boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not.

The squire was as tight a hand to deal with in-doors as out; sometimes treating his family as if they were not the same flesh and blood, when they happened to differ with him in certain matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son Jonathan, who was familiarly called Brother Jonathan, about whether churches ought to be called churches or meeting-houses; and whether steeples were not an abomination. The squire either having the worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient of contradiction (I can't tell which), fell into a great passion, and swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle. So he went to some of his doctors and got them to draw up a prescription, made up of thirty-nine different articles, many of them bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make Jonathan swallow; and finding he made villanous wry faces, and would not do it, fell upon him and beat him like fury. After this, he made the house so disagreeable to him that Jonathan, though as hard as a pineknot and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. Taking his gun and his axe, he put himself in a boat and paddled over the mill-pond to some new land to which the squire pretended some sort of claim, intending to settle there, and build a meeting-house without a steeple as soon as he grew rich enough.

When he got over, Jonathan found that the land was quite in a state of nature, covered with wood, and inhabited by nobody but wild beasts. But, being a lad of mettle, he took his axe on one shoulder, and his gun on the other, marched into the thickest of the wood, and, clearing a place, built a log hut. Pursuing his labours, and handling his axe like a notable woodman, he in a few years cleared the land, which he laid out into thirteen good farms; and building himself a fine farmhouse, about half finished, began to be quite snug and comfortable.

But Squire Bull, who was getting old and stingy, and, besides, was in great want of money on account of his having lately had to pay swinging damages for assaulting his neighbours and breaking their heads-the squire, I say, finding Jonathan was getting well to do in the world, began to be very much

troubled about his welfare; so he demanded that Jonathan should pay him a good rent for the land which he had cleared and made good for something. He trumped up I know not what claim against him, and under different pretences managed to pocket all Jonathan's honest gains. In fact, the poor lad had not a shilling left for holiday occasions; and, had it not been for the filial respect he felt for the old man, he would certainly have refused to submit to such impositions.

But for all this, in a little time Jonathan grew up to be very large of his age, and became a tall, stout, double-jointed, broad-footed fellow, awkward in his gait and simple in his appearance; but showing a lively shrewd look, and having the promise of great strength when he should get his full growth. He was rather an odd-looking chap, in truth, and had many queer ways; but everybody that had seen John Bull saw a great likeness between them, and swore he was John's own boy, and a true chip of the old block. Like the old squire, he was apt to be blustering and saucy, but in the main was a peaceable sort of careless fellow, that would quarrel with nobody if you would only let him alone. He used to dress in homespun trousers. He always wore a coat that did not above half cover his breech, and the sleeves of which were so short that his hand and wrist came out beyond them, looking like a shoulder of mutton, all which was in consequence of his growing so fast that he outgrew his clothes.

While Jonathan was outgrowing his strength in this way, Bull kept on picking his pockets of every penny he could scrape together; till at last one day, when the squire was even more than usually pressing in his demands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan started up in a furious passion, and threw the tea-kettle at the old man's head. The choleric Bull was hereupon exceedingly enraged, and, after calling the poor lad an undutiful, ungrateful, rebellious rascal, seized him by the collar, and forthwith a furious scuffle ensued. This lasted a long time, for the squire, though in years, was a capital boxer. At last, however, Jonathan got him under, and before he would let him up made him sign a paper giving up all claim to the farms, and acknowledging the fee-simple to be in Jonathan for ever.-7. K. Paulding.

