elevated society, discover the unpaved condition of their whole moral complex they make, therefore, their entrée into a new life either with a diffidence which, however well founded, contributes powerfully to spoil the little fitness they may possess for the attempt, and very greatly tends to deteriorate the general effect; or they dash in with a fuss and a swagger, which still more strikingly betrays them. To this consciousness we are inclined very mainly to attribute the sale of the seventeen editions above mentioned-not to speak of the numberless editions of what are called "silver-forked novels," which are rashly taken as professed schools of gentility-as etiquette propounding her most recondite philosophy by examples-and as the safest and surest guides to "the whole practice of high life." Whoever is conversant with the exclusive society of Margate and other similar wateringplaces, may, if he be a nice observer, detect the influence of the last of "these best public instructors" in forming the particular airs and graces of the season. Nay, we are inclined to think that our police magistrates would profit by a regular perusal of these oracles as they are published, which would enable them more thoroughly to enter into the spirit of the new "larks" practised by the graduates of the watch-house, in servile imitation of those authorities.

Let it not, however, be imagined of this general anxiety of the public to possess themselves of such printed codes of etiquette, that it is a proof of the parties being altogether wanting in the commodity they would purchase. Every circle has an etiquette of its own, which is not the less rigorously observed, for wanting the seal of high authority. It was but the other day that we ourselves heard a job coachman at a review resent a breach of etiquette in a brother of the whip; when, upon being remonstrated with by the lookers-on for his churlishness, he replied at once," Why didn't he ask me civilly?" and, turning to his opponent, told him, "I know manners, if you don't-I'll teach you that, blessed if I don't." The lower classes are remarkably ceremonious in their casual intercourse. "Yes, sir," and " no, sir," are the common forms of social intercourse in the streets; and the very barrow-women are elaborate in their verbal civilities to each other, whenever their interests or their tempers do not happen to tend to a breach of the peace. A very rigid etiquette also governs the occasions and modes standing treat," and the due repayment thereof in time and season. Domestic servitude in great houses is overlaid by etiquettes impassable lines of circumvallation are drawn, excluding the outdoor servants from equality with those whose services lie in the interior, and separating the "people" of the second table from the gentlemen and ladies of the first. Even beggary itself has its eti. quettes, and an ungenteel intrusion of one mendicant upon another's walk is universally resented by the corps, as very low misbehaviour. The trying conclusions with Fortune by the agency of the tea-leaves at the bottom of a cup, is perfectly" according to Hoyle" among maidservants and washerwomen; but it is considered a gross breach of etiquette among the more refined teachers, in the various seminaries for young ladies that Occupy the suburban roadsides of our great metropolis. In like manner, there are "houses in which the froth may, with perfect propriety, be blown from a porter pot before drinking; and others in which etiquette commands the thirsty to thrust their proboscis "nine

of "

fathom deep," if need be, into the yeasty fermentation. Various are the laws which regulate the pledging of the wine-cup (or the beer-mug, as the case may happen) in the different circles which divide the genus homo; from the "Sir, to you," of those "licensed to be drunk on the premises," to the more elaborate "It is some time since I have had the honour, &c. &c.," and "Will you allow me to make up for lost time," or the ironical "Since you are so pressing, I will drink a glass of wine with you," of playhouse-hunting tradesman-or to the laconic "wine?" and short jerk of the head of the more civilised inhabitants of Baker Street and the Regent's Park. On joining a strange dinnerparty we strongly advise a minute examination into the prevailing etiquette in this essential; for, as the vendors of quack medicines say, mistakes are dangerous. The point is a nice touchstone of breeding, and if your manner be not exactly in harmony with that of the company, your genteel ease will be mistaken for impertinence, or your elaborate politeness for underbreeding and a bore.

Lodging and boarding-houses have a code of their own, which regulates, with the rigour of the laws of the Medes and Persians, the intercourse permitted between the gentleman on the first-floor and his less aristocratic fellow-lodgers of the two-pair backwards. Recognition, for instance, when they meet on the stairs, is a requisite politeness, which is not indispensable if the rencontre is not within the walls of the common mansion. In these establishments, it is not etiquette to call the one maid-servant from her service to another lodger, or to remove a neighbour's saucepan from the kitchen fire, in order to make way for your own; and it is very low and vulgar to peep through a keyhole, or to notice anything you may discover by a chance-open door in your passage through the house. The breach of this wise rule always leads to open hostilities. In boarding-houses etiquette requires every one to place himself at the table according to the date of his standing in the house; and even the church's nullum tempus is of no avail against this rule. Etiquette does not require him who indulges in the luxury of wine to participate with those who cannot afford it, but it does not absolutely forbid the offer; and, if it be not more frequently made, it is probably on the refined principle that isla commemoratio quasi exprobatio est, that the courtesy conceals the reproach of pecuniary inferiority.

