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look on, and make wry faces, while their fellow guests made away with the chickens, and swept off the green pease without mercy. On talking of the affair to a young lady who was present, she said, with much emphasis, that she had seen all the delicacies of the season there.

Great revolutions may be expected to arise in the fashionable world' from these circumstances; it is whispered that the ladies en bon point will be quickly out of all repute, and the price of vinegar and salad is in conséquence about to experience an extravagant rise. A very fashionable lady, who has as much money as she can spend, and consequently many more guests than she can well accommodate, has devised a very pretty method of preventing inconvenience, by introducing a fresh supper, and a fresh set of guests at certain intervals, till the whole have partaken of the pleasures of the supper-room. It is said that this lady, who has discovered such a tasteful method of prolonging a party, has resolved to improve still farther on the idea; and is to have such a crowd of fashionables, that the supper-rooms shall be replenished with new guests and delicacies every two hours, and yet the entertainment extend through the whole four-andtwenty.

Such a plan is truly grand, and there is no danger of its being imitated by the little. It is only to be regretted that it must necessarily give rise to a number of eclipses. An eclipse in the fashionable world is a temporary obscurity in which those, who have no perennial mints in Lombard-street, find it convenient to shroud themselves. When all the old woods have disappeared, when tradespeople become importunate, and the Jews saucy, and when there fore it is no longer practicable to

see one's friends by hundreds, fashionable retirement is the re source. The little in these circumstances would begin to retrench, and think of only having ten guests where they had twenty before. But this is out of all rule in the circle of fashion; one must never seem less than he has once been. It is, indeed, a very easy affair to disappear out of the fashionable world; as no one thinks more of the matter, till the absentees find it convenient again to emerge in all their glory. Whoever thought of the charming Mrs., during her last eclipse? And yet what parties are more fuequented than hers, since she re-appeared? Her spirit, indeed, deserves the highest commendation; for it is well known that she mortified two whole years in an old castle, in order to enjoy her present blaze; and it is allowed her parties yield to none either in numbers or splendour, although the flash of this season must immediately be followed by another eclipse. Fashionable happiness is indeed something quite beyond the comprehension of the vulgar.

But of all the means by which the great set the little at a distance, there are none so effectual as trampling with contempt on certain restrictions, which the little are compelled to observe with reverence. Those old crabbed fellows, the Laws, indeed, in this age and nation, are extremely unpropitious to the distinctions of high life; a lord and his tradesman are quite on a level in Westminster-Hall, nor have the surly jurors civilisation enough to acquit a person on the plea of his being a man of fashion. But in spite of these untoward circumstances, there is still a sufficient degree of respect paid to morals and religion among the no-bodies, to afford considerable distinction by breaking

through all their restraints; and a man of high fashion may be profligate and profane far beyond what His inferiors can openly venture. The vulgar, indeed, advance with rapid strides in the footsteps of their betters; they have also their affairs at Doctors' Commons, their E. O. table, and their Sunday gambols: but things must with them be done in as private a way as possible, for they Know that the Society for the Suppression of Vice is every where at their heels,

rangements or useful needle-work, time has proved a severe burden to people who are destitute of inclination for literature. To relieve themselves from a load, the weight of which they are too proud to acknowledge, they have felt obliged to mingle with what is called the world. Did any of these adventurous dames.consider the heavy services which this association requires; did they fairly rate the fatigue, the perplexity, the slavery of being very genteel upon a limited scale; they would think it better to prefer a plain system of R. T. social comfort, even at the expence

On the FOLLY of FASHIONABLE OSTENTATION in the MIDDLE · CLASSES of LIFE.

{From Mrs. West's Letters to a Young Lady.)

WOULD to heaven our sex could be vindicated from the heavy censure that must fall upon those who to purchase the éclat of a few years, not the happiness of an hour, involve themselves and families in destruction! An impartial review of living manners compels me to confess, that we are on this point often more culpable than our weakly indulgent partners. It is Eve who again entreats Adam toeat the forbidden fruit; he takes it, and is undone. Men in this rank of life have generally less taste than women; they are amused by their business through the day, and at its weary close they would generally be contented with the relaxation which their own families afforded, if those families were social, domestic, cheerful, and desirous to promote their amusement. But since the potent decree of fashion determined it to be unfit for the wife of a man in reputable circumstances to employ herself in domestic ar

