this night upon the beach," replied Quann. ""Twas little she thought I stood breathless at her side, listening to the song she sang, while she stood by the sea's edge, pondering so deeply (upon me perhaps too) that the white foam glimmered upon her brow unheeded. Her words would have won a harder heart than I can boast of, with all my guilt. You shall hear them, uncle. Do you listen also, king Fergus, and prepare both of ye to give my Onagh joy of her reclaimed and penitent spendthrift as the last word melts away on her lips." The moment was critical, and the bashful Onagh instantly placed her hands in those of Morty, and chanted with a faltering voice the following simple rhymes.

"I smile by day, for the old man's sake,

Although my heart 's at sea,

With the flowers all night I weep and wake,

They seem to pity me.

My kinsmen say, he was virtue's foe,
And ruder than the sea;

But what care I, when well I know,

He once was kind to me?"

Old Fergus listened with tears in his eyes to young Onagh's song, and joined Morough O'Dwyer in a hearty benison on the heads of the happy plighted ones. The hut then became a scene of joyous uproar. The rude dilloskers pressed around Morty, and loudly welcomed him to his home again. Onagh sat silent and happy, reposing on the bosom of Fergus beneath the wren-bush, while old Sir Morough distributed largesse from his treasure-bag among the beach-boys. Even Trevenny was not forgotten by the kind forgiving old man, notwithstanding he had just aggravated his precedent delinquency, by churlishly observing that "Fortune, in throwing Sir Morough on his native shore, and putting gold in his palm again in his extreme old age, had played the part of the fickle fishwife, who, in a fit of humanity, pitched the mackerel into his natural element, after she had gutted and pickled him." The Cornishman was, however, summoned to approach the board and take his allotted portion of the treasure; but he declined accepting the proffered gift, and turned towards the youth with whom he had entered the hut, a mischievous half-lunatic elf, the eternal cause of sorrow and anger to Trevenny, who patiently endured his manifold misdeeds; "seeing," said he, "that the cursed 'oosbert lost his wits by a blow from my old father's tough staff that was properly levelled at my own head; and if I won't stand by the imp, and bear wi' his folly, who on the wide seas would, I wonder?" The youth was occupied in draining a vessel of meadh, and Jasper urged him to prolong his draught, by roaring this old Cornish drinking-catch in his ear, with all the mirth and carelessness of one in whose presence nothing extraordinary had lately occurred.

"Drain the jug, drouthily,
Tipple boy, tipple boy :

Lay to it mouthily,

Swigging boy, swigging boy;

Warm it now nosily,

Rosy boy, rosy boy,

And be not outfaced by brown ale."

A.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FASHION.

Ir will, perchance, set some of my readers in a puzzle to discover what connexion can exist between fashion and philosophy, especially those who are apt to confound terms, and imagine that philosophy can only be applied in the vulgar sense. That so profound a word should be used to designate any of the follies of society, may appear a little anomalous. Most have heard of the fashionable philosophy of modern times, which, after all, is a complete misnomer, if philosophy be to be used but in one sense. Carp not, gentlemen, at terms; two and two do not always make four, in spite of Cocker-at least, if political economists know any thing at all, and many a seeming contradiction may be resolved into a consistent whole. "Old improbabilities," says a late writer, "are become modern probabilities," and the philosophy of fashion may be comprehended in an analysis of the prominent characteristics of a numerous sect of the community :-marry! proceed we then analytically.

To catch the Cynthia of the minute," to depict the ever-shifting Proteus universally worshipped by the most ardent of votaries, to define with fidelity its multiform transmutations, and the flickering hues that sparkle around the idol, coming and going like the ebb and flow of the ocean, would be a vain task for pen and pencil united. Some painters complete a picture by only delineating the striking parts in a bold manner, and flinging into undefined shadow those to which their art is unequal-thus by bold and prominent outlines the original is easily recognised. This must be our stratagem, we must hit off a sketchy draught, and leave the filling up to imagination, that best of finishers. Custom, then, is styled "the law of fools," and fashion may be truly denominated their religion. Custom must approve of fashion, in the same way as my Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench tells the world that the law must approve of the religion of the state. Nothing but what is so approved can be tolerated, and as unlucky dissenters in opinion, from what statutes make religion, are not allowed to propagate their opinions, fashion, unless tolerated by custom, is put beyond the pale of adoption, made liable to pains and penalties, and finally driven into obscurity. Thus the heretical attempts made by presumptuous individuals of the supreme bon ton to launch a mode have been many; but in spite of every effort, if custom have withheld her patronage, it has perished in neglect. I recollect when Lady Arcot, just arrived from India, with all the notoriety of wealth and the sanguine hope of a fashionable of the first water, endeavoured to introduce palanquins for visiting or shopping in a London summer, by no means a bad scheme; many stood and admired her equipage, but the thing would not take. On the other hand, a noble lord, a few years ago, cut off the skirts of his coat, and, outré as he appeared, the fashion was universally adopted; the rage for shorn garments spread like a pestilence, and did not cease until another fashion, perhaps equally extravagant, pushed it from its stool." Fashion has numerous attendants in her temple

