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at a hundred different houses, letting fall incidentally some thing one heard or saw there as an excuse for a careless al÷ lusion to the dinner. Then comes the inevitable enquiry Did you dine there yesterday? - Yesterday, or Wednesday was it P. Yes, yesterday. And who had you? » →→ Not a very large party the Duke of Wellington (or whoever may be the lion of the day,) and a few others of one's own set. I hardly ever knew the bait fail of a nibble. Slow people are fond of being able to say to the next equally humdrum morning visitor, Prattles has just been here. He heard yes! terday at Lord So-and-so's and next day one gets an invitation. The Marquis's dinner kittens half a hundred other dinners. 4uoiz I must own, however, that I had fewer on.my list last season, than any preceding one. Did this arise from a diminution in the aggregate of dinners given, or of my own popularity? The latter, I fear! People are fanciful in the matter of their conversation men. Though certain dishes must recur again in their menu every spring, salmon, turbot, lamb, or turkey-poult they seem to think, it necessary to have a change in their talkers. It is only Rogers who blooms afresh every season, with the lilacs. There is always some new man, something that has taken an honour, or returned from the North Pole or Timbuctoo,- or written a book that has been exalted in the Edinburgh, or cut to mincemeat in the Quarterly or blown up a fort in Syria, or inherited half a mil lion a year, or run away with somebody's daughter, or from somebody's wife, or something wonderful or other, that entitles him to the veneration and dinners of an indulgent public. With such a card in hand, our friends grow ungrateful; forget how many a stupid party of theirs one's efforts had redeemed from the yawns and invite one to a family dinner! I must do as poor lady Cork used, when her popularity was flagging, viz. send an account to the newspapers of my own death, and next day, the contradiction. Something to this effect:!

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We learn, with the liveliest regret, the death of that amiable man, and charming companion, ALFRED PRATTLES, ESQ. Few persons could be so ill spared from the symposia of social life! Mr. Prattles has been for many years past recognized as one

of the most distinguished members of the literary and fashionable world; and no party was considered perfect without the addition of his brilliant and highly piquant conversation. He was, perhaps, on the whole, the liveliest talker of the day..

Followed by, «It is with the most unfeigned satisfaction we learn that there is not the slightest foundation for the rumour of the premature decease of that highly popular individual, Mr. Prattles. We had ourselves the satisfaction of seeing him yesterday in St. James's Street, walking arm-in-arm with the Duke of Wellington; nor can we sufficiently despise the callous and wanton levity with which certain persons for the furtherance of private pique, presume to harrow up the feelings of anxious friends by the circulation of reports of this cruel nature. We cannot sufficiently apologize to our subscribers for our insertion of so ill-advised a fabrication.»

I foresee from hence the compunctious visitings brightening up the damped affections of my friends and acquaintance, on perusing such an announcement! Poor Prattles!» they will exclaim, "I don't know how it was, I had not seen so much of him lately, yet he is one whose company is always an acquisition.a most amusing little fellow,a man who knows everything;a man whom everyhody knows. Heartily glad to find he is still extant! By Jove !. I'll call on him to-morrow and ask him to dinner.»

Even those less-affectionately disposed towards me, even those who perhaps think me a bore, will be moved to ejaculate, « Poor little Prattles!-after all, there was more twaddling than mischief in his gossip. His tittle tattle was only the labour of his vocation. He never did any harm, that is, he never meant to do any harm.-If he sometimes administered arsenic instead of magnesia, it was only through a mistake of the labels. He never poisoned people malice prepense. And he was really very good fun in rainy weather in the country, or when trying to sit his horse in the Park.I fancy we could better spare a better man than Prattles. »

And then one's works! The moment a literary man dies, and the newspapers take to getting up his memoirs, every little anonymous thing of merit that has been floating about for the last ten years, is laid to his charge. The real author has

always the power of establishing his right to his unclaimed dividends; a letter to the editor from, the constant reader of his invaluable journal, informing him in round-about phrase that his facts are fictions, and his fictions rubbish, only serves to encrease the interest of the paper. On the strength of my decease, I shall probably be charged with Violet the Danseuse; or the Adventures of a Coxcomb. I have a great mind to charge myself with Fashionable Friends, and The Nun of Arrouca. It might be a considerable relief to the shoulders of the administration, and at all events produce a newspaper controversy, certain to bring all parties into notice. 'Pon honour the idea may be worth working out!- What neat little articles in the Examiner, Spectator, Athenæum, Atlas, and Literary Gazette, will endeavonr to fix the cap upon the rightful head-What fudgerations in the magazines, what solemn sneers in the Quarterlies, I foresee a vista of dinners prolonged from the Easter feast to the July banquets of Lovegrove's (when the white-bait, like hobbledehoys, have out-grown their melted butter,) issuing from this lucky suggestion. 1 rw yn of sel

