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GAIETIES AND GRAVITIES.

whole handful of my affections at once! Frank! Frank! if I should pardon thee, how canst thou forgive thyself?

Whither am I now to turn these aged eyes, if I would seek any thing antique or picturesque in the surface of society? I see the earth thickly studded with black and blue reptiles called men; but as to distinguishing one from another, I might as well attempt to pick out a particular bee from his hive, or ant from its nest. The world is nothing now but a monotonous modification of broad-cloth-a homogeneous mass of bipeds;-and so far from encountering those pictorial varieties of costume which give such graphic animation to Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, we have lost even the wig and gold-headed cane of our Doctors; our cocked-hats have fallen into as much desuetude as the desecrated Tripod of the Pythoness, and the last of our pigtails has been decollated! When I look around me I seem to have survived myself, or to have walked by mistake into a wrong century. I hate such a congregation of duplicates as our streets present-such a mass of dittossuch an accumulation of fac-similes such a civil regiment:-and as if the human monotony were not sufficient, we build our streets so like barracks or manufactories, so mathematically uniform, so much like prolonged honeycombs, that it has always puzzled me to explain how the tenants find their respective cells, even in the day-time. By night, I take it for granted that they rarely succeed. If I ever change my residence, it shall be to Regent-street, where there is at

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least a chance of finding my own house; or where, if I am at a loss, I may at all events describe it as a nondescript, belonging to the order of Disorder.

The establishment of mail-coaches accelerated this social amalgamation, by conveying the fashions in four or five days from Bond-street to the Highlands and the Land's End, and enabling the extremities of the island to be whisked up to London by four bloodhorses. Bell and Lancaster have completed the process: we can all read and talk alike, though I flatter myself some can still write a little better than their neighbours: the rural Echoes no longer babble in dialect, and our farmers neither wear cowskin waistcoats, nor rusticise like Hobbinol and Diggon Davy. Character, as to its broad delineations, is blotted out; individuality is extinct: nobody is himself, we are all every body, and we ought each of us to be designated as Mr. Community, or - Public, Esq. I pity the dramatist who is compelled to see the broad foot of Improvement (as it is termed) trampling down his harvest, and crushing the very elements and materials of his art. We have no longer any genuine quizzes or odd fellows-society has shaken us together in its bag until all our original characters and impressions have been rubbed out, and we are left as smooth and polished as old shillings. Having no angles, we slip through the fingers of the play-wright: he might as well attempt to dramatize a bag of marbles. Can we wonder at the degraded state of the drama, the remaining interest of which is still feebly upheld by a gross violation of existing costume, and the retention of those ancient modes, particularly in our farces, which by stamping the age, character, and profession of the wearer, adapted themselves so happily to dramatic representation.

aspiration; but I sho expected to reside whether artists can e uniforms than the dra should we cut in mart garth throw a mass of is picture, so that we and appropriate it to ng figures? The du Tet produced an arti will probably be no Vent modes continue. But worse than th ing and jumbling of parity of appearance Toung acquaintance guned, a fellow-coll Dearty slap on the b Harry, is it you?" f breath out of his ow Anachronisms,

Dress is a greater ingredient in the formation of character than is generally supposed, and we may be strictly called, in more senses than one, the creatures of habit. The Romans were aware of this when they gave their citizens the exclusive jus toga, as a garment which might distinguish them in every quarter of the world, and stimulate them to uphold the national reputation. Our clergymen are restrained from any public indecorum by respect for their cloth : Quakers carry about with them a drab-coloured Mentor, which sticks closer to them than did Minerva to Telemachus; and the gentlemen of the long robe see in their garment a Janus-like kind of monitor, somewhat resembling the Agatho-demon of Socrates. As an artificial memory may be created by types and symbols, so we may peruse these woollen didactics until we acquire a morality of broad cloth, and derive a cha

racter from our wardrobe. Individuals may partake imad-cloth, thehese

this sentiment without reference to their profession. Could the wearer of laced garments, when they were in vogue, be seen in any act or situation unworthy of a gentleman? No; he must act up to his clothes. But now all distinctions of rank are annihilated :hair-powder, the last difference between masters and servants, has vanished; our heads are as much alike externally as they are within; we are become a cha racterless multitude. Elijah's mantle retained his

to Bridewell; for if good, is it not felo tences? Every su of sixty" should be of the Loves in a H is the tailor to be measure of us for a to lay the golden c true aurum potabil

rly in our funt ter, and proles

so happily to

the formation

inspiration; but I should wish to know what gifts can be expected to reside in a poodle upper-benjamin, or

whether artists can extract more from our modern uniforms than the dramatist. What sort of a figure should we cut in marble ? or could any existing Hoed, and we magarth throw a mass of modern hats into the corner of one, the creature

of this when the

us toga, as ag

nin every quare

his picture, so that we might individualize every one, and appropriate it to its owner amid the group of living figures? The drab-coloured Quakers have never yet produced an artist; and the black and blue ones

to uphold will

are restrained for their clot

rab-coloured

an did Miner

the

long robe

of monitor,

of Socrates.

probably be no better provided should the pres

continue.

But worse than this confusion of ranks is the level

ling and jumbling of ages by this preposterous omniparity of appearance. It was but last week that a

young acquaintance of mine overtaking, as he imagined, a fellow-collegian, and saluting him with a hearty slap on the back and the exclamation-"Ah!

by types and Harry, is it you?" found he had nearly knocked the

len didactics

, and derive ad

o their profes

breath out of his own grandfather! These pedestrian anachronisms, these walking impostors, these liars in

luals may para broad-cloth, these habitual cheats, all ought to be sent 8, when they good, is it not felonious to obtain it under false preation unworths tences? Every superannuated Adonis and

to Bridewell; for if the reputation of juvenility be a

are as much

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are annihilated of the Loves in a House of mutual correction. What! ween masters is the tailor to be our modern alchymist, and take re become ad to lay the golden egg which we may resolve into the ntle retained true aurum potabile and elixir vita? Are his scissors

measure of us for a new youth? Is his magical goose

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peat-coat, aged eig this Cossack trows "Suddenly snatche dhis Petersham ha Mr. such-a-one. tain friend, which igured himself so tuate that which of from my recoll "Here lies Frank

P

PIRON, a poet Who beat a Was apt to dr Rather from His hostess w His Hippocre And though

That poets When living That is to Quoth Piron With drun

Of sins that Mat None of y With which

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