Having introduced our reader to the Miss Cliftons, we must make him acquainted with Mr. Trebeck, one of those universally appearing gentlemen and tremendous table tyrants, by whom London society is so frequently governed ;

"Mr. Trebeck had great powers of entertainment, and a keen and lively turn for satire; and could talk down his superiors, whether in rank or talent, with very imposing confidence. He saw the advantages of being formidable, and observed with derision, how those whose malignity he pampered with ridicule of others, vainly thought to purchase by subserviency exemption for themselves. He had sounded the gullibility of the world: knew the precise current value of pretension; and soon found himself the acknowledged umpire, the last appeal, of many contented followers.

"He seldom committed himself by praise or recommendation, but rather left his example and adoption to work its way. As for censure, he had both ample and witty store; but here, too, he often husbanded his remarks, and where it was needless or dangerous to define a fault, could check admiration by an incredulous smile, and depress pretensions of a season's standing by the raising of an eyebrow. He had a quick perception of the foibles of others, and a keen relish for bantering and exposing them. No keeper of a menagerie could better show off a monkey than he could an original.' He could ingeniously cause the unconscious subject to place his own absurdities in the best point of view, and would cloak his derision under the blandest cajolery. Imitators he loved much; but to baffle them-more. He loved to turn upon the luckless adopters of his last folly, and see them precipitately back out of the scrape into which he himself had led them.

"In the art of cutting he shone unrivalled; he knew the 'when,' the 'where,' and the' how.' Without affecting useless shortsightedness, he could assume that calm but wandering gaze, which veers, as if unconsciously, round the proscribed individual; neither fixing, nor to be fixed; not looking on vacancy, nor on any one object; neither occupied nor abstracted; a look which perhaps excuses you to the person cut, and, at any rate, prevents him from accosting you Originality was his idol. He wished to astonish, even if he did not amuse; and had rather say a silly thing than a common-place one. He was led by this sometimes even to approach the verge of rudeness and vulgarity; but he had considerable tact, and a happy hardihood, which generally carried him through the difficulties into which his fearless love of originality brought him. Indeed, he well knew that what would, in the present condition of his reputation, be scouted in any body else, would pass current with the world in him. Such was the far-famed and redoubtable Mr. Trebeck."—(pp. 109-112.)

This sketch we think exceedingly clever. But we are not sure that its merit is fully sustained by the actual presentment of its subject. He makes his debut at dinner very characteristically, by gliding in quietly after it is half over; but in the dialogue which follows with Miss Jermyn, he seems to us a little too resolutely witty, and somewhat

affectedly odd-though the whole scene is executed with spirit and talent.

"The Duke had been discoursing on cookery, when Mr. Trebeck turned to her, and asked in a low tone if she had ever met the Duke before-' I assure you,' said he, 'that upon that subject he is well worth attending to. He is supposed to possess more true science than any amateur of his day. By the by, what is the dish before you? It looks well, and I see you are eating some of it. Let me recommend it to him upon your authority; I dare not upon my own.'-' Then pray do not use mine. Yes I will, with your permission; I'll tell him you thought, by what dropped from him in conversation, that it would exactly suit the genius of his taste. Shall I ? Yes. Duke' (raising his voice a little, and speaking across the table).—'Oh, no! how can you?'-'Why not?-Duke' (with a glance at Caroline), 'will you allow me to take wine with you?'-'I thought,' said she, relieved from her trepidation, and laughing slightly, you would never say any thing so very strange.'-'You have too good an opinion of me; I blush for my unworthiness. But confess, that in fact you were rather alarmed at the idea of being held up to such a critic as the recommender of a bad dish.'-'Oh no, I was not thinking of that; but I hardly know the Duke; and it would have seemed so odd and perhaps he might have thought that I had really told you to say something of that kind.'-'Of course he would; but you must not suppose that he would have been at all surprised at it. I'm afraid you are not aware of the full extent of your privileges, and are not conscious how many things young ladies can, and may, and will do.'-'Indeed I am not ; perhaps you will instruct me.'-' Ah, I never do that for anybody. Í like to see young ladies instruct themselves. It is better for them, and much more amusing to me. But, however, for once I will venture to tell you, that a very competent knowledge of the duties of women may, with proper attention, be picked up in a ball-room.'-' Then I hope,' said she, laughing, you will attribute my deficiency to my little experience of balls. I have only been at two.'-'Only two! and one of them I suppose a race ball. Then you have not yet experienced any of the pleasures of a London season? Never had the dear delight of seeing and being seen in a well of tall people at a rout, or passed a pleasant hour at a ball upon a staircase? I envy you. You have much to enjoy.'-'You do not mean that I really have?'-'Yes, really. But let me give you a caution or two. Never dance with any man without first knowing his character and condition, on the word of two credible chaperons. At balls, too, consider what you come for-to dance, of course, and not to converse; therefore, never talk yourself, nor encourage it in others.'-' I'm afraid I can only answer for myself.' -Why, if foolish, well-meaning people will choose to be entertaining, I question if you have the power of frowning them down in a very forbidding manner; but I would give them no countenance nevertheless. Your advice seems a little ironical.'-'Oh, you may either follow it or reverse it; that is its chief beauty. It is equally good

