ternly manner, but to the person who looks neat, and trim, and elegant, and in whose person we fancy we see exhibited indications of a natural taste, order, and propriety. If Miss Smith in a rumpled gown offends our eyesight, though we hear she is a young lady of great genius and considerable fortune, while Miss Jones in her trim and simple attire attracts our admiration; so must women, on their side, be attracted or repelled by the appearance of gentlemen into whose company they fall. If you are a tiger in appearance, you may naturally expect to frighten a delicate and timid female; if you are a sloven, to offend her: and as to be well with women constitutes one of the chiefest happinesses of life, the object of my worthy Bob's special attention will naturally be to neglect no precautions to win their favor.

Yes: a good face, a good address, a good dress, are each so many points in the game of life, of which every man of sense will avail himself. They help many a man more in his commerce with society than learning or genius. It is hard often to bring the former into a drawing-room: it is often too lumbering and unwieldy for any den but its own. And as a King Charles's spaniel can snooze before the fire, or frisk over the ottoman-cushions and on to the ladies' laps, when a Royal elephant would find a considerable difficulty in walking up the stairs, and subsequently in finding a seat; so a good manner and appearance will introduce you into many a house, where you might knock in vain for admission, with all the learning of Porson in your trunk.

It is not learning, it is not virtue, about which people inquire in society. It is manners. It no more profits me that my neighbor at table can construe Sanscrit and say the "Encyclopædia" by heart, than that he should possess half a million in the Bank (unless, indeed, he gives dinners; when, for reasons obvious, one's estimation of him, or one's desire to please him, takes its rise in different sources), or that the lady whom I hand down to dinner should be as virtuous as Cornelia or the late Mrs. Hannah More. What is wanted for the nonce is that folks should be as agreeable as possible in conversation and demeanor; so that good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society; the which to see exhibited in Lady X.'s honest face, let us say, is more pleasant to behold in a room than the glitter of Lady Z.'s best diamonds. And yet, in point of virtue, the latter is, no doubt, a perfect

dragon. But virtue is a home quality: manners are the coat it wears when it goes abroad.

Thus, then, my beloved Bob, I would have your diningout suit handsome, neat, well-made, fitting you naturally and easily, and yet with a certain air of holiday about it, which should mark its destination. It is not because they thought their appearance was much improved by the ornament, that the ancient philosophers and topers decorated their old pates with flowers (no wreath, I know, would make some people's mugs beautiful; and I confess, for my part, I would as lief wear a horse-collar or a cotton nightcap in society as a coronet of polyanthuses or a garland of hyacinths) it is not because a philosopher cares about dress that he wears it; but he wears his best as a sign of a feast, as a bush is the sign of an inn. You ought to mark a festival as a red-letter day, and you put on your broad and spotless white waistcoat, your finest linen, your shini est boots, as much as to say, "It is a feast; here I am, clean, smart, ready with a good appetite, determined to enjoy."

You would not enjoy a feast if you came to it unshorn, in a draggle-tailed dressing-gown. You ought to be well dressed, and suitable to it. A very odd and wise man whom I once knew, and who had not (as far as one could outwardly judge) the least vanity about his personal appearance, used, I remember, to make a point of wearing in large Assemblies a most splendid gold or crimson waistcoat. He seemed to consider himself in the light of a walking bouquet of flowers, or a movable chandelier. His waistcoat was a piece of furniture to decorate the rooms; as for any personal pride he took in the adornment, he had none : for the matter of that, he would have taken the garment off, and lent it to a waiter - but this Philosopher's maxim was, that dress should be handsome upon handsome occasions and I hope you will exhibit your own taste upon such. You don't suppose that people who entertain you so hospitably have four-and-twenty lights in the dining-room, and still and dry champagne every day? or that my friend Mrs. Perkins puts her drawing-room door under her bed every night, when there is no ball? A young fellow must dress himself, as the host and hostess dress themselves, in an extra manner for extra nights. Enjoy, my boy, in honesty and manliness, the goods of this life. I would no more have you refuse to take your glass of wine, or to

admire (always in honesty) a pretty girl, than dislike the smell of a rose, or turn away your eyes from a landscape. "Neque tu choreas sperne, puer," as the dear old Heathen says: and, in order to dance, you must have proper pumps willing to spring and whirl lightly, and a clean pair of gloves, with which you can take your partner's pretty little hand.