of that ridicule, which, I lament to say, such a deviation from refinement would incur. Yet, when there is no house-keeper in the spice-room nor butler at the side-board, an elegant entertainment occasions more labour and perplexity to the mistress of the house than she would undergo by a regular performance of services highly beneficial and praise.. worthy. What anxiety is there that every part of the splendid repast should be properly selected, well-dressed, and served up in style! What care to keep the every day garb of family economies out of sight, and to convince the guests that this is the usual style of living; though, if they credit the report, it must only confirm their suspicion that their hostess is actually insane! What blushing confusion do these demi-fashionists discover, if detected in any employment that seems to indicate a little remaining regard for prudence and economy! What irregularity and inconvenience must the family experience during the days immediately preceding the gala! What irritation of temper, what neglect of children, what disregard of religious and social offices! And for what is all this sacrifice? To procure the honour of being talked

of; for happiness, or even comfort, are rarely expected at such entertainments. Notwithstanding all due preparations, something goes wrong, either in the dinner or the com. pany. The face of the inviter displays mortification instead of exultation, and the invited disguise the sneer of ridicule, under the fixed simper of affected politeness. Nor let the giver of the feast complain of disappointment. She aimed not to please, but to dazzle; not to gratify her guests by the cheerful hilarity of her table, but to announce her own superiority in taste or in expence. When the hospitable hostess spreads her plain but plentiful board för friendship and kindred, for those whom she loves or respects, those whom she seeks to oblige, or those to whom she wishes to acknowledge obligation, where vanity and self are kept out of sight, and real generosity seeks no higher praise than that of giving a sufficient and comfortable repast with a pleasant welcome, a fastidious observance of any accidental mistake, or trivial error, might be justly called ill-nature, or ingratitude; but when ostenta tion summons her myrmidons to behold the triumph, let ridicule join the party, and proclaim the defeat.

But this insatiable monster, a rage for distinction, is not content with spoiling the comforts of the cheerful regale: luxury has invented a prodigious number of accommodations in the department of moveables; and the mistress of a tiny villa at Hackney, or a still more tiny drawing-room in Crutched Friars, only waits to know if her grace has placed them in her baronial residence, to pronounce that they are comforts without which no soul can exist. Hence it becomes an undertaking of no little skill to conduct

one's person through an apartment twelve feet square, furnished in style by a lady of taste, without any injury to ourselves, or to the fantenils, candelabras, consoletables, jardiniers, chiffoniers, &c. Should we, at entering the apartment, escape the work-boxes, foot-stools, and cushions for lap-dogs, our début may still be celebrated by the overthrow of half a dozen top-gallant screens, as many perfume jars, or even by the total demolition of a glass cabinet stuck full of stuffed monsters. By an inadvertent remove of our chair backwards, we may thrust it through the paper frame of the book-stand, or the pyramidal flower-basket, and our nearer approach to the fire is barricadoed by nodding mandarines and branching lustres. It is well if the height of the apartment permits us to glide secure under the impending danger of crystal lamps, chandeliers, and gilt bird-cages, inhabited by screaming canaries. An attempt to walk would be too presumptuous amid the opposition of a host of working-tables, sophas, rout-chairs, and ottomans. To return from a visit of this kind without having committed or suffered any depredation, is an event almost similar to the famous expedition of the argonauts. The fair mistress, indeed, generally officiates as pilot, and by observing how she folds or unfurle her redundant train, and enlarges or contracts the waving of her plumes, one may practise the dilating or diminishing graces according to the most exact rules of geometrical proportion; happy if we can steal a moment from the circumspection that our arduous situation requires to admire the quantity of pretty things which are collected together, and enquire if the are really of any

use.

A NIGHT WALK

IN JANUARY,

By J. M. L.

"I love to stroll when others sleep, A truant from my pillow.'

:

Author's MSS.

METHINKS I hear the fair perusers of the Lady's Magazine, as they start at the title of my essay, exclaim A Night Walk! who ever heard of such a thing?' To this I reply, Lovely friends, at some time or other, all of us, either from choice or necessity, are led forth in the gloom of night at one time, we pace the crowded pavements of the metropolis; at another, we stroll beneath the bowered walks of the country. In either of these situations, why may not the moral pourtray the feelings of the moral mind with as much propriety as when the walk is taken beneath the influence of a Noontide beam?'

pen

I had spent a day in January about four miles from home; the weather was clear and frosty, and consequently the paths perfectly clean. I supped with my friend; and as I quitted the hospitable door, the house clock told out ten. The bright beam of a full moon guided me in my way, and made my walk particularly pleasant. I could not help exclaiming

Hail! fairest Luna! queen of night! Oh! shed on me thy mildest beam! Oh! soothe my soul to soft delight,.

And lull my mind with pleasure's dream!'

