spring chickens, green goose, and the company of the beauty or wit in vogue), determines the poor fellow to submission. He swallows Signor Humbuginbach's concert, for the sake of the hock and claret by which he humbly trusts it will be washed down; or subscribes his sovereign (a mighty mite to a young gentleman rejoicing in an income of 1801. per annum, washing included) for the benefit of the missionaries of Owhyhee, secretly hoping that her ladyship will be pleased to reward his munificence with an opera ticket or so, in the course of the season. But if, after presenting her compliments to him on the Saturday, the Lady Patroness choose to cut his acquaintance-the unkindest cut of all-in Kensington-gardens on the Sunday, the subscriber has no title to complain. In appealing so familiarly to his feelings, like Thomas Thumb in the tragedy, her ladyship Did her duty, and she did no more. She was civil only in her vocation-gracious only as a Lady Pa troness. In London life, patronesship is a matter of election. Among the two thousand noble or wealthy ladies whose names are supposed to lend grace to a subscription, or whose equipages seen waiting at the private door of a Hanover-square bazaar, are known to increase the congregation of powdered footmen and wiggy body-coachmen, it is something to be solicited as sponsor for the nursling institution, or starveling charity-school. In the country, on the contrary, it is a thing of inheritance. The great lady of any neighbourhood, whether a seventy-four duchess, or a gunbrig baronet's wife, becomes, as a matter of course, patroness of whatever attempts are to be made on the indulgence of the provincial public; nay, even the mayor's lady in a country town, must ascend the throne by right divine, failing higher branches in the succession. If a benefit play be bespoken (the tragedy of "Hamlet" or of "Macbeth" for instance, with the parts of the royal Dane, or disloyal Thane omitted by particular desire), she must occupy the box of honour for the exclusive enjoyment of the float of tallow-candles, in order that the Mrs. Diapers and Miss Figs of the Market-place, may be persuaded to vouchsafe the light of their countenances and the price of their tickets. The playbills must be headed under the immediate patronage of—no matter who-the greatest lady of the place; or the Brummagem Macready will open his mouth, and the manager his doors in vain. No Lady Patroness-no receipt! Again, you might as well have the plate at a cathedral-door placed on a kettle-trivet, as in the hands of a pew-opener or churchwarden. A polite congregation loves to bestow its shillings and sixpences upon a charmer in a lilac satin-pelisse, with French flowers in her bonnet. The Lady Patroness never looks more exquisite than when standing in the porch of an old country-church, receiving the copper contributions and courtesies of the poor old women in their red cloaks, who are willing to sacrifice their weeks' tobacco towards rebuilding the organ-loft, without surmising that the cost of the whole undertaking does not equal the value of the Brussels lace veil of the lady who smiles so eloquent an appeal to their magnanimity. The harangue from the pulpit, the private badgering of the parish-clerk, had failed to convince them.-But who is to resist the elegance and affectation of the Lady Patroness? There are necessarily Lady Patronesses of all sorts and sizes, sects and opinions. The serious Lady Patroness,-the great lady of Exeter Hall, the Madonna Laura of the Petrarchs in buzz-wigs, the blue of Rivingtons and Hatchards, -is the Hecuba of the tribe. A degree of respectability is attached to her rustling skirts, which ought to render them arrow-proof against the shafts of ridicule, even as the mail of a crusader-or the scales of a crocodile. Her charity, unlike the charity that begins at home, is of the comprehensive species that wafts an obolus from Indus to the Pole, in order to furnish missionaries for the dusky tribes of heathenesse, and a maintenance for the still darker tribes lacking employment in the overstocked market of piety in Great Britain. Seldom, it is true, do we hear of these comfortable dames taking out two pence and giving them to the host, in behalf of some needy wayfarer of the laity: more rarely still, of their exercising their influence in society for the benefit of some victim of its injustice, its pride and prejudice. When slanders and scandals darken the atmosphere, they are fain to let the wicked world have its way; unless when that way can be invaded by the thousandparson force of prejudices stronger and more powerful still; crushed by the Thor-like hammer of a hierarchy, or brought down by the long rifle of a backwoodsman, taking his sly aim from behind the whited wall of evangelism. Devoid of all pretence to the heavenly meekness of genuine Christianity, the serious Lady Patroness is "puffed up," "vaunteth herself," and (under correction), "doth behave herself unseemly." Then comes the political Lady Patroness; the distributor of election ribbons, and other party gewgaws; the accredited monsterer of nothings inaudible in the gallery, lisped by the pap-boat members. Instead of the heaps of tracts damp from the press, which moisten the carriage-cushions of the serious Lady Patroness, the morocco swabs of the political Lady Patroness are encumbered by the dog's-eared pages of some dry pamphlet,-the last "striking effort" of the newest man of genius forced into bloom in the