If etiquette is absolute in the lower circles of town life, it is still more arbitrary in the provinces. There, it strictly forbids all intercourse between tradesmen and those who do not keep a shop; between those who do and those who do not keep a carriage; and generally between all classes and conditions of towns-folks and the landed gentilatres of the surrounding parishes. Where the rustics are blessed with the presence of a collegiate clergy, the supremacy of "the close" over the city is preserved with more jealousy, than the privileges of either house of parliament. The dean is facile princeps for ten miles round; and the prebendaries' wives would resent a més-alliance with the whist-tables of the mayoress (who is no lady) as bitterly as a German transparency, of more quarterings than acres. In such places, life is passed in the observance of etiquettes, the assertion of rights, and the strict concession of dues to others. From the verger with silver staff, who "trips before the Dean," and the bellman with his "O yes,"

upwards, there is a regular hierarchy; and woe to him who outsteps the modesty of provincial aristocracy, to "assume a merit though he have it not," or forgets himself for one instant into ease and common sense, when he ought to be stiff and reverential. But while one constitutional etiquette regulates the general intercourse, or rather non-intercourse, between all the circles of the town, there is what may be called a municipal etiquette that governs the behaviour of each within itself. Those who have voyaged extensively, in noting the various usages of different nations have admired that man should so differ from himself; but how much more striking are the variations observable in the minutest particulars of conduct in societies separated, "not by whole ocean's roll," but by the slender thread of country etiquette! The apothecary, alone, who, by the despotism of circumstances, is admitted alike into all the circles, acquires by the contact a little of the colour of each; but if his wife avail herself of the knowledge thus picked up, to practise any of the airs of her husband's higher patients, she at once becomes the envy and the ridicule of all, for her singularity and conceit.

This apparently curious fact may be traced to a general law of nature, by which all things, in order to subsist, must possess whatever is necessary for their existence. Human associations, like natural bodies, must be held together by attractive forces stronger than the revellent: when the revellent prevail, anarchy or despotism ensue, and the association is soon brought to an end. For any such association, then, to be permanent, the social intercourse must be regulated by laws of some kind; and a code of etiquettes, assorted to circumstances, for regulating the smaller courtesies of life, is as essential to this end, as the decalogue itself, with "Burn's Justice" to boot, for a penal sanction. Every such association, therefore, if it does not find a code ready made to its hand, gradually builds up one for itself, not theoretically and of aforethought, but empirically, or rather instinctively, by the establishment of a usage.

Some theorists assert that the rules of etiquette are abstract truths; and they talk of natural politeness as of something in rerum natura. Under due limits, there may be some truth in the doctrine; but beyond those limits all is adaptation and convention. Thus the physiological distinctions of sex have established gallantry of deportment towards females as an universal law; yet in some countries we find this gallantry manifested by a satisfactory application of the cudgel; in others, by a sound pinch, or by what the French call un gros baiser, before company; while in the best societies of Europe, etiquette requires an obsequious and deferential exterior towards the sex, coupled with a profound inward contempt for them, and the most heartless cruelty. In like manner, hospitality is an universal etiquette derived from the necessities and natural sympathies common to all human beings; yet nothing can be more conventional than the modes by which it is manifested. Some savages insist upon cramming their guest to suffocation, stuffing the victuals down his throat with their own hands; of which custom some remnants are preserved in Old England, in certain circles, where an host is thought negligent, if he does not tease every one at table to eat more than he likes, or is good for him. "Much good may it do you when ye's ate," is an Irish grace after meat, reproaching the company with not having done jus

tice to a good dinner. "Eat this, I can't," is another form of ceremony to the same effect, commonly called (though why we know not) a Devonshire compliment; for we could safely take our oaths, that his Grace "of that ilk” never made use of the phrase, in the long course of his princely hospitalities. Pope tells us that Scotchmen press their plums on their friends in a like ungainly way; but as we have it on another great authority, that long after Pope's time, there was not such a thing as a tree in all Scotland, (and, inclusivé, no such thing as a plum-tree,) we should rather doubt that Scotchmen had any plums to offer; and either take the assertion to be, like the oaths of Frère Jean des Entommeures, couleurs de rhétorique Ciceronienne," a mere figure of speech, or believe that the wit and the philosopher, like his great original, sometimes indulged in a nap, and saw the fruit-giving Scotchman only in a dream.

