this shakes one's belief. We have the " Marry-come-up"
on the same testimony as the
"Humph." The last is a delusion—why should
we believe in the other?

I have expressed a doubt as to the flourishing
condition of small-talk in the middle ages, and
the more I ponder on this important topic the
stronger does that doubt become. We find these
mediævals provided with professional talkers—
or bores—who were called jesters or fools, and
who were used for the same purposes as the bards
of the dark period. It is hard to say whether
the bard or the jester was the more finished
bore. It is true that the bard held on the longest,
and holding on long is one of the principal
characteristics of a bore. Then he had an
aggravating appearance—long white locks and a
venerable beard. He was a musical bore, too.
The only thing in his favour is, that he was not
funny, as the jester was. The bad, the
atrocious, jokes of the fool give him a claim to a
high position in the bore fraternity; but then
they were soon over. And then, it is to be
supposed, they set the conversation going. " A
mighty pretty conceit, by're lady," says the
knight. "I'fakins, fair sir," answers his lovely
companions, "it doth surpass ye comprehension
of us poor donzelles." " Nay, mistress," the
knight replies; and then off they go
Grammercy, marry-come-up, quotha, &c. &c.

As to the Elizabethan period, we can have
little difficulty as to the Small-Beer conversation
of that time. It is a distressing thing to think
of, but I am afraid it is impossible to ignore the
fact that it was an age characterised socially by
a vast deal of what we now call " chaff," and
bad punning. The Bard of Avon, already
handsomely alluded to in these pages, is our authority
here. That poet knew the manners of his
time and the tastes of his time, and was
naturally much influenced by both. Also, was there
ever anything like the amount of chaff introduced
into his dialogues? Even in the most
serious " business" this is brought in somehow
or other. Hamlet makes a pun when the spirit
of his father calls him, and struggling to get
away from his friends, that he may follow the
ghost, declares that " he will make a ghost of"
the man who hinders him; and shortly after he
chaffs the ghost himself, calls him an " old mole,"
and even a " true penny," which is still more
disrespectful. So in the other plays. The
"chaff," for instance, between Richard the
Third and Lady Anne, or, indeed, between that
potentate and everybody he comes near, is
something prodigious. In " As You Like It,"
where the serious matter is not tragic enough to
require such relief, what a wonderful amount of
this same punning and courteous retorting do
we meet with. What a wondrous specimen is
Rosalind of a " young lady of the period." If
we are to regard her in that light, we shall find
ourselves irresistibly impelled towards the
conclusion that the chat between the swains and
the damsels of the Elizabethan time entirely
consisted of repartee. What a terrible state of
things! Look, again, at Beatrice, in " Much
Ado About Nothing." There is almost more
courteous retorting and modest quipping with
her than with Rosalind herself. And what is
the inference from all this, if it be not as I have
said, that the Small-Beer conversation of the
Elizabethan time consisted altogether of quips
and retorts?

A youth of the period enters the long low
room in which are assembled a group, consisting
of his sisters and possibly a friend of theirs, on
whom, perchance, the said youth hath cast the
eye of affection.

"I come, my mistresses," says the youth, " to
carry you all to the Globe Theatre, to see a play
of worshipful Master Ben Jonson's."

"It were not proper for you to carry me,"
says the object of his affection.

"You carry your head too high, mistress,"
quips in a sister,

"An I carry you not," retorts the youth,
"you will carry too much mud into the
playhouse, for the streets are of the dirtiest."

"If I carry mud you shall carry splashes, Sir
Malapert, for you must needs walk behind me."

And so they go on making themselves agreeable
in a snappish style, which we of this age
find it difficult to relish, but which apparently
suited the trunk-hose and ruff period very nicely.

Let us leave speculation and fancy, and come
back to fact, as becomes one who calls himself
a Chronicler. I have been reminded that in my
former conversation-chronicle nothing was said
on the subject of the professional talk of
this our day, and nothing about the manner
of conversation obtaining among the lower
grades of our community. Now, with regard
to our professional talk, there is nothing
more remarkable, nothing more evident,
nothing more praiseworthy, nothing with which
the Chronicler of Small-Beer sympathises more
keenly, than the aversion of professional men to
talk about their professions. As a rule, they
look upon it as a thing done in bad taste when
injudicious amateurs or others force them to
talk shop. There are many reasons for this. A
man who labours hard at his calling all day has
quite enough of it while actually at work, and
when he gets into society is glad to escape.
Some men, again, are proud and morbidly sensitive
to any weak points in their professions.
The barrister is ashamed of some of the
technical absurdities which characterise his calling.
His reason winces as he puts on a horse-hair
wig and a pair of bands, with no earthly reason
discoverable why he should do so. The author
does not enjoy having his works talked of in the
same breath with those of a young lady in her
teens. The artist remembers that he was
engaged that morning in pinning a piece of cotton
velvet on a large doll, called a lay-figure, in
order that he might have a piece of drapery to
copy. The actor remembers that he has just
been trying on some tin armour and a set of
Charles the Second curls; and the general medical
practitioner thinks of the amount of colouring
matter he has ordered for mixtures in the course
of his life, and of aqua distillata—and he, too,