cold-blooded men, we put forth one hand to
the folio, which leant against a chair by the
sofa side, and, at hap-hazard, extracted thence
Lancret's charming Repas:

     A summer party in the greenwood shade,
     With wine prepared and cloth on herbage laid,
     And ladies' laughter coming through the air,
                                                                                Rimini.

This completed the charm."

The gay writer listens with half turned head,
gloating over every word, inhaling slowly the
incense so delicious to his vanity, taking care,
however, that the waiter is not looking. Again
they are talking about it.

First Voice: " How glowing, how exquisite,
how recherché, how elegant, how full of the true
West-end manner! A fine mind that young
fellow has. Oh, he'll do."

Second Voice: " Don't like it. .Flashy
assumption. Mere amateur stuff. By-the-by,
when does that case of Badger versus Beaver
come on, Jones? Isn't to-day the 15th?"

"Low creature; debased nature," thinks
Janus. "Upon my honour, these coffee-houses
are getting mere haunts for the inferior classes.
The 15th, eh? So it is. Why, that's the day
I promised to write my article for the London.
I must be off to Turnham-green."

Let us follow the delight of society to the
White Horse, and take a seat beside him in the
two-horse stage till it stops at the door of
Linden House, Mr. Wainewright's elegant
residence. His wife meets him at the door, and
with her come dancing out, radiant with almost
an exuberance of life, Phoebe and Madeleine, the
two blooming daughters by a second husband
of his wife's mother. They kiss him, they pet
him, they load him with playful caresses, for he
is their idol, they admire his genius, they
love him as their nearest and dearest relation.
Laughingly he frowns in assumed anger, and
pleads the occupations of a popular author and a
great critic. He breaks at last from their pretty
syren wiles, and locks himself in his sanctum. It
is a luxurious den. We can sketch it in almost
Mr. Wainewright's own coxcombical words.

He strips off his smart tight-waisted
befrogged coat, in which he so exquisitely
masquerades as the retired officer of dragoons, and,
in his own airy way, tosses on an easy flowered
rustling chintz dressing-gown, gay with pink
ribbons. He lights a new elegantly gilt French
lamp, the ground glass globe of which is painted
with gay flowers and gaudy butterflies. He
then hauls forth languidly, as if the
severity of the labour almost exhausted him,
"portfolio No. 9," and nestles down into
the cushioned corner of " a Grecian couch;"
stroking " our favourite tortoiseshell cat" into a
sonorous pur, he next, by a tremendous effort,
contrives to ring the bell by the fireside. A
smiling " Venetian-shaped" girl enters, and
places on the table " a flask of as rich
Montepulciano as ever voyaged from fair Italy," then
after contemplating his elegant figure in a large
glass, placed with a true artistic sense opposite
the chimney mirror, with a fresh exertion he
pours out " a full cut glass" of wine with one
hand, and strokes the cat with the other. The
sheet of glass returns sharp-cut photographs of a
gay carpet, the pattern of which consists of
garlands of flowers, a cast of the Venus de Medicis
(for Mr. Wainewright is an artist), a Tomkinson
piano, some Louis Quinze novels and tales,
bound in French " marroquin" with tabby silk
linings, some playful volumes choicely covered
by Rogers, Payne, and Charles Lewis, some
azaleas teeming with crimson blossoms, standing
on a white marble slab, and a large peaceful
Newfoundland dog also. A fine Damascus sabre
hung against the wall (dragoons again), an
almost objectionable picture by Fuseli, that gay
old bachelor at Somerset House (a friend
of the eminently popular and accomplished art-
critic), and last, but not least of all, the exquisite
man of the world himself, full of heart, full
of soul, and bathed in the Corregio light of the
aforesaid elegantly gilt French lamp.

At last the insufferable fop begins, and after
one glance at the yellow ceiling, and one
desultory smiling peep at some curious white
crystals, probably filbert-salt, in a secret
drawer of his inlaid writing-desk, he pens the
following sublime bit of euphuism, worthy,
indeed, of the age of Keepsakes:

"This completed the charm. We immersed
a well-seasoned prime pen into our silver ink-
stand three times, shaking off the loose ink
again lingeringly, while, holding the print fast
in our left hand, we perused it with half-shut
eyes, dallying awhile with our delight. Fast
and faster came the tingling impetus, and this
running like quicksilver from our sensorium to
our pen, we gave the latter one conclusive dip,
after which we rapidly dashed off the following
description ' couleur de rose.'"

A little later this bright butterfly of fashion
informs his enraptured world in the London
Magazine that he has bought a new horse, and
secured a new book:

"I have nothing more in the way of news,
except that I have picked up a fine copy of
Bochius's Emblems (you know the charming
things, by Bonasone), first edition; Bologna,
1555. Capital condition, In blue French
morocco, by De Rome, for whom I still retain
some small inkling of affection, in spite of the
anathemas of the Rev. T. F. Dibden. Also, a
new horse (Barbary sire and Arabian dam), with
whose education I occupy nearly all my mornings,
though I have considerable doubts whether
I shall push it beyond the military manège."

This exulting egotism, this delight in bindings,
is characteristic of the man, as also is the
graceful allusion in the last line to the writer's
military achievements (disgracefully ignored by
Napier).

Later in his career Wainewright fell foul of
that wise thinker and profound critic, William
Hazlitt, who also wrote for the London,
laughing to scorn, " spitefully entreating," and
hugely condemning his dramatic criticisms.
Hazlitt, the most inflammable of old bachelors,
praised the Miss Dennetts' dancing; Janus