you and I, dear reader, for want of something better to do, will take a look at the partie carrée. One was a goodnatured-looking elderly gentleman, a Mr. Spoonbill; his physiognomy was that of a snipe, whose bill had been ground down; his cheveleur was thin and grizzled, but the few remaining hairs he had were rampant, and formed an inverted V over his forehead; in short, he was one of those good creatures you often read of, but seldom see, who remained constant to wide-frilled shirts, ribbed silk stockings, watch-fobs and large seals, and who was always able-and, what was infinitely more extraordinary, willing-to lend a friend four or five hundred pounds. His métier was that of raconteur and diner-out; and for the last half century, not a debate of any importance had taken place without his having been present. He was a Whig of the old school; and now he sat in an equestrian attitude upon a chair, the ends of his snuff-coloured coat touching the ground, the back of the chair supporting his elbows, and his interlaced fingers supporting his chin, as his upward gaze was directed to a tall, lanky individual with whom he was talking politics; for what else can Englishmen talk about?

The person he was at the moment listening to, and who was standing with his back to the fire and his hands behind his back, was evidently the oracle of the party; he was a Mr. York Fonnoir, the Radical editor of a Sunday newspaper called the "Investigator." His personal appearance was anything but prepossessing, being in features like a Calmuc Tartar, and in complexion like a badly-embalmed mummy. Nevertheless, he was unmistakably gentlemanlike, and about the most agreeable man in England; brilliantly witty, and, what is rarer still, deeply humorous: add to which, he was unquestionably the best living English political writer, for his English was genuine, and his style terse and forcible in the extreme, having at once the solidity and the brilliancy of the diamond; but, alas! like many other truly enlightened men, his morality was as lax as his opinions were liberal. And yet, among the shining lights which he had so lauded and admired, there were many worse than him; for he had neither turned his wife and children out of their home to make way for a mistress, nor then torn his children from their mother in order to swamp a lesser injury in a greater; for, like

"Werter, to decent vice though much inclined,"

he had sufficient sense to think the world large enough for every one. Although professing the most ultra independence of principle, both in literary and political matters, it was ludicrous in the extreme, and somewhat disgusting, to see the utter trash in literature, and the disgraceful tergiversation in politics, that was lauded to the skies, or defended beyond them in the “Investigator;" provided the perpetrator, whether through feeding, flattery, or financial arrangements, were but of his clique; however, great integrity and straightforwardness of purpose can scarcely be expected from any man whose morals are derived from materialism, and whose ideas of purity of sentiment emanate from the life and writings of Jean Jacques, or from those who imitate him in both; while to read Paul de Kock, or

forms his ne plus ultra of enjoyment. Yet, consistency, what is it? I have not a dictionary at hand, therefore I don't exactly know; and in these days, when " money in both pockets" is the only tune littérateurs or politicians care for, it is difficult for them to know sur quel pied danser. Opposite Mr. York Fonnoir stood a jackal of his, and many others besides, in the person of Mr. Fuzboz; he was neither tall nor short, but remarkably plebeian looking, which was the only thing candid about him he wore white Russia ducks in December, and was not a little proud of being a very ugly and noseless likeness of a "great tragedian," whom he tried to imitate in all things, even to his handwriting.

Mr. Fuzboz was a sort of lick-dust to Mr. Fonnoir, and to Mr. Anybody, and everybody else of any celebrity to whom he could get access; he it was who did the theatrical and other plasterings in the "Investigator;" and, above all, he it was who invented biographies of "Eminent Living Authors" for magazines and other works, suppressing the full-fledged progeny of elderly gentlewomen, and pioneering away wives and other superfluous relations of literary gentlemen, agreeably fettered by less ponderous ties; in short, he was a most useful creature, good Mr. Fuzboz, being Bozzy to all the Dr. Johnsons, and Howel to all the Ben Jonsons of the day, to say nothing of his always having a stock of

66 Brummagem" enthusiasm on hand, and being a perfect Boreas at a puff.

Next to him, "though last, not least," stood Mr. Frederic Feedwell, who might not be worth mentioning but that he had the honour of being a particular friend of Lord de Clifford's and Mr. Herbert Grimstone's: they constituted his only friends, and almost his only acquaintances, for his character was bad even among the bad. About Mr. Frederic Feed well there was nothing natural but his birth, his selfishness, and his stutter; nature had never intended him for a hero of any sort, for there was something tant soit peu ridicule in his whole appearance that militated against it. His features consisted of an immense pair of over-fedlooking blue saucer eyes; his cheeks, since his last trip to Paris, were equally like those mysterious-looking pink saucers, with a dash of yellow over them, that are sometimes seen, amid cap-blocks, blonde, riband, and tulle, tossing about a lady's maid's room, but for what purpose they only know: his nose was very thick and of the aspiring order, for it would turn up in spite of his unwearying and constant efforts to pull or coax it downward; and good things used his mouth as the print of the animals' feet did the entrance of the lion's den in the fable, they all went in, but none came out. He was by nature thin, but from his Apician tastes he was getting an incipient paunch, which, by pushing up his waistcoats, always gave them the appearance of being too short. He wished to be thought about thirty, but was, in reality, about eight-and-forty; and, even under cover of an Hyperian chestnut wig, did not look an hour less than six-and-forty.