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How I hate all those weekly papers, with their Library Tables,» and « Weekly Gossip, and Foreign Correspondence, taking the very roll out of one's mouth! The digestive doc tors swear that the human 'constitution; has never got on half so well since the elaborate processes of modern gastronomy in the form of soups, gravies, and jellies, took half its labours out of its hands. They protest that the epigastric functions, not having enough to do, prey upon themselves, and consequently do mischief. The processes of the human mind are vastly analogous to those of the human stomach. When people used to work hard in the pursuit of knowledge, a healthy appetite was engendered; and it is only since the bashes of literature came to be constantly served at our ta¬ bles, scraps of poetry, romance, or history, enhanced by the peppery sauce of the reviewers, that we lost all taste for the wholesome learning the solid sirloin of the historian, the homely batter-pudding of Mrs. Trimmer and Mrs. Chapone. Above all the impertinent celerity which these placarders of literature send flying all abroad news of the birth of every

chef-d'œuvre, and the suicides of rash authorship, is enough to distract one.-Five-and-twenty years ago, people took a couple of months to decide whether it were worth while to send to Hookham's for the new novel; and six weeks after the publication of Southey's last epic, used to be asking each other whether that strange man, who wrote Espriella's Letters had not been attempting something new? Now, while Bulwer's youngest is still damp from the press, not a linendraper's apprentice in Regent Street but is competent to inform the errand-boy that it ben't by no manner of means hequal to Huge and Harem. The march of intellect makes its way into every hole and corner, in more than doublequick time.

I have long perceived that my little trips of discovery to Paris, for the importation of novelties of the season, are of no more use than if I marched up Highgate Hill and down again. Nothing nearer than Constantinople is in the slightest degree available. Between steam-navigation and yachting, the Mediterranean is grown as vulgar as the Nore. Could the ghost of Captain Cook arise to enquire why it has never been laid in Westminster Abbey, how immensely astonished' it would be to find people steaming it over the Red Sea, as easily as they used to row, in his time, over Chelsea Reach; and the name of Polynesia as familiar in their mouths as that of Polly Peachum-For my part, I am thinking of a tour for next autumn (if the untimely decease scheme do not fructify as 1 anticipate,) and cannot for the soul of me hit upon anything sufficiently exclusive to give a fillip to public curiosity, or pretend to being written up by the Quarterly.

The only spot of earth concerning which St. James's Street and Belgrave Square know nothing, is the City of London. I have a vast mind to try, TRAVELS TO THE EAST; WITH SKETCHES of Smithfield and THE BARBICAN; by one of the opera tive class, or some such taking title. One might furbish up famous antiquarianisms out of the Gentleman's Magazine, about Crosby Hall and Winchester House, and bring in a host of savoury little compliments to the various companies, and different aldermen, certain to bring down coveys of dinners!--I smell turtle and venison in the very promise!The Albion—

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Bleaden-Birch! august names!-Cornhill, promiseth corn in Egypt;-Smithfield, marrow and fatness;- Warwick Lane, manna. The city must necessarily abound in byres and cellars,-fat beeves, and strong beer. Fish ought never to be eaten westward of Temple Bar; and albeit the Bank and Stock-Exchange make their turtle-soup, like their twenty percent, out of calves' heads, there are capital little fricots tossed up in the Poultry.-Yes,―decidedly, if a supposititious demise do not mend my fare, I will try the Eastern circuit.

I wonder whether any body will start anything new this season?—The town is wretchedly in want of a startle—to make it open its eyes. Society is miserably drowsy. The great deficiency of the English mind is invention. The country is full of originals; yet collectively, we are the most jog-trot nation in Europe. I must not quarrel with the fault, but for which, the vocation of diner-out would be extinguished. The Pique-assiette of the French was a fellow who arrived with couplets in his pocket, to enliven the dessert, and administer to their love of gaiety. The diner-out of the English, is a man who brings news to stir up the stagnancy of the unimaginative natives of Great Britain.

To-morrow, being Sunday, I will drop in at the Marquis's, and ascertain what novelties he has in preparation, as the theatres say. Everything that is cleverest, throws off at Bexfield House, and should there be anything worth talking of in rehearsal, it were fatal not to be behind the curtain.

Where will the next volcano start up? Canada is burnt out, and Syria subsiding,-nobody cares about Circassia, except the perfumers. I wish they would push the thing a little in China. When that hare was started, I pumped a monstrous deal out of Henry Ellis; and have got notes embellished with names, polysyllabic enough to stretch from the first course to the second, which I could make deliciously available. Souchong and pekoe exhale from every syllable!Besides, I once received a note from Lord Jocelyn, (declining a dinner invitation,) which entitles me to hint, in a careless manner, that I am in correspondence with his lordship. Nous (BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.)

verrons.

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