lue oneself for bodily perfections, or mental powers, both being totally the gift of the Supreme Being, without the least merit on our part. Nor is that consequence, arrogated from illustrious birth, at all justifiable, since the proof of possessing it cannot arise higher than probability: all ladies are not Susannahs, nor all servants Josephs. But suppose it allowed; a good man does not want that addition; and to a bad one, the virtues of his ancestors are a standing reproach. A lower kind of importance is frequently assumed from the excellence of one's domestic animals, such as a fine pack of hounds, staunch pointers, or fleet horses, when the arrogator of their merit has neither bred, chosen, nor taught them; and has had no other concern with them, than simply paying the purchase-money. How excellently does Dr. Young, in his Universal Passion, draw and expose a character of this kind!

The 'squire is proud to see his courser strain,
Or well breathed beagles sweep along the plain.
Say, dear Hippolytus, (whose drink is ale,
Whose erudition is a Christmas tale,

Whose mistress is saluted with a smack,

And friend received with thumps upon the back,)
When thy sleek gelding nimbly leaps the mound,
And Ringwood opens on the tainted ground,
Is that thy praise? let Ringwood's fame alone;
Just Ringwood leaves each animal his own,
Nor envies when a gipsy you commit,

And shake the clumsy bench with country wit;
When you the dullest of dull things have said,
And then ask pardon for the jest you made.

But of all the ridiculous pretensions to pre-emi

nence, that arising from the place of one's residence seems the most foolish; and nothing is more common, and that not limited to countries, provinces, or cities, but is regularly extended to the different parts of this town of London, and even to the several stories of a house. The appellation of country-booby is very ready in the mouth of every citizen and apprentice, who feels an imaginary superiority from living in the metropolis; and any one who has seen London ladies of the middling order, in a country church, must have observed, that there they fail not to display a contemptuous consequence founded on their coming from that town.

London is divided into the suburbs, city, and court, or, as it is styled, east of Temple Bar, and t'other end of the town; and again subdivided into many degrees and districts, each in a regular climax conferring ideal diguity and precedency. The inhabitants of Kent-street and St. Giles's are mentioned by those of Wapping, Whitechapel, Mileend, and the Borough of Southwark, with sovereign contempt; whilst a Wappineer, a Mile-ender, and a Boroughnian, are terms proverbially used, about the Exchange and Fenchurch-street, to express an inferior order of beings; nor do the rich citizens of Lombard-street ever lose the opportunity of retailing the joke of a Whitechapel fortune. The same contempt is expressed for the cits inhabiting the environs of the Royal Exchange, or residing within the sound of Bow-bell, St. Bennet's Sheerhog, Pudding-lane, and Blow-bladder-street, by the inferior retainers of the law in Chancery-lane,

Hatton-garden, and Bedford-row; and these again are considered as people living totally out of the polite circle by the dwellers in Soho, and the aspiring tradesman settled in Bloomsbury, Queen's, and Red-Lion-squares, in the first flight from their counting-houses in Thames-street, Billingsgate, and Mark-lane. The new colonies about Oxfordstreet sneer at these would-be people of fashion, and are in their turns despised by those whose happier stars have placed them in Pall Mall, St. James's, Cavendish, and Portman-squares. Thus it is, taking this criterion of pre-eminence in a general view but to descend to a smaller scale, the lodger in the first floor scarcely deigns to return the bow of the occupier of the second in the same house, who, on all occasions, makes himself amends by speaking with the utmost contempt of the garretteers over head, with many shrewd jokes on sky parlours. The precedency between the garret and the cellar seems evidently in favour of the former, garrets having time out of mind been the residence of the literati, and sacred to the Muses: it is not, therefore, wonderful that the inhabitants of those sublime regions should think the renters of cellars, independent of a pun, much below them.

Besides the distinctions of altitude, there is that of forward and backward. I have heard a lady, who lodged in the fore room of the second story, on being asked after another who lodged in the same house, scornfully describe her by the appellation of "the woman living in the back room,"

Polite situations not only confer dignity on the parties actually residing on them, but also, by ema

nations of gentility, in some measure ennoble the vicinity; thus persons living in any of the back lanes or courts near one of the polite squares or streets, may tack them to their address, and thereby somewhat add to their consequence. I once knew this method practised with great success by a person who lodged in a court in Holborn, who constantly added to his direction," opposite the duke of Bedford's, Bloomsbury-square."

To prevent disputes respecting the superiority here treated of, I have, with much impartiality, trouble, and severe study, laid down a sort of table of precedency, and marshalled the usual places of residence in their successive order, beginning with the lowest. First, then, of those who occupy only a part of a tenement, stand, the holders of stalls, sheds, and cellars, to them succeed the residents in garrets, whence we gradually descend to the second and first floor, the dignity of each story being in the inverse ratio of its altitude; it being always remembered, that those dwelling in the fore part of the house take place of the inhabitants of the same elevation renting the back rooms; the ground floor, if not a shop or a warehouse, ranks with the second story. Situations of houses I have arranged in the following order: passages, alleys, courts, streets, rows, places, and squares. My reason for these arrangements, I may, perhaps, give on a future opportunity.

As a comfort to those who might despond at seeing their lot placed in a humiliating degree, let them consider, that all but the first situations are capable of promotion; and that an inhabitant

of a yard or court may, without moving, find him. self a dweller in a street. Many instances of this have very lately occurred. Does any one now hesitate to talk of Fludyer and Crown-streets, Westminster? and yet both were, not long ago, simply Axeyard and Crown-court, from which they have been raised to their present dignity, without passing through the intermediate rank of lanes. In the same manner Hedge-lane is become Whitcombestreet; and Cumberland-court takes the title of Milford-place; and Cranbourn-alley has experienced a similar elevation; and any one, that should chance to call it less than Cranbourn-street, would risk something more than abuse from the ladies of the quilting frame, and sons of the gentle craft resident there. Tyburn-road has been created Oxford-street; and Leicester-fields honoured with the rank, style, and title of Leicester-square.

GROSE.