succession-house of her party. By vocation a fetcher and carrier of paper place-traps, she takes care to have the useful passages scored in pencil by the author, for the benefit of the minister's private secretary; and the objectionable ones scored in red ink by the minister's private secretary, for the instruction of the aspiring author. Not unfrequently, said author in his proper person usurps the place of his work, and is dawdled about in morning visits from house to house, in those environs of Grosvenor-square or Carltonterrace, which enshrine the penates of the great men of Downing street. Next follows the literary Lady Patroness; a variety of the lionfeeder, but that her lions are fed, like courtiers," promise cramm'd!” The literary Lady Patroness is a jackal to the annuals and other miscellanies of polite literature. She it is, who provides a place in the alms-houses of the arts, for Lord Thomas's verses, or Lady Sarah's sketches; thereby eliciting the eternal gratitude of the editor, proprietor, printer, and binder of the golden library of the tabbies. She it is, whose conversazione confers immortality on the unknown epic, and crowns with bays the prose of the poet and the poets of the prosy. Whereas the serious Lady Patroness is "an old woman clothed in gray," the literary one is usually a young one enrobed in cerulean blue. Mild as Helicon, she eschews the noisy gabble of her political rival, who always appears to be over-talking a debate; and is mea→ sured in her dicta, and few and far between in her arbitrements, even as the solemn minute-guns of a quarterly review, compared with the squibbing of a daily paper. Her gentle dulness recoils from the hurry and bustle of the great lady of the hustings; and "like the fat weed that rots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf," she is usually to be found lolling dozily on the cushions of her boudoir, with the last volume of her latest protégé drooping from her hand! Never, however, does she fail to avail herself of your visit, to victimize you in favour of some subscription work, or theatrical benefit,-enabling you to see Shakspeare murdered in cold blood, at the cost of two pounds two per hour. She is sure to have some Miss Seraphina Snobbssome virgin tragedy-" some orphan muse" to intrust to your sympathies. As a counterbalance to the enormous weight of advice wherewith she loads her unoffending protégés, she heaps up for their credit the halfcrowns and half-sovereigns extorted from her friends, to be lumped in the subscription list as "91. 11s. 4d. collected by the Right Honourable the Countess of Indigo;" beating out the gold of others into thin leaf, in order to gild the pill of her bitter counsel. Last comes the fashionable Lady Patroness,-the dispenser of gentility, the fountain of honour to the nobodies,-the grandee who buoys up with empty bladders the novice wading a first attempt in that sea of troubles, the ocean of the great world. We speak not of the Lady Patronesses of Almack's. Every body who knows any thing, that is, any body who knows every body, is aware that Almack's is an elective. monarchy, an irresponsible sovereignty ;-that its chief magistrates are great unpaid, whose labour, like virtue, is its own reward;-and whose reward, like virtue's, is too apt to be pain and grief. Those ædiles of the beau monde, therefore, who, after giving themselves such infinite trouble, find it so difficult to give satisfaction to the wicked and perverse generation of fashionable life, ought to be sacred objects in the eyes of the profane. The fashionable Lady Patroness, meanwhile, whom we would render a fixed figure for the hand of scorn to point its slow unmoving finger at, "is the would-be fine lady who tenders her services to the will-be fine lady, to help her up the ladder of west-end notoriety ;"-who makes out visiting lists for those who want to visit every body, and whom nobody cares to visit ;-who "weeds" the acquaintance of people whose drawing-room is an uncultivated waste reclaimed from the brickfields;→ who hints a fault and hesitates dislike, whenever the giver of balls suggests the name of an untitled friend;-and insists that the whole tribe of country cousins shall be cut, without conscience or compunction:"The creatures are used to it." The fashionable Lady Patroness has an overflowing list of mantua makers, milliners, hairdressers, and the general commissariate of the toi let, all" by appointment to" her noble self, and consequently unrivalled, -for such recommendations act as a discount to be abstracted from her bill. She is to be served quicker and cheaper than other customers, in consideration of the number of family coaches she brings in succession to the door. It is true her pet shoemaker is little better than a cobbler, but then he is "such a civil creature ;"-her court dressmaker little better than a sempstress, but then she is "so wonderfully cheap" and so omnipotent is the power of puffing in this our age of charlatanism, that by dint of praising and pushing them on, the cobbler and sempstress undertaken by the fashionable Lady Patroness, if they do not learn to make shoes or gowns, invariably contrive to make fortunes. The The fashionable Lady Patroness is a pearl, richer than all her tribe; the only Lady Patroness who is seen to fatten on her vocation. missionaries and dispensaries,-the under secs and pamphleteers,-the ballad-mongers and annual-spinners, give in return for the exertions of their protectresses the