excite the slightest prurient interest in the minds of my customers -nor, like the Puseyite Novelist, simple Mr. Ernest Singleton, to serve up my friends and others, under initials, asterisks, dashes, and dramatic appellations. Still less, do I promise to be methodical as an almanac, giving the Sin of every month in Season,-as, in December, the Christmas Books-May, the Royal Academyetcetera, etcetera. I may see it good to glance from people to things from things to people, for aught I can foretell; having, like all my brethren who have opened Sin-Shops, great and small, the fullest possible commission-self-granted-for executing justice, whensoever, howsoever, and wheresoever I like: holding with them, that evil-doers have no feelings, and that, by the very act of destroying one nuisance, it is a mathematical impossibility that another can be engendered. For I wish the world to understand that I am one among the many infallible people, who are putting matters to rights; and that (this is an aside, however) I have reason to believe that most of my neighbours are elaborately mistaken in comparison with myself. You will observe, by this, Sir, that considerable developements have taken place since I commenced dealing with the Laureate in your "valuable pages," for his Railway groans. The Public has chosen to enrol me in the order of Somebodies; and I feel, in return, as happy and gracious as the Black Princess, found by the African traveller, sitting at the door of her tent, in a pair of top-boots and cocked-hat, (nought beside) who asked complacently, "whether the Queen of England had inquired for her?"

Enough of symphony and sentiment; the above preamble being merely penned because my Mrs. Bell thinks that otherwise the Rev. Mr. Scrupler's congregation might put it about that I was going to follow the French fashion, and to take liberties with the Ten Commandments. Let us now fall to, on the Small Sins of London :

No. 1.-THE SMOKE AND FIRE NUISANCE.

Speaking of Mr. Scrupler's flock, and what they may be expected to say, leads me, naturally, to select as the subject of my first homily an offence which many have imagined exclusively confined to provincial towns; and which others have conceived as extinct with the dark ages (after the fashion of the Dancing Plagues, or the Sweating Sickness) while a third class has held it incompatible with the grave questions, now-a-days, worked

at by every man, with such increasing earnestness. I have been more hurt, since I came to London, Sir, than I find it easy to describe, by the amount of (ahem! it must out!) male scandal current among those who should know better. One has been used to fancy the personages of Congreve's delicious "Love for Love" grown obsolete: Sailor Ben the Bull-calf-and Miss Prue, the impudent Hoyden, and Sir Sampson with his Astrology, (though that be still intelligently perpetuated by the Stationers' Company, not to speak of persons who consulted the late Mr. Varley, the water-colourist, to know what was to happen next)-but Mr. Tattle has, unhappily, many descendants; and this not merely in clubs and " chocolate-houses, but in the Inns of Court, in Learned Societies, in literary company, and among men of letters; who ought, I contend, in right of mind, to be the highest gentlemen of the land. And I do think, and must say, that the random manner in which names and reputations are made free with, claims, from time to time, the supervision of Sage or Satirist.

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a

The thing would be of little consequence, were we English not " reason-ful" people (as a German friend of mine calls them), proud of our long memories; and as if we had not had, time out of mind, broached a proverb, that there never was smoke without fire:". one which serves us instead of reason, charity, and I scarce know how many other goodly things besides. It is wondrous to observe the number of old, mouldy, mildewy scandals, which are poked out of pigeon-holes by the Head-shakers, and the Groaners, so soon as any one falls into misfortune. "To be sure! What could have been expected better?" The Luckless Letter of the Alphabet in question (if I were to specify any one, of course Mr. Scrupler, and Miss Le Grand, would at once begin travelling up and down our Row, fixing the Initial upon somebody!) had been "talked of ten years ago!" And forthwith, out is rummaged the report, as fresh as a thing of yesterday, with all manner of graces, decorations, ornamental circumstances added; and conjectures metamorphosed by Memory into real occurrences. People used to say, you know,' concludes the speaker, "that it was nothing but malice. But I knew better. You see, now! Aye! aye! there's never smoke without fire!"

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Those, who, like me, have enjoyed a business education (no bad training, by the way, for a Life of Letters or of Leisure) have had a thousand fearful warnings of the mischief which persons of the

If Fortune hangs by a thread,

genus Tattle can accomplish. I am sure, Ruin, as often, depends upon the tip of a Tongue! I always think with a certain strange amazement, of the plight in which a family well known to me, passed a certain winter. The Dealtrys are out of business now, root and branch, so no harm can come of the anecdote. But he was a Merchant with vast connections:-some half hundred of branch houses, at least, in the two Hemispheres being dependent upon his. He had a splendid establishment in our town-and a gay, buxom wife; the sight of whom, as my Mrs. Bell used to say, was enough to inspire confidence, even if no one heard her laugh and Mrs. Dealtry was often laughing. For there was not a wrinkle on her

skin; never a dark or weary look when she was found by herself in a corner, for Lancashire Iagos to note and comment upon. She was never upon the sofa; never remembered to have said a sharp thing to man, maid, or milliner-the last, I take it, a virtue rather uncommon among the Ladies. The Dealtrys passed for being as "rich as Croesus"-and ultimately they proved so. Nevertheless,-'tis true as that I am a Bell, one day, home to dinner came Mr. Dealtry-ate heartily as usual -talked about the nothings of the week, with rather more zest than was customary to so devoted a man of Commerce: and, therefore, it will be presumed, surprised in no small degree his lively helpmate, when, on the disappearance of the butler for the last time (the Pair chanced to be dining alone) he informed her that "she was too much of an invalid that winter, either to see company, or to pay visits!"

