of Joseph the Second, I should say: "Mon métier à moi est d'être aris tocrat." I cannot, therefore, be supposed to entertain any prejudice against a class of persons corresponding with that to which I belong in my own country; but while I acknow ledge that there is not a public or a private virtue of which most honourable living examples may not be found among the Members of your House of Lords, what I have already seen of English society compels nie to add, that, in these particulars, they possess no exclusive privilege. The most amiable-the most enlightened, and the most distinguished of your peers have no pretensions to superiority over innumerable commoners who might be named; whether we try their respective merits by the standard of talent, knowledge, moral rectitude, polished manners, landed property, public services, or even ancient descent. Such being the perfect equality existing between the parties in every thing but rank, is it not the very acmé of absurdity that, in the nineteenth century, and in the metropolis of the freest country of Europe, such an institution as that of the Argylestreet Rooms should spring into existence, for the sole purpose of separating the nobility from the gentry of England? The pretext of excluding improper company is too shallow to impose on any one. It is true that such is the alleged motive for which a few high-titled ladies are arrayed with arbitrary power in choosing the members of the society; but it is evident from the lists of the company, so frequently published in The Morning Post, that vice, however notorious, if clothed in exalted rank, is never excluded; and modest unassuming merit, however estimable, rarely, if ever, admitted. Nobody, who has not visited this town, can believe the importance which the difficulty of becoming a member of it has given to this institution.

The wives and daughters of your most respectable country gentlemen no sooner arrive in London, than, forgetting all the high feelings of conscious virtue and hereditary pride, they seem anxious, at any price, to purchase the honour of belonging to "The Argyle-street

Rooms," and going to "the Wednesday balls at Almack's.". To ob tain this far-sought prize, there is no trouble they will not give themselves, and no baseness to which they will not submit.

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Even mothers of unblemished families, who have gone through life with untainted reputation, if unable to gain the envied distinction themselves, will condescend to court the patronage of women of very different characters, and to entrust their daughters,

"In flower of youth and Beauty's prime," to the care of peeresses, whose indiscretion would have banished them long since from all association with their own sex, had not their respective lords been conveniently blind to all their faults.

No costs or paints are spared to propitiate these deities of fashion. Hot-houses are stripped of their pines, and manors of their game; art, manoeuvre, intrigue, and solicitation, are all tried in turns; and when, after various attempts and frequent disappointments, the fair candidate obtains at length alicense, signed by one of the noble directresses, authorising her,” on the payment of seven shillings, to enter this sanctum sanctorum, what is the pleasure beyond that of having conquered opposing difficulties, which, in return for all her trouble, she enjoys?-She sees quadrilles and waltzes not at all better danced than they are at five hundred other assemblies, while these exhibitions are rendered here still more insipid than elsewhere by the apathy and sang froid of the noble performers.

She finds little to admire, and much to disgust :-youth conceited and forward; and age painted, bedizened, and frivolous;-high rank without high principles, lofty titles contaminated by degrading conduct, boorish shyness mixed up in the same character with excessive pride, and a scorn for every body else expressed by those who have merited the contempt of all mankind.

Satisfied with the honour of basking in the sunshine of fashion, she must not hope to be entertained, and may think herself fortunate if she retires unquizzed; for your nobility have, I find, the detestable

habit of attempting to ridicule whatever is new to them; and the most elegant female, unless her costume is servilely copied from that of one of the infallible leaders of the society, rarely passes unhurt through the ordeal of a first appearance at a Wednesday's Almack's. It happens, sometimes, when refused admittance to these balls, the candidate is allowed to purchase a ticket for the French play (for the latter is considered a minor honour); and in this case, supposing that she is acquainted with our language and has never seen a performance of the kind before, she may derive some amusement from the entertainment. But here, again, if she listens too attentively to the actors, she will scarcely escape the lash of her censorising neighbours; for though your leaders of the ton insist on having French plays exhibited before them, very few are qualified to enjoy them; and all are so worn down by the labours of a life of pleasure, that to appear interested in what is going forward on the stage proves the person, in whom these feelings are yet visible, to be a novice in their circles.

