NOTES.-CHAPTER III.

(1) THE very air of a court reeks with infection, and it taints the higher classes with a licentiousness that descends to their inferiors.-CHANNING.

With us the fusion of all classes, each with the other, is so general, that the aristocratic contagion extends from the highest towards the verge of the lowest.-BULWER'S England.

(2) From a work, not long since published, entitled “The Tour of a German Prince," we find that its distinguished author brought away the notion that Fashion was omnipotent throughout England. "This notion is one, (observes a critic in the Edinburgh Review), which, up to a certain point, it is impossible to over-charge. England is a country given over to that worst tyranny-the tyranny of caste over caste."

(3) That there is a fashion in the art of speaking, the daily corruption of our language gives audible proof. There is a fashion even in preaching, and "morality” has become a crime-yea, a crime, good reader !

(4) We accuse the French of frivolity, because they are governed by Fashion ; but this extends only to their dress; whereas, the English allow it to govern their pursuits, habits, and modes of acting and thinking; in short, it is the alpha' and 'omega' of all they think, do, or will. Their society, residence,-nay, their very friends are chosen

by this criterion; and old and tried friends wanting its stamp, are voted 'de trop.-LORD BYRON's Conversations.

(5) It is scarce agreeable to good morals, or even to good language, perhaps, to say, that mere wealth and greatness, abstracted from merit and virtue, deserve respect. We must acknowledge, however, that they almost constantly obtain it.-ADAM SMITH.

(6) How Fashion ever became a title of honour and distinction, is a point of no small difficulty to determine. I have consulted several of my friends, who are well skilled in etymology; one of these traces the word up to the Latin; he brings it from the verb facio, which, among other things, signifies to do; hence, he supposes people of fashion (according to the old derivation of lucus a non lucendo), to be spoken of those who do nothing. Another carries the original no farther than the French word façon, which is often used to signify affectation. A third will bring Fashion from ari;: this, in the genitive plural, makes

artar, which in English is the very word. According to him, by people of 'fashion,' are meant people whose essence consisteth in appearances ; and who, while they seem to be something, are really nothing.-FIELDING.

(7) At the time when fashion had such extreme ascendancy at Paris, the French artists, though expert enough at gilding and gewgaws, were unable to construct a lock for a door!

On dit que ce luxe sert à nourrir les pauvres aux dépens des riches; comme si des pauvres ne pouvoient pas gagner leur vie plus utilement, en multipliant les fruits de la terre, sans amollir les riches par des raffinemens de volupté!— TELEMAQUE, par M. FENELON.

The caprices of fashion, which upon the whole create employment, also make that employment irregular. A change from metal buttons to silk buttons, is alone sufficient to derange the industry of hundreds of workmen.— The Results of Machinery, 1831.

(8) The Earl of Chatham thus defines politeness:-" Benevolence in trifles; or, the preference of others to ourselves in the little daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. Bowing ceremonies, formal compliments, stiff civi lities, will never be politeness."

Every person who indulges ill-nature or vanity at the expense of others, and in introducing uneasiness, vexation, and confusion into society, (however exalted or high-titled), is thoroughly ill-bred. And whoever, from goodness of disposition or understanding, endeavours to the utmost to cultivate the good humour and happiness of others, (however low in rank, or however clumsy in figure or demeanour), hath in the truest sense of the word, a claim to good breeding.-FIELDING.

(9) Those who are called 'good company,' are only those whose vices are more refined; and perhaps it is with them, as it is with poisons, of which the most subtle are the mos dangerous.-MONTESQUIEU.

The same passions, the same ideas pervade the mind of the peer and the peasant; a gloss only is discernible in the language and appearances of the one, which the other does -not possess. If any difference distinguish them, it is to the disadvantage of him who wears a mask: the people show themselves as they are-the great know the necessity of disguising themselves. Were they to exhibit themselves as they are, they would excite horror.-SwIFT.

(10) Selfishness is the bane of fashionable life; for there

every one is selfish. What Court could be more polished than that of Marie Antoinette? Yet selfishness was the

predominating principle.-MRS. SANDFORD.

(11) Fashion, enlisted in the service of profligacy, has devised softening appellations for the most flagrant breaches of the laws of God and man. Hence, not only among the unprincipled, but in virtuous families,-among women of modesty, and by women of modesty, conversation is not unfrequently turned to topics and incidents, of which, to use the language of an Apostle, "it is a shame even to speak."-GISBORNE.

(12) The plain old English word wife, has long been discarded, as being only fit for the mouths of the vulgar. A well-bred ear is startled at the very sound 'of wife' as coarse and indelicate.-Connoisseur.

(13) In every uncorrupted nation of the earth this feeling is the same. Climate, which changes every thing, changes not that. It is only the most corrupting forms of society, which have power gradually to make luxurious vice sweeter than the tender cares and toils of maternal love.-HERDER'S Philosophy of Man.

If a woman of fashion have children, they are, one after the other, consigned to the hands of hirelings for their nutriment; and the first germs of the awakening mental perceptions, are warped by the blighting coarseness of those who serve with the disgusting sycophancy of selfish interest, a race of beings whom they in secret hate, because they are by them treated as animals of an inferior class.— Fox's Monthly Repository.

(14) It is a great mistake to suppose that Fashion is a criterion of elegance. Elegance rests on immutable rules;

but the versatility of fashion is proverbial. Its modes are entirely conventional, and are often as ungraceful as they are capricious.-MRS. SANDFORD'S Woman in her Social and Domestic Character.

(15) It is one of the unaccountable passions of depraved nature, that more pains should be taken to seem happy than to feel so. There is nothing so delicious to the rich and great as to be thought fortunate: the envy of others is the food of their own self-love ;-the prostrated humility of poverty is their glory-but its pride, is death.

(16) I have spent part of my life in great companies, and in the bustle of a court; but there an is effeminacy of manners, a puerilty of judgment prevailing there, that attaches me by force to solitude."-MONTAIGNE.

Lord Chesterfield, courtier though he was, grew sick of the senseless pageants and hurry of the beau monde. He had been, he himself tells us, "behind the scenes," and had seen all the 'dirty pullies and ropes' in action, which by their effects so astonished the vulgar; at length he withdrew into privacy, uti conviva satur, a satisfied guest.

I have left an assembly filled with all the great names of haut ton in London, and where little but names were to be found, to seek relief from the ennui that overpowered me in-a cider-cellar !-(Are you not shocked?) and have found there more food for speculation, than in the vapid circles of glittering dullness I had left.-LORD BYRON'S Conversations.

Noble poets have been rarely seen amid the brilliant circle in which they were born: the workings of their imagination were perpetually emancipating them, and one deep lonelines of feeling proudly insulated them among the impassioned triflers of their rank.-D'ISRAELI,