to the Norman conquest, or the times of the Saxon Heptarchy; for this is an establishment to which age and old time must do honour; the very temple, and, as it were, the most holy place of fashion.

How many robes of passing splendour have swept over the threshold of this sacred tabernacle, none can tell. For nearly a century now, its halls have been illustrated year after year, with all that England could crowd together of brilliancy and opulence. Nothing low, or vulgar, has ever approached the hallowed verge of its consecrated precincts: Procul! O procul! este profani!

There are mysteries here, not to be gazed on by common eyes: a few Starred Sibyls (looking marvellously like English females, with the yellow hair of Saxony yet on their brows) have established certain unearthly rites and ceremonies in King-street, St. James', to the full understanding of which none but the titled elect are admitted; and who are required to live sublimely apart from the rest of the world, from which they are separated by a barrier, as broad and impassable as the Sahara Desert.

The happy few, the priestesses of the temple, exercise an absolute authority over all its affairs, and are unbending in the execution of their decrees. The proudest and most ancient titles cannot avail against them; for they, too, have received their authority from prescription. Their favour is worth more than all other honours, for it comprehends these and unspeakably more. To be admitted to Almack's is to be above all solicitude for character, titles, or wealth; for admission here presupposes all these, and, moreover, is of itself so vast an elevation in public consideration, that all others may at once be lost sight of and forgotten.

The Ladies-Patronesses are themselves beyond the reach of envy, and hold their authority by a tenure which can neither be disputed nor dissolved. They are the divinities to be propitiated by all who would meet with success or consideration in the fashionable world. Their power is suspended over the heads of all, and they can in one moment strike from the galaxy of fashion the brightest and loftiest luminary there ; and even this, all but the fallen will approve, for it serves only to purify and refine the circle whence they have been taken.

When once precipitated from this eminence, nothing which they have can avail them in their disgrace; the trappings and stars of ancient nobility have lost their lustre, and reflect but a flickering ray, compared with the brilliant light and éclat issuing from the saloons of Almack's. These female divinities, who hold the scissors, and sometimes the thread of fate, designate those who are to succeed them in their sacred functions; and as one of their number is fading away from existence, they look for some happy mortal to take the sublime seat she is just about to exchange for the "narrow house." In short, when one of the six elderly duchesses, countesses, or marchionesses, happens to die, the remaining five fill up the void; and thus the priesthood, or, rather, the priestesshood, lives on in a sort of corporate immortality; and the long life of the establishment is made up of the odd fragments of the lives of divers ancient females, who, by Fortune's favour or by electioneering artifices, have been elevated to preside over this University of West-Endism.

It cannot be said, indeed, that these appointments are always made without contention, rivalry, and heart-burnings; this would be too much to expect, even of the divinities of Almack's enchanted halls; since the honour is so high, that none but the tamest and most ignoble spirits would be wanting in ambition to aspire to it. Where the fate of the present, and, perhaps, a succeeding generation of fair ladies and dashing beaux is made subjeet to, and dependant on the favour of a Synod of six Ladies-Patronesses, who would not wish to be a sharer in such fulness of power, and thus be placed beyond all the evils of life ?

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When a seat becomes vacant by death, a struggle worthy of so great a prize commences; and among the remaining five, bitterness and reviling do sometimes make their unholy way. One cannot give up the suit of a very dear friend," whose face she has long hoped to see in effulgence and honour, at "the board of Red Cloth." Another has formed fond anticipations of seeing the companion of her early life raised to the sacred office, which she herself now fills, and doing honour to the associates with whom she would then mingle.

In short, each one has her antipathies and preferences, and is anxious to secure for her protégée the vacant seat; whence originate suspicions and jealousies, rivalships and backbitings; whence come artifice and intrigue, and the marshalling of every motive of fear, interest, love, resentment, and ambition, that can possibly weigh upon the suffrages of those who are to decide. It would be unfair to regard their deportment, on these momentous cocasions, as indicating their general character What though words of dark and dubious meaning do sometimes escape from their lips; and what though coarse epithets should, in moments of trial, be liberally applied to the characters of these staid and haughty regents; yet such are but occasional outpourings, and doubtless only introduced to fill up the vacancies and interstices of sublimer contemplations.

Of course, they who would insinuate that such contentions and rivalships do always