As for particularizing your dress, that were a task quite absurd and impertinent, considering that you are to wear it, and not I, and remembering the variations of fashion. When I was presented to H. R. H. the Prince Regent, in the uniform of the Hammersmith Hussars, viz., a yellow jacket, pink pantaloons, and silver lace, green morocco boots, and a light blue pelisse lined with ermine, the august Prince himself, the model of grace and elegance in his time, wore a coat of which the waist-buttons were placed between his royal shoulder-blades, and which, if worn by a man now, would cause the boys to hoot him in Pall Mall, and be a uniform for Bedlam. If buttons continue their present downward progress, a man's waist may fall down to his heels next year, or work upwards to the nape of his neck after another revolution: who knows? Be it yours decently to conform to the custom, and leave your buttons in the hands of a good tailor, who will place them wherever fashion ordains. A few general rules, however, may be gently hinted to a young fellow who has perhaps a propensity to fall into certain errors.

Eschew violent sporting-dresses, such as one sees but too often in the parks and public places on the backs of misguided young men. There is no objection to a hostler wearing a particular costume, but it is a pity that a gentleman should imitate it. I have seen in like manner young fellows at Cowes attired like the pictures we have of smugglers, buccaneers, and mariners, in Adelphi melodramas. I would like my Bob to remember that his business in life is neither to handle a currycomb nor a marlinspike, and to fashion his habit accordingly.

If your hair or clothes do not smell of tobacco, as they sometimes, it must be confessed, do, you will not be less popular among ladies. And as no man is worth a fig, or can have real benevolence of character, or observe mankind properly, who does not like the society of modest and wellbred women, respect their prejudices in this matter, and if you must smoke, smoke in an old coat, and away from the ladies.

Avoid dressing-gowns; which argue dawdling, an unshorn chin, a lax toilet, and a general lazy and indolent habit at home. Begin your day with a clean conscience in every way. Cleanliness is honesty.* A man who shows but a clean face and hands is a rogue and hypocrite in society, and takes credit for a virtue he does not possess. And of all the advances towards civilization which our nation has made, and of most of which Mr. Macaulay treats so eloquently in his lately published History, as in his lecture to the Glasgow Students the other day, there is none which ought to give a philanthropist more pleasure than to remark the great and increasing demand for bath-tubs at the ironmongers': Zinc-Institutions, of which our ancestors had a lamentable ignorance.

And I hope that these institutions will be universal in our country before long, and that every decent man in England will be a Companion of the Most Honorable order of the Bath.

*Note to the beloved reader. This hint, dear Sir, is of course not intended to apply personally to you, who are scrupulously neat in your person; but when you look around you and see how many people neglect the use of that admirable cosmetic, cold water, you will see that a few words in its praise may be spoken with advantage.

THE INFLUENCE OF LOVELY WOMAN UPON

SOCIETY.

ONSTANTLY, my

dear Bob, I have told you how refining is the influence of women upon society, and how profound our respect ought to be for them. Living in chambers as you do, my dear Nephew, and not of course liable to be amused by the constant society of an old uncle, who moreover might be deucedly bored with your

own conversation - I beseech and implore you to make a point of being intimate with one or two families where you can see kind and well-bred English ladies. I have seen women of all nations in the world, but I never saw the equals of English women (meaning of course to include our cousins the MacWhirters of Glasgow, and the O'Tooles of Cork) and I pray sincerely, my boy, that you may always have a woman for a friend.

:

Try, then, and make yourself the bienvenu in some house where accomplished and amiable ladies are. Pass as much of your time as you can with them. Lose no opportunity of making yourself agreeable to them: run their errands; send them flowers and elegant little tokens; show a willingness to be pleased by their attentions, and to aid their little charming schemes of shopping or dancing, or this, or that. I say to you, make yourself a lady's man as much as ever you can.

It is better for you to pass an evening once or twice a week in a lady's drawing-room, even though the conversa