Away with parsimonious ostentation! That woman, had I married her, would either have turned out a swindler, or we should have had bouilli five times a-week for dinner, bouilli off silver, and hungry lackeys in lace looking on at the windy meal! The old-coat plan is not so base as the above female arrangement: but say what you will, it is not high-minded and honourable to go out in a good coat, to flaunt the streets in it. with an easy dégagé air, as if you always wore such, and, returning home, assume another under pretext of dinner. There is no harm in putting on your old coat of a morning, or in wearing one always. Common reason points out the former precaution, which is at once modest and manly. If your coat pinches you, there is no harm in changing it if you are going out to dinner, there is no harm in changing it for a better. But I say the plan of habitual changing is a base one, and only fit for a man at the last extremities; or for a clerk in the city, who hangs up his best garment on a peg, both at the office, and at home; or for a man who smokes, and has to keep his coat for tea-parties — a paltry precaution however this. If you like smoking, why shouldn't you? If you do smell a little of tobacco, where's the harm? The smell is not pleasant, but it does not kill anybody. If the lady of the house does not like it, she is quite at liberty not to invite you again. Et puis? Bah! of what age are you and I? Have we lived? Have we seen men and cities? Have we noted their manners, and understood their idiosyncrasy? Without a doubt! And what is this truth at which we have arrived? This, that a pipe of tobacco is many an hour in the day, and many a week in the month, a thousand times better and more agreeable society than the best Miss, the loveliest Mrs, the most beautiful Baroness, Countess, or what not. Go to tea-parties, those who will; talk fiddle-faddle such as like; many men there are who do so, and are a little partial to music, aud know how to twirl the leaf of the song that Miss Jemima is singing exactly at the right moment. Very good. These are the enjoyments of dress-coats; but men are they to be put off with such fare for ever? No! One goes out to dinner, because one likes eating and drinking; because the very act of eating and drinking opens the heart, and causes the tongue to wag. But evening parties! Oh, milk and water, and oh, bread and butter! No, no, the age is wiser! The manly youth frequents his club for common society, has, a small circle of amiable ladies for friendly intercourse, his book. and his pipe always. Do not be angry, ladies, that one of your most ardent and sincere admirers should seem to speak disparagingly of your merits, or recommend his fellows to shun the society in which you ordinarily assemble. No, Miss, I am the man who respects you truly,-the man who respects and loves you where you are most lovely and respectable, in your families, my dears. A wife, a mother, a daughter, has God made anything more beautiful? A friend -can one find a truer, kinder, a more generous and enthusiastic one, than a woman often will be? All that has to do with your hearts is beautiful, and in every thing with which they meddle, a man must be a brute not to love and honour you. But Miss Rudge in blue crape, squeaking romances at a harp, or Miss Tobin dancing in a quadrille, or Miss Blogg twisting round the room in the arms of a lumbering Lifeguardsman; what are these? so many vanities. With the operations here described, the heart has nothing to do. Has the intellect? Oh, ye Gods! think of Miss Rudge's intellect while singing « Away, away to the mountain's brow, Away, away to the fountain's flow, Where the streams are softly la-a-a-ving!» These are the words of a real song that I have heard many times, and rapturously applauded too. Such a song! such a poem ! such a songster! No, madam; if I want a song sung, I will pay eight-andsix-pence, and listen to Tamburini and Persiani. I will not pay, gloves three-and-six; cab there and back, four shillings; silk stockings every now and then, say a shilling a time; this I will not pay to hear Miss Rudge screech such disgusting twaddle as the above. If I want to see dancing, there is Taglioni for my money; or across the water, Mrs. Serle, and her forty pupils; or at Covent garden, Madame Védy, beautiful as a houri, dark-eyed and agile as a gazelle. I can see all these in comfort, and they dance a great deal better than Miss Blogg and Captain Haggerty, the great red-whiskered monster, who always wears nankeens because he thinks his legs are fine. If I want conversation, what has Miss Flock to say to me, forsooth, between the figures of a cursed quadrille that we are all gravely dancing? By Heavens! what an agony it is! Look at the cavalier seul! if the operation lasted long, the man's hair would turn white! he would go mad! And is it for this that men and women assemble in multitudes; for this sorry pastime? the No! dance as you will, Miss Smith, and swim through the quadrille like a swan, or flutter through the gallop like a sylphide, and have the most elegant fresh toilettes, the most brilliantly polished white shoulders, the blandest eyes, the reddest, simperingest mouth, the whitest neck, the -- in fact, I say, be as charming as you will, that is not the place in which, if you are