a strange habit of going to see plays so immodest, that it was deemed necessary to cover the face “pour dissimuler son embarras ;" and the mask was resorted to, while the fan was simply retained, then, and for a century afterwards, for the only and innocent purpose of

"Giving coolness to the matchless dame--
To every other breast, a flame."

The tactics and manœuvres, necessary for the operating of these double purposes, produced the well known "exercise of the fan," so delightfully detailed, for the benefit of posterity, in that treasure of a work, the Spectator.

At last, in the decadence of manners, (historically marked in the memoirs of a fan, and its philosophy, as clearly as in the decline and fall of empires,) this elegant little implement of the coquetry of our ancestresses fell to be an article of mere utility-returning, as all things must, to its origin.

Our mothers and aunts appeared, during summer, with a good housewife-like green fan, to keep off the sun; for "l'affaire du parasol," for which Louis the Fifteenth was obliged to issue a decree, had not yet travelled into Great Britain; and the fan of "ma tante Aurore" was the only fan known to our aunt Tabithas. French philosophy, and a total abandonment of the constitution of 1688, at length banished this instrument as an indispensable part of the toilette. The parasol was found more convenient; and the fan, only employed to" cool the matchless dame" after a walk through a quadrille, or a lounge through a waltz, was reduced to that fairy size to which Madame de Genlis gives the reproachful title of éventail imperceptible. "The history of fashions is not

so frivolous as has been imagined: it is, in fact, the history of manners,"-and so far, je suis d'accord, with the venerable, but not very veracious, historian of the "Fan."

NO ONE'S ENEMY BUT HIS OWN.

"No man's enemy but his own" happens generally to be the enemy of every body with whom he is in relation. The leading quality that goes to make this character, is a reckless imprudence, and a selfish pursuit of selfish enjoyments, independent of all consequences. "No one's enemy but his own" runs rapidly through his means; calls, in a friendly way, on his friends, for bonds, bail, and securities; involves his nearest kin: leaves his wife a beggar; and quarters his orphans upon the public; and, after having enjoyed himself to his last guinea, entails a life of dependence on his progeny, and dies in the odour of that ill-understood reputation of harmless folly, which is more injurious to society, than some positive crimes. The social chain is so nicely and delicately constructed, that not a link snaps, rusts, or refuses its proper play, without the shock being felt like an electric vibration to its utmost limits.

VULGARITY.

THERE is nothing so hopeless as vulgarity-genuine vulgarity, arising from presumption and want of tact, united to the peculiar demonstrative habits of humble life. The strongest illustration of this species of vulgarity will be found in Ireland, where the national vanity forces all qualities into evidence. It is often accompanied by the conscious possession of some moderate talent, or some serviceable qualification, which carries the possessor out of his natural orbit, into higher circles, where he is adopted either as an available agent, or an amusing ridicule. In this position, vulgarity comes out in its strongest relief; and if it be not utterly disgusting, by being excessively obtrusive, it is often very humorous and very absurd. This is the vulgarity which furnishes mystification to society, and character for novels; supplying the Lord Charleses with vastly good fun, and such writers as the authors of the "The Absentee" and the "O'Briens," with their Sir Phelims and their Captain O'Mealys. Easy assurance; a presuming familiarity, on the slightest grounds, with persons of superior rank; obtrusiveness, without reference to time, place, or persons; a clipped but not mitigated brogue, gesticulation, and a sort of posture-master's attitude; frequent reference to "honour," and" credit ;" the dropping of titles when speaking of the qualified, and an affected condescension when speaking to equals, are among the generic signs of the incorrigibly vulgar of that country, where it is the ambition of all to be supremely genteel.

In England, the classes and degrees of society are defined by such strong lines of demarcation, that there is less play given for pretension to exhibit its absurdities; and even the vulgarity of cockneyism is less striking and less humorous, than the vulgarity of the social parvenus of Irish circles. In either instance, confine the patient within the limits of his own proper and natural sphere, and the vulgarity that disgusts, or amuses when displaced, loses its sharpness, as engravers say, for the true and abundant source of all vulgarity is pretension.

Nobody is struck by an apparent vulgarity in the smart young shopman, who officiates behind the counter of one of the great "houses" (formerly shops) in Waterloo Place or Oxford Street, and who, simply labouring in his vocation, is as much what he ought to be, as "comme il faut," as the dutchess, who tosses over his crêpes, cachemirs, and merinos, as if the looms of France, Spain, and India were mounted and worked "solely for her use." But take this Dick, the apprentice of Grafton House, or of the Magazine of Fashion, in his opera hat, at a ball at the Crown and Anchor, or "playing the fine" at a "great to do" at Mrs. Mango's, and you have the delightful Magnus Apollo of Snow Hill,-the sprightly young man" of the Miss Brancton's first floor.

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Besides this highest and most dramatic order of vulgarity, in which temperament and circumstances alike combine, there is a sort of conventional vulgarity, found occasionally in all ranks and classes, and which is only termed vulgarity, because it does not submit to be wound up and set, by the great regulator of fashion. This species of vulgarity, which is in fact no vulgarity at all, though it be a dereliction from the standard manner of a particular circle, is

generally the result of early associations, and of great animal spirits overleaping the boundaries prescribed by cold, quiet, still-life bon ton; for that style of manners which has become a doctrine, is but the result of a phlegmatic temperament, inherited with the old blood of ancient descent.

Pope, with a sort of physiological poetry, has applied the term "creep," to the languid circulation, of "ancient but ignoble blood." To be what is called "trop prononcé," (for the dogmas of modern fashion, like the old English laws, are all given in French) is a misprision of vulgarity, frequently detected even in the very highest classes; and no coronet, however knobbed, can save its wearer from the imputation, if she is once convicted of the high crime and misdemeanour of being too "démonstratif" of her feelings, prepossessions, humours, or opinions.

I remember hearing one dutchess say of another, "She is amusing, but she is insufferably vulgar." Both their graces were equally influential at the head of their respective and particular circles: the more elegant dutchess was by temperament, and by British aristocratic breeding, endowed "with all her sex's softness," and with all that quiet assumption of dignity, which "comes but by the aid of use." The more demonstrative grace, with a highland temperament, and spirits bright and elevated as the region that produced them, was perpetually bounding over the lines of circumvallation drawn by the bon ton against the inroads of nature. Betrayed frequently into coarseness, she was still never vulgar-for assumption, and not pretension, was the failing of the clever, brilliant, but trop prononcée Dutchess of G.

VOL. II.-E