taken either way. After a slight pause he continued: "I hope you do not sing, or play, or draw, or do anything that everybody else does.' -'I am obliged to confess that I do a little, very little, in each.'-' I understand your "very little;" I'm afraid you are accomplished.'— 'You need have no fear of that. But why are you an enemy to all accomplishments?'--'All accomplishments? Nay, surely you do not think me an enemy to all? What can you possibly take me for?'-' I do not know,' said she, laughing slightly.-'Yes, I see you do not know exactly what to make of me; and you are not without your apprehensions. I can perceive that, though you try to conceal them. But never mind. I am a safe person to sit near, sometimes. I am to-day. This is one of my lucid intervals. I'm much better, thanks to my keeper. There he is, on the other side of the table; the tall man in black' (pointing out Mr. Bennet), 'a highly respectable kind of person. I came with him here for change of air. How do you think I look at present?'-Caroline_could not answer him for laughing.— 'Nay,' said he, it is cruel to laugh on such a subject. It is very hard that you should do that, and misrepresent my meaning too. Well, then,' said Caroline, resuming a respectable portion of gravity, ‘that I may not be guilty of that again, what accomplishments do you allow to be tolerable? '—'Let me see,' said he, with a look of consideration; you may play a waltz with one hand, and dance as little as you think convenient. You may draw caricatures of your intimate friends. You may not sing a note of Rossini, nor sketch gate-posts and donkeys after nature. You may sit to a harp, but you need not play it. You must not paint miniatures nor copy Swiss costumes. But you may manufacture anything, from a cap down to a pair of shoes, always remembering that the less useful your work the better. Can you remember all this?'-'I do not know,' said she, 'it comprehends so much; and I am rather puzzled between the "mays" and "must nots." However, it seems according to your code, that very little is to be required of me, for you have not mentioned anything that I positively must do.'-' Ah, well, I can reduce all to a very small compass. You must be an archeress in the summer, and a skater in the winter, and play well at billiards all the year; and if you do these extremely well, my admiration will have no bounds.'-'I believe I must forfeit all claim to your admiration, then, for unfortunately I am not so gifted.'

Then you must place it to the account of your other gifts.'-' Certainly, when it comes.'-'Oh! it is sure to come, as you well know : but, nevertheless, I like that incredulous look extremely.'-He then turned away, thinking probably that he had paid her the compliment of sufficient attention, and began a conversation with the Duchess, which was carried on in such a well-regulated undertone as to be perfectly inaudible to any but themselves."-(pp. 92-99.)

The bustling importance of Sir Thomas Jermyn, the fat Duke and his right-hand man the blunt toad-eater, Mr. Charlecote, a loud, noisy sportsman, and Lady Jermyn's worldly prudence, are all displayed and managed with considerable skill and great power of amusing. One