worth anything, you are most charming. You are beautiful; you are very much décolletée; your eyes are always glancing down at a pretty pearl necklace round a pearly neck, or on a fresh, fragrant bouquet, stuck- fiddlestick! What is it that the men admire in you? animal, Miss; -the white, plump, external Smith; which men with their eye-glasses, standing at various parts of the room, are scanning pertly and curiously, and of which they are speaking brutally. A pretty admiration, truly! But is it possible that these men can admire anything else in you, who have so much that is really admirable? Cracknell in the course of the waltz, has just time to pant into your ear, Were you at Ascot Races?» Kidwinter, who dances two sets of quadrilles with you, whispers to you, Do you prefer thtwawbewy ithe aw wathbewy ithe?» and asks the name of that gweat enawmuth fat woman in wed thatin and bird of pawadithe? to which you reply, Law, sir, it's mamma!» the ་ rest of the evening passes away in conversations similarly edifying. What can any of the men admire in you, you little silly creature, but the animal? There is your mother, now, in red and bird of paradise, as Kidwinter says. She has a large fan, which she flaps to and fro across a broad chest, and has one eye directed to her Amelia, dancing with Kidwinter before-mentioned; another watching Jane, who is dancing vis-à-vis with Major Cutts; and a third complacently cast upon Edward, who is figuring with Miss Binx in the other quadrille. How the dear fellow has grown, to be sure; and how like his papa at his age-heigho! There is mamma; the best woman breathing; but fat, and even enormous, as has been said of her? And yet she was once as slim and as fair as you, O simple Amelia! Does any body care for her? Yes one. Your father cares for her; SMITH cares for her; and, in his eyes, she is still the finest woman in the room; and he remembers when he danced down seven-and-forty couples with her, before you were born or thought of. But it was all chance that Miss Hopkins turned out the excellent creature she was. Smith did not know any more than that she was gay, plump, good-looking, ard had five thousand pounds. Hit or miss he took her, and has had assuredly no cause to complain; but she might have been a Borgia or Joan of Naples, and have had the same smiling looks and red cheeks, and five thousand pounds, which won his heart in 1814. one. The system of evening parties, then, is a false and absurd Ladies may frequent them professionally with an eye to a husband, but a man is an ass who takes a wife out of such assemblies, having no other means of judging of the object of his choice. You are not the same person in your white crape and satin slip as you are in your morning dress. A man is not the same in his tight coat and feverish glazed pumps, and stiff white waist-coat, as he is in his green doublebreasted frock, his old black ditto, or his woollen jacket. And a man is doubly an ass who is in the habit of frequenting evening parties, unless he is forced thither in search of a lady to whom he is attached, or unless he is compelled to go by his wife. A man who loves dancing may be set down to be an ass; and the fashion is greatly going out with the increasing good sense of the age. Do not say that he who lives at home, or frequents clubs in lieu of balls, is a brute, and has not a proper respect for the female sex; on the contrary, he may respect it most sincerely. He feels that a woman appears to most advantage, not among those whom she cannot care about, but among those whom she loves. He thinks her beautiful when she is at home making tea for her old father. He believes her to be charming when she is singing a simple song at her piano, but not when she is screeching at an evening party. He thinks by far the most valuable part of her is her heart; and a kind simple heart, my dear, shines in conversation better than the best of wit. He admires her most in her intercourse with her family and her friends, and detests the miserable, twaddling slip-slop that he is obliged to hear from and utter to her in the course of a ball; and avoids and despises such meetings. He keeps his evening coat, then, for dinners. And if this friendly address to all mothers who read this miscellany may somewhat influence and be acted upon by them; if heads of families, instead of spending hundreds upon chalking floors, and Gunter, and cold suppers, and Weippert's band, will determine upon giving a series of plain, neat, nice dinners, of not too many courses, but well cooked, of not too many wines, but good of their sort, and according to the giver's degree; they will see that the young men will come to them fast enough; that they will marry their daughters quite as fast, without injuring their health; and that they will make a saving at the year's end. I say that young men, young women, and heads of families, should bless me for pointing out this obvious plan to them, so natural, so hearty, so hospitable, so different to the present artificial mode. A grand ball in a palace is splendid, generous, and noble, a sort of procession in which people may figure properly. A family dance is a pretty and pleasant amusement; and (especially after dinner) it does the philosopher's heart good to look upon merry young people, who know each other, and |