there was a curious family likeness between
the "screamers" in question and their own
pleasant chatty vaudevilles;—whether in the
antics of that eminent comedian Dobbs—of
that established favourite of the public,
Nobbs,—they recognised, here and there,
something appertaining to their own Achards
and Bouffés. Greatly delighted with everything,
they, nathless, seemed to be. After the
theatres were over, they inundated the
neighbouring oyster-shops; and, on several
occasions, I have even had the honour of acting as
guide, philosopher, and friend to a party of
foreigners, who insisted on visiting the Cider
Cellars, the Coal-Hole, or the Shades.
Wherever they had become acquainted with the
renown of those extraordinary and somewhat
questionable places of entertainment, I have
no means of judging; but go they would, and
go they did, affably entering into the spirit of
the constitutional maxim of giving orders
while the waiter was in the room, discussing
the fragrant weed, and the steaming whisky
and water, and listening to the melancholy
singers with extraordinary patience and
complacency.

I declare as a man willing to be pleased,
and yet requiring something out of the
common order of things to please him, that it
does me good to see how the foreigners drink
our beer and shake hands with us. The first
they are continually swigging, the last they are
as continually doing. They seem to consider
the "poignée de main" as an equivalent for
that ceremonious hat-lifting, so prevalent
abroad, and so rare here. As to the beer, they
drink it by bucketsful. They seem not to
regret their own beautiful Bordeaux and
Burgundies, white and red—their sparkling
Hockheimers and Rudesheimers—their
delightful wines of Spain and the Levant.
Beer—"porter beer," swipes—is their
ultimatum. In vain have I talked to them of the
Quassia and Cocculus Indicus, two grains of
paradise, known from analysation to form
component parts of that beverage. In vain have
I hinted at the possibility of Barclay's Entire
being "doctored" or "fined," or whatever
the adulterating gentry call it. Beer they
would have; and beer they would drink, out
of, and by, the pot.

But I must make an end of it, as regards
the foreigners, and as regards this paper too.
My readers may not have been so curious as
I have on the subject. They may have taken
the large number of foreigners for granted,
and thought no more about the matter.
Others again, from a constitutional dislike to
"furriners" on principle, may have disdained
to inquire, and would rather not know any
thing about them. Yet even these, I think,
must acknowledge that our foreign visitors
have neither burnt our houses about our ears,
nor endeavoured to overturn our government,
nor run away with our daughters. They have
behaved themselves peaceably and
good-naturedly, and have borne with our little
peculiarities amiably. Moreover, they have paid
for what they have had, like honest men. May I
be permitted to surmise, that from this mutual
sight-seeing and metropolis-visiting, this
international-fête-giving, and hand-shaking, some
little, some trifling good may arise? Is it too
wild a thought to hope that our children will
not quite believe that the French necessarily eat
frogs, and are all dancing-masters—that every
Italian gentleman carries a stiletto in his
bosom, and a bowl of poison in his left-hand
pocket—that German babies are weaned on
sauer-kraut—that revenge is the one inevitable
passion with which all Spaniards are possessed
—and that the unvarying fate of all Turkish
ladies is to be sewn up in sacks, and cast into
the Bosphorus? Is it really impossible that
our grandchildren may discard those legends
altogether? On the other hand, it strikes
me that our continental neighbours will not
henceforward be quite so decided as heretofore
in their notions and impressions respecting us.
I don't think we shall be called "perfidious
Albion" quite so frequently. I am of opinion
that the editors of foreign newspapers will no
longer declare that we live on raw beef-steaks,
and occasionally eat the winners of our Derbies;
that every nobleman takes his "bouledogue"
to court with him; that we are in the daily
habit of selling our wives in Smithfield market;
and that during the month of November
three-fourths of the population of London commit
suicide. Altogether, I think that a little
peace, and a little good-will, and a little
brotherhood among nations will result from
the foreign invasion; and that it will in future
be no longer a matter of course, that
because fifty thousand Frenchmen in blue
coats and red trousers meet fifty thousand
Englishmen in blue trousers and red coats,
they must all fall to, and cut or blow each
other to atoms.

CHIPS.
EYES MADE TO ORDER.

CONTRADICTORY opinions prevail as to the
limits that should be assigned to the
privilege of calling Art to the aid of Nature.
To some persons a wig is the type of a false
and hollow age; an emblem of deceit; a
device of ingenious vanity, covering the wearer
with gross and unpardonable deceit. In like
manner, a crusade has been waged against the
skill of the dentist—against certain artificial
"extents in aid" of symmetry effected by
the milliner.

The other side argues, in favour of the wig,
that, in the social intercourse of men, it is a
laudable object for any individual to propose
to himself, by making an agreeable appearance,
to please, rather than repel, his associates.
On the simple ground that he would
rather please than offend, an individual, not
having the proper complement of hair and
countenance, places a cunningly-fashioned wig