fact; it is opposed to the whole spirit of
English character."

The English Charivari came out for all
that, and was pronounced by people who
knew nothing about the matter to be an
imitation of the French Charivari, which we
must do it the justice to say it never was in
the slightest or remotest degree; and what
is the result ? That the publication was
recognised by people of all classes as the
representative of a predominant portion of British
character, as supplying, in fact, a distinct
requirement; that it nourished, and has
become one of the institutions of the country.
If it had not been beyond all comparison
above the Charivari, it would have failed
miserably; but that would be no reason for
considering the English less spirituel than
"our lively neighbours."

                           SHOPS.

I PITY the man who cannot be astonished.
Yet there are many such men—people of so
non mirabolant a nature, so cold-blooded, so
fishy in temperament, that they marvel at, are
perplexed, or are bewildered by nothing. If the
ghost of their grandmother were to rise before
them, they would request the apparition to
shut the door and be seated. If the sky were
to rain potatoes, they would simply thank
Heaven for its bounties; and perhaps give
themselves the trouble to entreat that, next
time it rained, it would rain upwards instead of
downwards. As Murat said (or is said to have
said) of Talleyrand—you might kick them
in the back for hours without the slightest
change of countenance passing over them.
An earthquake in Regent Street, a maelstrom
in Chelsea Reach, a sirocco in Pall Mall, the
sea-serpent in the Fleet Ditch, an alligator in
Fetter Lane, snow in July, and sun-strokes in
January—all these marvels would draw from
them no observation more denoting agitation
than a languid "Dear me!" or a feeble "How
curious!" If the earth were to stand still,
and the sun to turn green, they would, with a
minute's reference to their almanacks, take the
phenomena for granted. With them the
world is a ball on which they live; and what
there may be inside it, or underneath it, or
above it, is no concern of theirs. In society
they are known as "people who mind their
own business;" and, being a rather numerous
class and comprising within their ranks many
peers, landed proprietors, bankers, and
merchants, are highly esteemed and respected for
their want of curiosity and their discreet
immobility. They make money; and as for
the poor people who can be and are astonished,
and whose astonishification leading them from
inquiry to discovery, and thence to the
invention of machines, to the elucidation of
scientific truths, and to the perfection of the
arts which adorn and humanise society—they
live up steep fights of stairs, and don't dine
every day.

As for me, I cannot walk a hundred paces
into the street without seeing something to
be wonder-stricken and amazed at. I am
astonished at the ways of men, women, and
children, and at the astonishing clothes they
wear; at the ways of dogs, errant and
stationary; at the ways of the noise, the dust,
the rain, the heat; the frantic turmoil and
straining moneywards and pleasurewards;
the rags and the velvet; the gold and the
dirt; the jewels and the sores; the rattling
of patent-axled wheels and the paddling of
bare feet. Are not these enough to fill me
with amazement—to cause me to be
bewildered, perplexed ? I wonder at the day,
at the light, at the bridge, at the river;
the houses standing so bravely upright, and
so seldom tumbling down; the countless
vehicles, so seldom running foul of one
another; the countless pedestrians, so seldom
run over. I wonder at Myself—why and
what, and who and how I am, and why my
feet love more to press City stones than
verdant fields; at other people—who they
are, what they are, where they are going to,
and why they are all in such a hurry; until,
astonished and wonder-filled at everything, I
become somewhat dazed; and, turning into
a shop to collect and to rest myself a little,
begin to be astonished harder than ever at
Shops.

To the serene orders of mankind a Shop is
a shop—a room, tenement, messuage or holding,
containing, on the shelves and counters
and in the windows thereof, certain goods
and merchandises; which, for a specified
rnoney-consideration called a price, you may
carry away, or cause to be conveyed to your
own messuage or tenement. The proprietor
of the Shop is a shopkeeper; and his assistant
is a shopman; and the youth who
carries your parcel home is a shopboy;
and you have been shopping—and that is
all. Your Serenity sees nothing to be
surprised at in a Shop. Why should your
Serenity? Your Serenity takes Shops—as it
takes life, love, children, riches, place and
power—as certain things proper to Be, and
therefore Being; for you created and by
you enjoyed. What can it matter to your
Serene Opulence where the worm came from
from whose cocoon your purple robe was
woven or whence the slaves came who spun
your fine linen? What has your Unmoved
Complacency to do with the goldsmiths who
welded your chain of office or the artificers
who cut, and set, and fashioned your signet-
ring? Why should your Composed Urbanity
—your Immobile Gentility, that wonders at
nothing, not even at kings, or coronations, or
funerals, condescend to wonder at shops?
Low, vulgar places with iron-stanchioned
shutters, kept by varlets in aprons; with
tills, and scales, and day-books in which
they register their gross transactions.

Napoleon called us a nation of shop-
keepers. Right or wrong (wrongly, I think,