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messengers too that go up and down the whole range of her empire with unwearying activity, and search out novelties, to satisfy her insatiable demands. Her extremest votaries are nearly always in the ranks of weak intellect, while every fool of a particular class in life is a certain devotee. How degrading is this devotion of mankind to a reasonless phantom; yet how mysterious in its origin! Youth with its generous sympathies catches the contagion, and the aged, in spite of experience, are as much wedded to it as the young. A great portion of the cold heartlessness of the many, is owing to the practice of duplicity and insincerity instilled by fashionable manners, arising from the constant efforts of men to appear what they are not, and to hide under a glozing courtesy, envy, hatred, "and all uncharitableness." An air of fashion borne by many honourable individuals, it must be granted, sets off the innate good principles they possess; such would scout fashion if she made them hypocrites-they are what they seem, they mean all they say they may be trusted. But how few is the number of such as confer honour upon fashion, not fashion upon them! Yet all must more or less adopt a portion of it to pass current in the world with,-as in taking our necessary food we must ever swallow some portion of a deleterious poison. The wise must therefore follow fashion at a sober distance, while its intoxicated disciples press close on its heels, and try to hug themselves in its harlequin garments. There is no object on earth so vapidly disagreeable as your superlative man of fashion, encounter him under any circumstances. I do not mean the well-bred gentleman, but him of the bastard breed, who is the reverse in character-yet is he at the acme of exalted life. Meet him in the drawingroom or at the dinner-table, in the theatre or the street, he is a nuisance, an object for the contempt rather than the detestation of the wise. He is proud; but his is not the pride of principle or the weakness of high birth, which latter, considering the fallibility of human nature, may sometimes be excused, when he who shews it has better qualities to weigh it down. It is the inflation of self-consequence, from the imaginary possession of every thing superior to other men. He is as mean in solicitation, as he is insolent in triumph. Does he make a request of you, he makes it like a "fawning greyhound," with a "deal of candied courtesy."-You instantly think with the peer in addressing Sir Plume, that it is a pity

"Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain!"

The honey of Nestor without the wisdom hangs on his lips. He is insinuatingly persuasive: talks of "immense obligations" and "grateful feelings," while he is circumventing you, as he imagines, by his stratagems of speech, or a downright lie or two, if nothing else will serve his turn; all which you easily see through, but must not quarrel with for fear of the ultima ratio with a man of honour! The next day at Lady W.'s he will not recognise you. Vanity is his reigning passion; whoever will administer to this may command him wholly; he wishes all to look at his appliances and appendages, to trumpet their cost and magnificence, and to acknowledge that their owner must be the noblest of created bipeds. This is known, and obtains him friends, who feed themselves and his folly at the same time. Mothers, too, with marriageable daughters, plot to make him a son-in-law, and are eager to sell off

their kine, where, while they live in a state little above prostitution, except indeed in name, they satisfy their avaricious views for their young stock. One fashionable apes another, even in his defects. I have heard a healthy brawny fellow, habited in the pink of the mode, declare his envy of a hobbling beau, equally high dressed, because he bore emaciated legs and a mealy visage, expressive of ill health from long dissipation, which threw over his gait a modish languor, exactly squaring with certain bizarre ideas of the most exquisite of fashion's masterpieces. Life, with the man of fashion, evaporates in essences and perfumes. Knowledge, except its outscourings, is the butt of all such, and reason has no place in their vocabulary. Natural impulses must be limited, and never transgress set forms and customary ordinances. Honesty, virtue, or talent, are of no avail in a circle of fashion, if the air of the ton be wanting-it is well they have better supporters. Wit might be voted an agreeable accomplishment in a man of fashion from its rarity-we have no George Selwyns now; but in one whom Stultz or Weston had not clothed it would be declared a bore. The mental acquirements of the man of fashion are comprised in the smaller chitchat of the day; politics are above him, even if drawn from the skimmilk of some obscure newspaper-the Koran of fashion's disciples. He is learned in the racing-calendar, knows the state of the betting at Tattersal's; can speak the names of the figurantes at the Opera; makes a good leg; plays whist, only not as well as some maiden ladies; dances a quadrille; knows the slang of the club-rooms; dices with legitimate oaths; frequents the Fives Court for the improvement of his vocabulary; knows a dozen kept women of the town, and can drive a chariot tolerably. His acquirements are all copied; he has nothing original, though he may go farther than others in the beaten track. His tailors are his most benefited auditors, and they as usual scantily en poche. Rough and coarse on the coach-box, when in the drawing-room he is so delicately essenced, he looks as if he might be "brained with his lady's fan"-si il a en. Yet he leads a certain number of admirers even there, like the ignis fatuus of a marsh, into the maze of his own stagnation. Safe under the shelter of fashion's wing, he struts the favourite of the softer sex and the envy of his own--the B-1 of his circle.