little sin against good taste our author sometimes commits-an error from which Sir Walter Scott is not exempt. We mean the humour of giving characteristic names to persons and places; for instance, Sir Thomas Jermyn is Member of Parliament for the town of Rottenborough. This very easy and appellative jocularity seems to us, we confess, to savour a little of vulgarity, and is therefore quite as unworthy of Mr. Lister as Dr. Dryasdust is of Sir Walter Scott. The plainest names which can be found (Smith, Thomson, Johnson, and Simson always excepted) are the best for novels. Lord Chesterton we have often met with, and suffered a good deal from his Lordship : a heavy, pompous, meddling peer, occupying a great share of the conversation-saying things in ten words which required only two, and evidently convinced that he is making a great impression; a large man, with a large head, and very landed manner; knowing enough to torment his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them; the ridicule of young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is easy to talk of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays waste a whole party of civilized beings by prosing, reflect upon the joys he spoils and the misery he creates in the course of his life? and that any one who listens to him through politeness would prefer toothache or earache to his conversation? Does he consider the extreme uneasiness which ensues when the company have discovered a man to be an extremely absurd person, at the same time that it is absolutely impossible to convey, by words or manner, the most distant suspicion of the discovery? And then, who punishes this bore? What sessions and what assizes for him? What bill is found against him? Who indicts him? When the judges have gone their vernal and autumnal rounds, the sheep-stealer disappears, the swindler gets ready for the Bay, the solid parts of the murderer are preserved in anatomical collections. But, after twenty years of crime, the bore is discovered in the same house, in the same attitude, eating the same soup-unpunished, untried, undissected-no scaffold, no skeleton-no mob of gentlemen and ladies to gape over his last dying speech and confession.

The scene of quizzing the country neighbours is well imagined, and not ill executed; though there are many more fortunate passages in the book. The elderly widows of the metropolis beg, through us, to return their thanks to Mr. Lister for the following agreeable portrait of Mrs. Dormer.

"It would be difficult to find a more pleasing example than Mrs. Dormer, of that much libelled class of elderly ladies of the world who are presumed to be happy only at the card table; to grow in bitterness as they advanced in years, and to hunt, like restless ghosts, those busy circles which they no longer either enliven or adorn. Such there may be; but of these she was not one. She was the frequenter of society, but not its slave. She had great natural benevolence of disposition, a friendly vivacity of manners which endeared her to the young, and a steady good sense which commanded the respect of her

contemporaries; and many who did not agree with her on particular points were willing to allow that there was a good deal of reason in Mrs. Dormer's prejudices. She was, perhaps, a little blind to the faults of her friends; a defect of which the world could not cure her; but she was very kind to their virtues. She was fond of young people, and had an unimpaired gaiety about her which seemed to expand in the contact with them; and she was anxious to promote, for their sake, even those amusements for which she had lost all taste herself. She was-but after all, she will be best described by negatives. She was not a match-maker or mischief-maker; nor did she plume herself upon her charity, in implicitly believing only just half of what the world says. She was no retailer of scandalous'on dits? She did not combat wrinkles with rouge; nor did she labour to render years less respected by a miserable affectation of girlish fashions. She did not stickle for the inviolable exclusiveness of certain sects; nor was she afraid of being known to visit a friend in an unfashionable quarter of the town. She was no worshipper of mere rank. She did not patronize oddities, nor sanction those who delight in braving the rules of common decency. She did not evince her sense of propriety by shaking hands with the recent defendant in a Crim. Con. cause; nor exhale her devotion in Sunday routs."--(pp. 243, 244.)

Mrs. Clotworthy, we are afraid, will not be quite so well pleased with the description of her rout. Mrs. Clotworthy is one of those ladies who have ices, fiddlers, and fine rooms, but no fine friends. But fine friends may always be had, where there are ices, fiddlers, and fine rooms and so, with ten or a dozen stars and an Oonalaska chief, and followed by all vicious and salient London, Mrs. Clotworthy takes the field.

"The poor woman seemed half dead with fatigue already; and we cannot venture to say whether the prospect of five hours more of this high-wrought enjoyment tended much to brace her to the task. It was a brilliant sight, and an interesting one, if it could have been viewed from some fair vantage ground, with ample space, in coolness and in quiet. Rank, beauty, and splendour were richly blended. The gay attire; the glittering jewels; the more resplendent features they adorned, and too frequently the rouged cheek of the sexagenarian : the vigilant chaperon; the fair but languid form which she conducted; well curled heads, well propped with starch; well whiskered guardsmen! and here and there fat good-humoured elderly gentlemen, with stars upon their coats;-all these united in one close medley-a curious piece of living mosaic. Most of them came to see and be seen; some of the most youthful professedly to dance; yet how could they? at any rate they tried.-They stood, if they could, with their vis-à-vis facing them, and sidled across-and back again and made one step, -or two if there was room, to the right or left, and joined hands and set-perhaps, and turned their partners, or dispensed with it if necessary-and so on to the end of 'La Finale:' and then comes a waltz