A propos, I suppose you have heard of the trick lately played on this noble society by one of our provincial actors. Tempted by the offer of a salary at least twenty times greater than that which he received at home, he consented to come over to England, and to appear on the boards of the Argyle-street Rooms. In performing a new proverb, the words of which he had carelessly learned, he forgot his part; and, trusting partly to his own impudence and partly to the ignorance and inattention of his noble auditors, he Isaid to the female comedian with whom he was carrying on the dialogue (while he spoke with increased rapidity): "Je me suis oublié-n'importe:-continuons toujours de jaser. Ces Messieurs GOD DAMNS ne comprennent pas un mot de ce que nous disons:-il suffit que nous parlons,”

But enough, and perhaps too much, on the subject of the Argyle-street Rooms; yet I cannot drop the topic without entreating you, my dear Darnley, whenever you return to England to exert all your influence against the growing popularity of this establishment.

What say you; would it not be both very wise and very feasible to turn the tables on these aristocratic usurpers, and to form a "Subscription Coterie," to which no persons should be admissible of higher rank than that of baronets and their families? If a society of this kind were established, and so regulated that no dishonoured man, and no woman of even doubtful character should be found on its lists, I think it would prove a dangerous rival to that of the Argyle-street Rooms; and there can be no doubt that, among the numerous well born, well educated, and wealthy commoners who frequent London, so ample a supply of taste, beauty, elegance, and refinement might be obtained, that nobody would miss the Peers, Right Honourables, and Honourables, who would be excluded by the rules of the institution.

I speak with warmth on this subject, perhaps with greater than it intrinsically deserves, but you know I am an enthusiastic admirer of your Constitution, in the preservation of which all mankind are interested; and manners are so intimately connected with laws and institutions, that, if the nobility are to be allowed to dictate in private society, they may by degrees arrogate to themselves the right also of assuming a superiority in the discussion of your public affairs-little suited to a mixed form of government. I know this would not be submitted to by the nation at large; but if such a spirit is not checked at first, it may cost you no little trouble to subdue it afterwards.

Adieu.

DE VERMONT.

man in the Scriptures, in time they will find "Even their enemies shall be at peace with them."

Did those things only ruin their circumstances, and bring them to deserved distress, why let them smart for it, and lament for the rest of their lives that, instead of rising in the world by such genteel conduct, they have toppled themselves down to a more inferior station than that which Providence had assigned them. But the mischief they have done their souls, and the souls of their children, and all belonging to them, is the most irreparable, and the most shocking to good hearts to see and to lament such errors, too often, never to be repaired; for when once the mind and heart are vitiated by false allurements, it is easier to repair even a broken fortune than to repair a mind thus ruined by fatal indulgencies, false views of this world, and, alas! no views at all of another!

These are the sentiments which have actuated my heart and mind to pursue this purpose in these discourses. The good that may be done, as the worthy Quakers say, "We must leave" the wish to be of service to my fellow-creatures is the ground work I have laid; if I have failed in the superstructure, it is from a want of ability, not from want of good intention.

As you have chosen to give a kind of account of yourself to the public, perhaps I ought to do the same: I may therefore, Brother Hermit, for what I know, be your elder sister. The experience of a tolerable long life, and some very intolerable vicissitudes in that life, have been the source from which my reflections have arisen. The receipt by which I have overcome all my difficulties, misfortunes, &c., I here wish to

communicate to others, by which those things which would have broken the hearts of many, drove others to despair, or have soured their tempers for the rest of their lives, have rendered me a reasonable, rational mortal; I do not add religious, for fear it should be called cant-but content with what Providence has still graciously accorded me; so that you cannot live more comfortably on the shady side of PallMall, than your Sister Hermit-ess does on the sunny side of a street very little further from St. James's Palace.

I was born and bred amongst the higher circles, and have never felt at home" in society since I have left them; but that did not depend upon myself. And I have fully proved what Dr. Johnson said to Dr. Maxwell, when he lived near Twickenham, about his neighbourhood: "Sir, they have lost the civility of tradesmen, and not acquired the manners of gentlemen.' -So amongst those I have perforce mixed with, and many who have thought themselves highly accomplished and most singularly fine they have been as rude as bears impertinent as monkies-as ridiculous as ; in short, there is nothing in nature to compare them with; for every creature but man is what they were created to be, and keep to their station.