Walk the fashionable streets at four o'clock in the day, and mark the equipages that rattle along. One stops the footman descends and thunders at a door-fashion is at work in another form. A morning call is to be made. The visitant mounts to the drawing-room floor; she enters, makes obeisance, and seats herself. Five minutes interchange of the veriest common-place succeeds, and the morning call is concluded. Strong professions of friendship and regard are made while the door of the room is opening, and reiterated invitations to visit, all which are mere moonshine-the parties hate each other! The chariot drives off; the same farce is repeated ten houses farther down the street. The visitor is disappointed. The visited does not choose to be at home, though she really is; a card is left, and the visitor hies to a third mansion, enters the room, and a conversation ensues, which is ever nearly in the same strain, and has the convenience of being easily comprehensible-mere parrot's-talk phrases of rote, full of friendly professions. The visitor again retires, and as the door of the room shuts upon her, Lady V. has just time to tell her humble

companion," that Mrs. is a frump, an odious woman-when a second knock announces a new call; the same scene is acted, and, mayhap, the new comer " is welcomed as the former"-by as friendly professions and as hollow a reality. Thus the butterflies of fashion, like monarchs, have few real friends, though they have the consolation left of reflecting, that they serve each other alike-à fourbe, fourbe et demi, and that all are equally destitute of what none can personify in good earnest. How heart-sickening is all this! how doubly valuable does it make sincerity and real friendship! How "stale, flat, and unprofitable" are these usages to him who reflects on the nobler destinies of man-of what he may be, of what he ought to be! of what he has been! How little, after all, of what is worthy the intellectual man prevails even in this refined age! Let those who are smitten with the frippery and glitter of the haute monde peep behind the thin veil drawn before its deformities, and then desire to be of it with "what appetite they may." Some urge in its defence that all these matters are well understood in modern intercourse; and that, therefore, there is no insincerity. But all cannot be comprehended, or who would thanklessly toil in a sickly pursuit, and "make pale their cheeks" at the midnight orgies of fashion, conscious of its folly? The truth is, that a few to whom it has become necessary from custom, at length see its emptiness; but, having been caught in its orbit, they are retained there in spite of themselves. Who that loved social intercourse and refined conversation, such as the French are famous for, but which our fashionables know little about, could enjoy an English rout?-they might go, but they would quit it in disgust. Yet there Fashion revels: "joyless and unendeared," it is true; but not the less glittering her sphere on that account to her disciples--not the less attractive to those whose notion of the highest human pleasure is to exhibit.

-their gaily gilded trim

Quick glancing to the sun.

The rout is the carnival of fashionable life, and is adapted to the meanest capacity in its ceremonies. It is a well-dressed mob, with much of a mob's practice in elbowing, shuffling, cramming, whispering, and idle confabulation. Yet how important is a rout! For weeks the house of the receiver is in a course of preparation for it. Carpenters, painters, confectioners, chandlers, upholsterers, and heaven knows who, are placed in requisition. The newspapers are solicited to emblazon the fame of the donor, and raise the expectation of the guests to the loftiest pitch of excitement-"On Thursday next the Hon. Mrs. Ogle will entertain a large party of the first rank and distinction at her house in Sackville-street; all the beauty and fashion of the metropolis are invited." Those roguish newspapers, how they deal in hyperbole !-all!-all the beauty and fashion of a city containing a million of souls is to be huddled into three rooms, the largest only forty feet by eighteen, the others scarcely half the size! The important day arrives; at ten at night Mrs. Ogle's house resembles Coventgarden Theatre at a royal bespeak. The Duke of Dunderhead's carriage-pole fractures Lady Betty Leatherhead's coach-pannel-the footmen curse each other most unchristianly--linkboys move about VOL. V. No. 27.-1823.

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