breath of praise in exchange for the breath of praise incense for incense, or, as Lear hath it, "nothing for nothing." But the fashionable Lady Patroness obtains solid pudding in exchange for her empty praise. The fashionable Lady Patroness has a corner kept for her at the dinner-table for which she has engaged the French cook, and invited the English guests. She is implored to come and meet the duchess whom she has manœuvred into gracing the feast with her presence. She is assured that she must be at hand to do the honours of the ambassador who is to do her particular friends the honour of eating their turtle and venison. She must taste the hock purveyed by her own purveyor; she must give her opinion of the ice tickled up by a Gunter of her own invention; she must witness the first attempt out of livery of the clodpole she has disciplined into butlership: she must help to take the shine out of the service of plate for which she furnished the design. Nay, some of the forced peaches must be placed in her carriage which were provided half-a-crown apiece below market price, by the fruiterer who furnishes her own unrivalled desserts. She must be at hand to set forth the merits of the three courses, with a theatrical aside of Que са est bon! Ah! goutez ça!— and all" furnished at the inexplicably low price of one pound seven-andsixpence a head, by a very clean, honest, little man, whom I employ for all my own dinners, and who is getting on so wonderfully that he will not undertake so much as a fricandeau under six weeks' notice !" Such is the dainty dame in whom officiousness becomes a virtue, per force of the exigencies of lady patronesship. Such the charming extortioner who, like a brilliant parasite plant entwining a tree to its perdition, ruins one with caresses. Her kindness is a gnawing worm,— her friendship a perpetual blister. Like the daughters of the horse leech, her cry is" Give, give, give !"—an appeal difficult to forgive when repeated with such "damnable iteration." She will not leave to her victims so much as the virtue of generosity to call their own; rendering them unwilling benefactors of the humble poor,-unwilling acquaintances of the presuming rich. But basta! another word, and this our miscellany would be repudiated for ever from the good offices of that "besetting Botherby" the fashionable LADY PATRONESS. A TALK ABOUT TALKING. “Ergo nihil parlant, nisi sit parlare bisognus."-MERLIN; COCALIUS. "Socrate a préféré la cigue à la gêne de contenir sa langue."-LETTRES DU ROI DE PRUSSE. It has been well observed that a man repents a thousand times in his life of something that he has spoken; rarely, or never, of having held his tongue and Pythagoras thought nine years of taciturnity barely a sufficient preliminary to enable his scholars to speak to some purpose. Epictetus, likewise, was a great encourager of silence, recommending a paucity of talk as a notable virtue: to say nothing of the monks of La Trappe, who, perhaps, should rather be taken, as testifying in favour of speech, than against it, inasmuch as their silence is a matter of selfdenial and penance, a voluntary abstinence from what they esteem an enjoyment. We may therefore apply to their practice the Terentian maxim, tacent, satis laudant. Be that however as it may, the advocates of the silent system are not wanting in numbers, weight, or dignity, to uphold the superiority of the eldest daughter of night. It may, then, be thought disrespectful to high authorities, if we venture to call such dogmas in question; but we must, nevertheless, make bold to express a suspicion that speech is not without its use, or, at least, that if talk be no better than an infirmity, it is a very natural one. These very recommendations of silence, indeed, whatever their author's may have thought, appear to us no other than indirect eulogies on the gift of the gab: first, as being a thing too precious to be wasted, and, next, as indicating the greatness of its use by the manifold dangers of its abuse,-two incidents ever closely coupled in the eternal nature of things. To those who are accustomed to pride themselves on their humanity, and to plume themselves on being the lords of the creation, it is enough to hint that speech is the distinguishing characteristic of the species. Linnæus has properly defined man, Homo loquens sapiens; the one being a clear consequence of the other: for, as we all know, logos is good Greek for discourse, and for reason too; whence it follows, as ready as a borrower's cap," that to talk is reasonable, and that it is reasonable to talk. 66 Against this definition of Linnæus, there is nothing to be concluded from the chattering of pies or parrots, or from the vocal performances of the talking canary. Between human eloquence, and the dicacity of the parrot, which "wants discourse of reason," there is all the difference in the world; and if it be objected that very many unfledged bipeds are in the habit of repeating other people's jargon, without more comprehension of the meaning, than " pretty Poll's," the circumstance only proves the great fact of the imperfection of all natural systems. The distinctions of species are artificial, and often awkward, attempts at following nature, who proceeds by shadings so gradual and insensible that panting logic toils after her in vain. It may therefore be quite impossible, in certain cases, to trace the line, where the homo sapiens loquens ends, and the psittacus garrulus begins; and yet the de |