L

107. VANITY FAIR.

Before long, Beckey received not only the best' foreigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable society slang), but some of the best English people too. I don't mean the most virtuous, or indeed the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest, or the best born, but the best '-in a word, people about whom there is no question-such as the great Lady Fitz-Willis, that patron saint of Almack's, the great Lady Slowbore, the great Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was Lady G. Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey of Glowry), and the like. When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her ladyship is of the King Street family, see Debrett and Burke), takes up a person, he or she is safe. There is no question about them any more. Not that my Lady Fitz-Willis is any better than anybody else, being, on the contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age, and neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is agreed on all sides that she is of the 'best people.' Those who go to her are of the best; and from an old grudge, probably to Lady Steyne (for whose coronet her ladyship, then the youthful Georgina Frederica, daughter of the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Earl of Portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous leader of the fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon Crawley made her a most marked curtsey at the assembly over which she presided, and not only encouraged her son, St. Kitts (his lordship got his place through Lord Steyne's interest), to frequent Mr. Crawley's house, but asked her to her own mansion, and spoke to her twice in the most public and condescending manner during dinner. The important fact was known all over London that night. People who had been crying fie about Mrs. Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord Steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her some, who had hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her. Little Tom Toady, who had warned Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman, now besought to be introduced to her. In a word, she was admitted to be among the 'best' people. Ah, my beloved readers and brethren, do not envy poor Beckey prematurely-glory like this is said to be fugitive. It is currently reported that even in the very inmost circles they are no happier than the poor

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wanderers outside the zone; and Beckey, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion, and saw the great George IV. face to face, has owned since that there too was vanity.

We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career. As I cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although I have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug; so an uninitiated man cannot take upon himself to pourtray the great world accurately, and had best keep his opinions to himself, whatever they are.

Beckey has often spoken in subsequent years of this season of her life, when she moved among the very greatest circles of the London fashion. Her success excited, elated, and then bored her. At first no occupation was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the latter a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in a person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means)—to procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses and ornaments; to drive to fine dinner-parties, where she was welcomed by great people; and from the fine dinnerparties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the night before, and would see on the morrow-the young men faultlessly appointed, handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and white gloves-the elders portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite, and prosy-the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink-the mothers grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in diamonds. They talked in English, not in bad French, as they do in the novels. They talked about each other's houses, and characters, and families, just as the Joneses do about the Smiths. Beckey's former acquaintances hated and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in spirit. 'I wish I were out of it,' she said to herself. I would rather be a parson's wife, and teach a Sunday school, than this; or a sergeant's lady, and ride in the regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it would be to wear spangles and trousers, and dance before a booth at a fair."

'You would do it very well,' said Lord Steyne, laughing. She used to tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her artless way-they amused him.

'Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer-master of the ceremonies-what do you call him—the man in the large boots

and the uniform, who goes round the ring cracking the whip! He is large, heavy, and of a military figure. I recollect,' Beckey continued pensively, my father took me to see a show at Brook Green Fair, when I was a child, and when we came home I made myself a pair of stilts, and danced in the studio, to the wonder of all the pupils.'

'I should have liked to see it,' said Lord Steyne.

'I should like to do it now,' Beckey continued. "How Lady Blinkey would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel Macbeth would stare! Hush, silence! there is Pasta beginning to sing.' Beckey always made a point of being conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties-of following them into the corners, where they sat in silence, and shaking hands with them, and smiling in the view of all persons. She was an artist herself, as she said very truly. There was a frankness and humility in the manner in which she acknowledged her origin, which provoked, or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might be. 'How cool that woman is,' said one ; 'what airs of independence she assumes, where she ought to sit still, and be thankful if anybody speaks to her.' 'What an honest and good-natured soul she is,' said another. 'What an artful little minx,' said a third. They were all right, very likely; but Beckey went her own way, and so fascinated the professional personages that they would leave off their sore throats in order to sing at her parties, and give her lessons for nothing.

Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon Street. Many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the street, to the disgust of No. 100, who could not rest for the thunder of the knocking, and of 102, who could not sleep for envy. The gigantic footmen who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be contained in Beckey's little hall, and were billeted off in the neighbouring public-houses, whence, when they were wanted, call-boys summoned them from their beer. Some of the great dandies of London squeezed and trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ton were seated in a little drawing-room, listening to the professional singers, who were singing according to their wont, and as if they wished to blow the windows down. And the day after there appeared,