he called Fashion. All this occupied some
years; but presently he grew into a shape
resembling that of Philip Dormer Stanhope,
Earl of Chesterfield. And now I find him
describing graceful manners as the great essential
for a man of the world, and recommending a
course of gentlemanly irregularities. Samuel
Johnson, who came across him, said of him,
with his severe frown, that he was a wit
among lords and a lord among wits; and of
his advice, that he taught the morality of a
profligate, and the manners of a dancing-
master.

But the gentleman, having once become a
dandy and a loose courtier, could not long
resist those extravagances to which his
precepts naturally tended. Accordingly I find
him at Bath, the monarch of fashion, in a
coach—that would rouse the envy of any
Lord Mayor—preceded through the streets
by trumpeters, courted by thousands of ladies,
and laying down the laws of a ball-room
with the arrogance of an autocrat. Here is
the Modern Gentleman in his early manhood,
in a white cocked hat, paying for his golden
coach at the gaming table; and here, shortly
afterwards, is Blackstone, trying his hand at
the portrait: "Whosoever studieth the laws
of the realm; who studieth in the universities;
who professeth the liberal sciences;
and (to be short) who can live idly and
without manual labour, and well bear the
port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman,
he shall be called master, and taken for a
gentleman."

Thus the true gentleman was not
permitted to work, except at the law: he might
gamble, but he could not keep accounts; he
might repeatedly become bankrupt, but he
might not know how to register his debts
and assets. The gentleman had money left
him that had been made in trade; but he
could not be a trader and remain a gentleman.
It was reported that one of his relations
was in business; and this report would
have excluded him from a club at which his
name had been proposed, had not a friend
explained that although the father was in
business, he could assure them on his honour
that if the son met the vulgar fellow in the
street he would not so far forget himself as
to speak to him. This explanation sufficed;
and the junior gentleman became a member
of the Salt-Club.

Time wore on—and ventured to touch once
more the features of the gentleman. Like
the ancient gentleman, he changed with
the world. Successively I find him nearly
resembling the "most finished gentleman in
Europe "—and Beau Brummel. He paraded
his gentility in satin smalls, in diamond
epaulettes, in designs for coats. If he had
faith in anything it was in clothes. He studied
every attitude, until he took off his hat and
bowed to the admiration of a most critical
world. He was up to the ears in debt, and
he looked every inch a prince. When he had
no further need of his friends, he put them on
one side, as he threw his gloves to his valet.
When a question bored him, he answered it
with adroit evasion.

But he has survived many of these falsities
and absurdities; yet the gentleman of to-day
challenges criticism in many respects. Even
now he is not very mindful of his debts;
unless he contracts them at the gaming-
table. He retains a strong antipathy to retail
traders; but waives his objection to trade
when the dealer is a rich wholesale man; and
has no objection to appear at a police-office.
Strange remnants of the ancient gentleman
and of the modern gentleman's own youth
cling to him still. He has become more
liberal; but he still loves to paint his shield
up all over his house without showing that
he is worthy to wear it.

We have hedged round certain classes
with a spurious code of honour; the noble
may sneer at the tradesman, and the tradesman
pass the sneer on to the mechanic; yet
are we wrong if we decide that gentlemen
are to be found in every rank—are sheltered
as well under a thatch, full of sacred robins,
as under a gilded dome? The humble-
minded, the enduring, the charitable and the
chaste, we may take to be the gentlefolk of
the world; and their homes may be the mud-
huts that skirt our public roads, as well as the
lordly castles which frown from the steepest
hills. Who can dissent from Tennyson when
he sings—

       " Howe'er it be, it seems to me
            'Tis only noble to be good;
         Kind hearts are more than coronets,
            And simple faith than Norman blood "?

                           EXPRESS.

     WE move in th' elephantine row;
        The faces of our friends retire;
     The roof withdraws; and quaintly flow
        The curtsying lines of magic wire.
               With doubling and redoubling beat,
               We swiftly glide, ever more fleet.

      By flower-knots, shrubs, and slopes of grass,
          Cut walls of rock with ivy stains,
      Through winking arches swift we pass,
          And flying, meet the flying trains:
                 Whirr ————— gone!
                 We hurry on.

      Trim corn-fields; kine in pleasant leas;
          A hamlet lane, or spire, or pond
      Long hedge-rows; counter-changing trees;
           The blue and steady hills beyond.
                  House, platform, post
                  Flash—and are lost.

       Smooth-edged canals; and mills on brooks;
             And granges, busier than they seem,
       Rose-crusted; or of graver looks,
            Rich with old tile and motley beam.
                   Clay-ridge,
                   Hollow bridge.