It is still within the memory of man, that, in the very best circles of England, etiquette prescribed the locking of the door after dinner, and suffered not any man to leave the room, till he was unable to quit it without help-an usage which comes still nearer to that of the savages with whom we started. In those days," as drunk as a lord," was a phrase of some meaning; and we remember that when a witness described himself as being "as sober as a judge," it was pertinently retorted by the advocate, " Pray, Sir, do you mean a judge before, or a judge after dinner?" How this time-honoured custom of our ancestors was broken through, it were difficult to decide. Many there are who attribute it to taxation, which made this excessive hospitality inconveniently expensive; and the opinion has in its favour certain statistical returns, connecting the enhanced duty with a corresponding general diminution of consumption. With long sittings after dinner, taking wine" with the company at dinner, fell into disrepute—a change which is gradually finding its way downwards in society. What the ultimate consequences of this alteration in our etiquettes will be, it is yet too early to discover; but this we know, that the epoch of transition is attended with much general inconvenience, strangers being very frequently, as they themselves are wont to express the matter, quondary," to know what to do-being distracted between the dislike to going without their wine if they remain silent, or of being thought vulgar if they challenge a neighbour. Certain it is, that in some houses "where things are so, so," and servants not sufficiently abundant, the footman, who for the occasion does duty out of livery, by way of butler, is compelled to make his angel visits with the sherry decanter rather few and far between. To the shy and awkward, also, the courtesy was a capital chausse-pié, or, introduction to a conversation with the lady who happened to sit next to him, and whom he did not necessarily know; for it is only in the one great circle that everybody in London knows everybody.

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There is a great moral to be drawn from this philosophy of etiquettes; namely, that as every circle has its own etiquettes, with which all its members are necessarily well acquainted, the whole danger of a breach of its code depends upon a perverse desire of individuals to thrust themselves into circles to which they do not naturally belong; or, worse still, upon an absurd attempt to practise at second-hand the airs and graces which they have heard are peculiar to the societies of their betters. There

is a capital Irish story, which has inade the fortune of more than one dining-out story-teller, showing how the hero" was treated by the Beamishes:" in it, a perplexed shopkeeper, for the first time admitted to a gentleman's table, breaks his shins against every usage and etiquette, which he either mistakes or imitates perversely; so that he gets nothing he likes to eat, nothing to drink, save the contents of his own water-glass, and fancies himself huffed and neglected by every one at table, and by all the servants attending. This, though highly ludicrous in its colouring, is by no means an exaggeration of the pains and penalties which wait upon the nouveau riche who strives to break through the ring fence of exclusive society. The nicest observation, and the most perfect self-possession and address will not carry the parvenu successfully through the many minute shadings of etiquette which distinguish a man of perfect bon ton from mortals less elevated; what chance then has an ordinary and ungifted person of escaping from the absurdities attendant upon every step, under such circumstances?

We know not whether in the strictness of speech it should be said that etiquette regulates the distinctions of language. Horace, indeed, expressly confers on usage the arbitrium et jus et norma loquendi ; but if all usages are not etiquettes, all etiquettes are, as we have shown, merely usages. Every one knows (that is, if he knows anything of the matter) that the highest circles possess a jargon of their own, perfectly distinctive: now, although the mere abstinence from its use would hardly be deemed a breach of etiquette, in one otherwise comme il faut ; yet the not understanding it, and, still worse, the mal-apropos application of its terms, like the not speaking French, would, in a parvenu, be deemed a proof of bad education, and a mark of having haunted inferior society. This is a regular pièrre d'achopement to the uninitiated, and should, if possible, be avoided by a discreet silence, until close observation clears the matter up beyond the possibility of a doubt. Analogy in this case is a dangerous guide. According to its rule, for example, refinement being the characteristic of high breeding, there should appear to be little danger of error, in selecting the phraseology the most delicate. This is by no means universally safe. Among men of perfect bon-ton, for instance, the habitual use of indelicate expressions is, indeed, generally avoided; but when the occasion does occur for expressing certain ideas-to put on a sheepish air, and employ childishly mincing terms, or awkward periphrases, is a sure mark of under-breeding. If circumstances make a reference to the idea improper (such as the presence of females, or of persons decidedly of superior rank), men of good ton abstain altogether, and give to the conversation another turn; but when they think good to speak at all, they call a spade a spade, and have done with it. Let not the uninitiated suppose, however, that the opposite of wrong is necessarily right, and imagine that by being coarse he becomes polite. The man of true fashion is never coarse there is a certain something in his manner (a sans façon perhaps, or haply a touch and go,) which detracts from the energy of the expression; so that nothing can be more different in effect, than the same language in the mouth of a gentleman, and in that of an under-bred fellow.

From the foregoing observations, our readers will be aware how much easier it is to pass muster in courts, than in good society. In the former, the etiquettes are facts, definable in the simplest terms-every step is