The wind was extremely cold, but my wintry friend, a good great coat, with the help of exercise, set it at defiance; for I am not one of those feeble sons of excess whose fragile forms shrink from the northern breeze, like the sensitive plant from the rude hand of intrusive man: but when health is permitted by the all

1

omniscient Power to pervade my frame, I prefer a walk in the rude gale of winter to lingering by the fire-side of indolence. Here I do not wish to be understood as being an enemy to an Englishman's fire-side,' for certainly it has many charms, and when shared with a social friend, its influence expands the heart, and adds a zest to enjoyment. For various reasons, January, I love thee;

Though Winter is pre-eminently thine,
And gives his snows and storms at thy
command,

With fearful gloom forbids the sun to shine
And binds the lucid lake in icy band.'

scured by snow-charged clouds, and
Suddenly the moon became ob-
presently the feathery flakes began
them. I buttoned up closer, and
to fall, till the air was loaded with
increased my pace, the snow pitilessly
pelting in my face as I walked. I
had not proceeded in this way far,
when I heard, in some distant fields
on my right, a voice, apparently
proceeding from a boy of eight or
nine years old, screaming in the most
exquisite distress imaginable. I con-
jectured, from the tone, that it was

the

cry

after inarticulately heard, I can't of a lost child; and I soon of the sentence: I was now almost find the wind bore away the rest convinced, but made a discretionary pause as I crossed the road to follow the sound. I had heard of children being set to scream, that the traveller might leave the road, influenced by the divinest impulse of his nature-humanity; and when he arrived at the spot of supposed distress, to fall a prey to robbers. Spurning the thought, I proceeded, and soon saw a lanthorn gleaming through the night, evidently going towards the same spot that I was in search of. Presently the cry of despair ceased, and I observed the light coming towards me. I waited, and found that it was a benighted

boy, about the age I had conjec, tured, who, in returning home, had unconsciously lost his way, owing to the fields being covered with snow; when, impressed with terror at the forlornness of his situation, he had screamed in the way I have describe ed, and a benevolent cottager, who lived hard by, had gone in quest of him with his lanthorn, and rescued him from his perilous prospect.

And how soon, poor wanderer! might you not have perished, had no such benevolent-minded man been near, to preserve you from inevitable destruction! This brought to my recollection some lines. I had long since written during such a night, and the following extract occurred more forcibly to my mind than any other part of them.

In such a night, by sad misfortune led, Where shall the houseless wand'rer hide his head?

No gladsome taper gleams upon his way,
Nor moon nor stars emit one friendly ray:
He wanders o'er some wide and dreary moor,
Perchance, where foot of man ne'er trod be
fore;

Gloomy resort of all the reptile race,
Each bird of terror there has found its place.
Before him still, as on he cautious goes,
Some dreadful bog imagination shews;
Each step he takes may lead him to its side,
May plunge him in its vortex long and wide;
Or else some pit profound may stop his way
In either, death before him seems to lay.
He dares not move, by terrors circled round;
Seiz'd by despair, he drops upon the ground;
There, claps'd by death, he lays him down

at last,

* Stretch'd out and bleaching in the northern

blast."

In such a night, some hapless village child,
Who lost his way upon the gloomy wild,
His long'd-for home in vain essays to find,
And all the pleasing joys he left behind.
In vain he asks his mother's helping aid;
He only answering hears the echoing glade.
Turn to his home: the parent's pang there
view;

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Forth from her cot the mother wildly flew,
From door to door, with anguish see her run,
Of all her neighbours asks her wand'ring son.
No tidings heard, she back returns again,
And feels a mother's fears, a mother's pain:
Meantime the infant rambler, worn with toil,
Exhausted sinks upon th' unconscious soil :

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Again the clouds disappeared, and the moon, seemingly with renovated lustre, burst in splendour upon the world. I remembered having recently read, in an anonymous author, some lines applicable to the present scene. Behold, the rage of the tempest is spent, and evening leads on more tranquil hours; her solitary star scarce has shed her silver twilight than millions of distant suns slowly rise before our sight, and crowd the plains of space. How pure the breath of night! how grand and solemn are her scenes! It is a torrent of snow that has suddenly deluged the heavens. Lo! now it rolls like a sea of blood, and sports harmless above our heads. Hail, northern lights! awful, mysterious fires! Can the ingenuity of man imitate your' dazzling glory? No: to him whose soul, untainted by the prejudices of blind mortals, defies the clamours of the world, and despises the weakness of its inhabitants, the wonders of Nature alone will appear worthy of his admiration.' At this moment, and often before, I have regretted my limited knowledge of Noble science! that leads the mind through the immensity of space, to mark the motions of the multiplied worlds that sublimely roll in order and regularity; and from them guides the wandering idea to that Great Being, whose arm controls and regulates the whole. The astronomer may exclaim

astronomy.

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