Mr. Frederic Feedwell's fortunes were as precarious and undefined as his birth: he had originally been intended for a diplomat; but, whether he proved too diplomatic at the gaming-table or not, he failed, and then tried the bar, doubtless preferring that to being tried at it. The way in which he contrived to eat his terms was by taking chambers in Lincoln's Inn, keeping a French artiste, and trying how many meals a day he could possibly manage, first by a course of late, and then by a course of early rising. Next to himself, he loved his dinner better than anything in this world; and next to his dinner, he loved his cook, as the cause of that sublime effect. This love it was that brought about

one epoch in his life, in the shape of his first duel. In the chambers beneath him vegetated a briefless eater of beefsteaks and digester of Blackstone: now it so happened that, all unworthy as he was of such an honour, he shared the same kitchen with Mr. Frederic Feedwell; and one luckless day he dared to be hungry at five o'clock, when his laundress repaired to the kitchen to get ready a broil for him, little knowing the one that awaited her.

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Monsieur Horsdœuvre, Mr. Frederic Feedwell's chef, was in the act of marinading a hare, and the idea of having the fire spoiled by such an "infernal machine" as a gridiron was more than either his patience as a man, or his genius as a cook, could bear; so, accordingly, after remonstrating in vain with the beefsteak beldam, he flew up stairs, spit in hand, to his sympathizing master, and, with the air of a Sylla, or, rather, of Talma in Sylla," indignantly appealed to him whether he was to be insulted in his own kitchen; and whether the entremets of monsieur were to be endangered for the dinner of a Monsieur Jaqueson (Jackson). "Animal que sait manger, mais qui ne sait pas goûter!" concluded Monsieur Horsdœuvre, raising his voice, and thumping his heart with his right hand, conscious, in one sublime sentence, of having uttered the most degrading aspersion with which one human being could stigmatize another.

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Certainly not, my good Horsdœuvre," said the great Frederic; "you may retire; I will myself avenge your injuries, for they are mine."

The great chef doffed his cotton nightcap, clasped his hands, and withdrew, showering down three courses of thanks upon his generous and benevolent master, who immediately sat down and penned a challenge to the unfortunate Mr. Jackson, who, with a slippered foot on each hob, was anticipating hot beefsteaks, and not dreaming of cold lead. At first Mr. Jackson thought Mr. Frederic Feedwell must have lost his appetite, and next his wits, in consequence of it; then he thought the whole thing must have originated in some strange mistake; so, accordingly, he tried to remonstrate with him upon the more than absurdity of fighting a duel about a kitchen fire! but the more Mr. Jackson tried to explain and apologize, the more injured and insulted Mr. Frederic Feedwell felt, and the more indignant he

grew; so the duel he insisted upon, and the duel he had; pistols and seconds were procured, and Wormwood Scrubbs, and six in the morning, fixed upon for the next day but one; Herbert Grimstone was to be Mr. Feedwell's second. Here I must record a touching little trait of considerate amiability in Frederic's character: a ci devant diplomatic acquaintance had sent him a case of âmes damnées* from the Bosphorus; and Monsieur Horsdœuvre, next to his skill in dressing sturgeon, was celebrated for his salmis of âme damnée, which, with hock and shalot, et la moindre soupçon de cavier, he contrived to render almost a fac simile of woodcocks. The Dowager Lady Dangledog, Frederic's aunt, had that morning sent a quantity of game and venison, so that, altogether, his larder was well stocked, and the very morning of the duel Horsdœuvre had received orders for a splendid banquet "in the chamber of Apollo." Yet, with firearms around him and death staring him in the face, he neither forgot his friends nor their dinner; but, with the sang froid of a truly great man, sat down and wrote the following circular to the only three men in London whom at that time he knew, namely, Lord de Clifford, Herbert Grimstone, and a low attorney of the name of Loadall:

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'My dear fellow, should I fall, pray come and dine at my chambers to-day at seven, as Horsdœuvre will be hurt if there is no one to eat his dinner; and while you are discussing his incomparable ámes damnées, think of your faithful friend, FRED. FEEDWELL."

But the one who could best appreciate the âmes damnées the fates decreed should be there to do so; for Mr. Mr. Frederic Feedwell returned uninjured from the field of glory, as poor Mr. Jackson seemed fated to miss fire on all occasions; and the seconds succeeded so well in reconciling the hostile parties, that Mr. Frederic Feedwell, upon regaining his drawing-room in Lincoln's Inn, turned round facetiously to Mr. Herbert Grimstone and said,

"My de-de-de-dear fellow, as I could not kill him in a de-de-de-duel, I'll kill him with a dinner, for common people always die of a good dinner, that is, of not nene-ne-knowing what they eat."

* Particular kind of seagulls, so called. VOL. II.-L