I do not ask you to come and see me, Brother Hermit, lest, as Dr. Johnson says, I might find you a very different being from your book: and Horace Walpole, you know, advises never to be acquainted with an author till he be dead. So no more at present, dear Brother Hermit, from your loving sister,

THE HERMIT-ESS IN LONDON.

Friend. So, Mrs. Hermit, good morrow to you; how I have laughed at your note! And so you are come to Hermitize in London?

Mrs. Hermit. Even so. Friend. And yet most Hermits live in caves and rocks, and such

charming out of the way places, where no one can get to them, unless by a chance they have lost their way, and then a Hermit is popped upon to set them right.

Mrs. H. Ah! those sorts of Hermits are misanthropists, and wish to

avoid their species: now I only wish to avoid the ridiculous and troublesome; and you can do that no where so completely as in London.

Friend. Truly so; for if one has a dear friend in London who do not visit in our circle, we shall never find him if we do not purposely go look for him. But instead of hermitizing, I heard that, for the sake of society, you were going to board in a large family.

Mrs. H. Yes; and it is that very circumstance which has driven me into Hermitizing, as you call it. · Friend. How so?

Mrs. H. I was persuaded to try the boarding scheme, and I never gave way to the persuasions of other people that I had not cause to repent it.

Friend. But well-how was it? Mrs. H. Having, as you know, lost all my dearest connections by various means, those that still tarried on earth dispersed wide as the poles asunder. I was first persuaded to settle at Bath, having folks I knew there: to Bath I went, where I found every body living in what they called pleasure and society; but what with their magnificent hurries of dressings-the rooms-the balls the private great parties, &c. I saw none I knew but by snatches of minutes and half hours: On all these things I put an absolute veto for engaging in myself; I had had enough of that sort of life to be long sick of it, and it was only for the sake of others I ever gave into it. Now being independent of such trammels, I was determined to emerge, and, at my time of life, to go no where but where I liked; and where it was I thought proper for an old woman only to appear. Old men have or take a licence to be ridiculous to the last stile or gate of life they arrive at; but the dignity of my own sex, and their propriety of conduct, especially in elder life, I have preached up in vain for many years, and to many congregations, therefore I wished to show them in my own practice. Thus there was nothing open to me as rational in public but the theatre or a concert, yet I could not live there every night in the week you know. If I called cards society, I might have thrashed away like my neighbours,

and lived upon chaff. So I was persuaded, secondly, to this fine boarding scheme!

Friend. As I have all my life profited more by your experience, my dear friend, than my own; and, hearing that you had adopted boarding, I was tempted to follow your example, and was going to write to you in consequence;-was it at Bath, or near it?

Mrs. H. Oh, no; it was a great way from thence recommended to me very strongly, with all the requisites I wanted. I was to be accommodated with every particular to my mind, and of course to pay a very handsome salary. However, having lived long enough not to believe implicitly from other people's feelings, I luckily agreed for one month's trial-and off I set ;-I arrived; and, like one of the prophets of old, I sat in astonishment and silence for the first seven days.

Friend. Mercy on us! could that be you! (Laughing.)

Mrs. H. Yes; it was identical I, and me myself I. (Laughs.) But, instead of laughing, I was ready to cry my heart out for vexation, for having taken such a long journey, useless and expensive, and to get amongst such a crew! How I consoled myself it was not at sea-or going perhaps a delightful long voyage to India; it is but for a month, and, if I can contrive it, for less, and then good bye to ye gentlefolks!

Friend. Prithee let's know what your land-crew,however, consisted of.

Mrs. H. Imprimis. The master of the house, an absolute gourmande, so that he could eat and drink of the

best in the cheapest way, by boarding others at high prices; his wife of the same opinion and propensities; his custom was to be out all day diverting himself with all the country sports, genteel and vulgar, and also their votaries-to come home, to eat, and to guzzle-to holla and laugh-get half tipsey, and finish his evening with cards and a hot supper.

Madame was enjoying herself all day, up to her elbows in grease and in cooking in the kitchen with her maids, the only company she was fit for. The boarders were left to entertain themselves till dinner