"La!

"An invalid! almost shouted the merry woman. Dealtry, dear! don't be so droll, or I shall be suffocated!" "Dealtry, dear," assured her that he was never less droll in all his life; that the fact was-was to be-as he had stated it. He proceeded to acquaint her-her eyes growing round as saucers the while that, owing to one of those panics, which, alas! I need not now describe more closely, his affairs had suddenly and unexpectedly become entangled in a manner to give him the uttermost uneasiness, for the moment. He hoped to weather the storm, but was, by no means, certain of so doing; and, in the mean time, the most rigid economy and circumspection were necessary. Not a superfluous farthing must be spent; and, accordingly, Mrs. Dealtry was to be an invalid, till better times for dining-out and ball-giving came back!

"But, Lord!" was her natural rejoinder, "don't let me stay here, play-acting a part, if that's the case! Let me take a quiet small house at Southport; and send away Wicks, and Higginson, and the under-housemaid, and two or three of the men in the garden. And I shall want no carriage to walk on the sands and pick up shells in, when there 's nobody there, Dealtry, dear!"

Dealtry, dear, assured her that Southport and its shells were out of the question. If she winked her eyelids once seldomer than usual, matters were in such a state that people would begin to wonder "What could be the reason for such retrenchment? and two words on 'Change might finish his business with a vengeance? Why, the departure of Wicks alone, to say nothing of Higginson, and the under-housemaid, and the gardeners, would set tongues loose. No: Mrs. Dealtry must drive out every day, that people might not say she had laid down the carriage; but there must be no more dinners; nor ball-dresses; nor dishes of fish from London ; nor claret at seven guineas a dozen! She must be ill, "unless," concluded Dealtry, dear, "you prefer taking up the serious line; and that would not do, those Evangelical folk are such feeders!

So the fiat had gone forth! and accordingly Mrs. Dealtry was ill of " an internal complaint," and never seen to put foot to the ground among her gossips that live-long winter. "'Twas much as if one had said that "a Peony was pining away of a canker at its heart," so jolly did the sick Lady look throughout the time. But with regard to ailments, one can get anything believed; and the healthy red in her cheeks was voted hectic-and she was declared as far on her way in a dropsical decline. So that when the spring came, and the tightness in Mr. Deeltry's chest ceased, and his helpmate hoisted a new apple-green satin, and announced seven dinner-parties in eleven days, her friends spoke of her recovery as a miracle, especially since she herself has since been used to say "that how she got through that winter she never could tell.”

Now, it is not the Dealtrys only-not alone those in business life-whom a tongue may ruin. It is true that when Gossip brings an Old House down, with some hundreds of thousands to pay, that is an operation on the grand scale worth undertaking. But there are lonely persons, to whom character is of quite as much individual consequence; and I wish I were sure that Wanton Idleness spared these as much as it ought. One knows, alas! that women devour women with a ruthless cruelty, which is really enough to make one-half take up Owen Feltham's song

"I am confirmed in my belief
No woman hath a soul."

We

Even without the excuse of rivalry, they are implacable, and will strip their dear friends to the bone-fibre by fibre, muscle by muscle at any by-stander's pleasure. But that men should be willing to sit and hear this; nay, more, should convey ill reports from house to house, with a busy alacrity, argues a vigour in the tribe of Tattle, which appears to me strangely at variance with the practical, serious, yet not unpoetical age we are living in! have given up chapeaux bras, and riding in sedans with muffs on, and powder and patches, and wearing swords, and haunting antichambers for places. We authors have almost forgotten how to write Dedications! with one or two magnificent exceptions. There are no more highwaymen in Roseberry Topping or Maidenhead Thicket, nor old watchmen bribed by Mohocks, who maltreated Macaronies. What business, then, have we with Scandal? Is it part and parcel of the strange mania for poisoning which seems re-appearing amongst us?

"What! no

Here rise two cries, loud, bitter, and sarcastic. more cakes and ale! shouts one set of people, who cannot distinguish good stories from ill-nature! and, really meaning no harm, in a sort of obtuse way, would put me down as summarily as Lord John does those who hold that our merry Englanders are past May-pole dances, and bear-baitings, when they want a little recreation! If your confectionary be proved emetic, and your liquor wormwood, why, I say, as loud as you wish-"no more cakes and ale!" but instead bread and wine!-the staff of Life, and the strengthener of man's heart! But the other set of malignants (as my Puritan ancestors, the Bells of Bellweathery used to call the Cavaliers) is not quite so easy to be disposed of, for "they can't think what I mean "" ! "Thank Peace and Goodwill they have no acquaintance among such bad people!" and crying "Name! name!" they call upon me to produce my evidence that such a wicked commodity as Scandal exists in this Arcadian London of theirs!

Gentlemen, I am not going to indulge you with a list of cases to dine out upon; not going to satisfy your appetite by proving your shamelessness; not going to add the contents of my rag-bag to yours, that you may wear a finer motley! I am not going to enchant the wicked world, with tales of the children you have bestowed on this maiden actress-of the elopements you have