

aristocracy of the Brentford nation bent down and truckled before Gorgius, and proclaimed him the first gentleman in Europe. And it's a wonder to think what is the gentlefolks' opinion of a gentleman, when they gave Gorgius such a title.

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, and honest father? Ought his life to be decent-his bills to be paid his tastes to be high and elegant-his aims in life lofty and noble ? In a word, ought not the Biography of a First Gentleman in Europe to be of such a nature that it might be read in Young Ladies' Schools with advantage, and studied with profit in the Seminaries of Young Gentlemen? I put this question to all instructors of youth-to Mrs. Ellis and the Women of England; to all schoolmasters, from Doctor Hawtrey down to Mr. Squeers. I conjure up before me an

awful tribunal of youth and innocence, attended by its venerable instructors (like the ten thousand red-cheeked charity-children in Saint Paul's), sitting in judgment, and Gorgius pleading his cause in the midst. Out of Court, out of Court, fat old Florizel! Beadles, turn out that bloated, pimple-faced man!If Gorgius must have a statue in the new Palace which the Brentford nation is building, it ought to be set up in the Flunkey's Hall. He should be represented cutting out a coat, in which art he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigor of his youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, as a rabbit becomes the prey of a great big boa-constrictor.

I would wager that if Mr. Widdicomb were, by a revolution, placed on the throne of Brentford, people would be equally fascinated by his irresistibly majestic smile, and tremble as they knelt down to kiss his hand. If he went to Dublin they would erect an obelisk on the spot where he first landed, as the Pad dylanders did when Gorgius visited them. We have all of us read with delight that story of the King's voyage to Haggisland, where his presence inspired such a fury of loyalty; and where the most famous man of the country-the Baron of Bradwardine coming on board the royal yacht, and finding a glass out of which Gorgius had drunk, put it into his coat-pocket as an inestimable relic, and went ashore again. But the Baron sat down upon the glass and broke it, and cut his coat tails very much; and the inestimable relic was lost to the world forever. O noble Bradwardine! What old-world superstition could set you on your knees before such an idol as that?

If you want to moralize upon the mutability of human affairs, go and see the figure of Gorgius in his real, identical robes, at the wax-work.-Admittance one shilling. Children and flunkeys sixpence. Go, and pay sixpence.

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