considerable number of the stars of the
musical hemisphere, walk in this harmonious
boulevard, merely to see and to be seen. It is
as incumbent on a musical notoriety, on his
return from the continent, or the provinces,
on the eve or the morrow of a success, to show
himself in Regent Street, as for a betting man
to clink his boot-heels upon the nobbly stones
of Messrs. Tattersall's yard. Musical reputations
have been won and lost in Regent Street;
and the reigning prima donna dares not
despise the opinions of its paving-stones.

What gleams in the distance so snow-white,
what is found to be on nearer inspection so
elaborately embroidered, so faultlessly plaited,
so free from crease or wrinkle ? What but
the shirt of the great German basso; and who
can the great basso be but Bompazek?

No braces disturb the equanimity of that
unrivalled shirt, no waistband visits its
snowy expanse. In deference to established
prejudices, Bompazek wears a coat—a coat
mulberry in colour, lined with watered silk,
and marvellously tagged and braided; but
were he entirely a free agent we have
no doubt that the sleeves and wristbands,
the seams, gussets and bands, of that shirt
of shirts would be made fully manifest
to Regent Street. He must grieve that
he is not a Whiteboy and cannot wear his
shirt over his clothes; for the shirt is
Bompazek, and Bompazek is the shirt. If ever
he had a palace with stained glass windows
he might paraphrase the Cardinal of York's
proud motto, and write up, " Ego et indusium
meum "—I and my shirt. There is much
virtue in a clean shirt—a good, fine, well got
up shirt: showing plenty of collar, front, and
wristbands. Many a man has been indebted
to his washerwoman, not only in the amount
of her little bill, but for subsequent fame and
fortune. They say that Tom Gills, who was
renowned for wearing the finest collars in
Europe, and positively devoted a considerable
portion of his time to cutting out models of
shirt-collars in pasteboard for the guidance
of his registered shirt-maker, obtained his
colonial appointment mainly through his
collars. I wish myself, that colonial appoint-
ments were obtained from the virtuous
government, of this enlightened country, for
no worse reasons. Should we get on much
worse than we do, I wonder, if we chose our
governments themselves for their collars?

I have said that Bompazek wears not
braces. In lieu thereof he is girt with an
embroidered belt,—a belt thickly sown with
rich beads—the gift and work perchance of
some fair Fraulein in Germany, the lady of
his love, whom like the Standard Bearer, he
dare not name. Bompazek has a beard that
the Emperor Julian, the apostate, he who
boasted of his barba longa et populata, would
have been proud of. His mouth is of an
affable, good-humoured cut; his blue eye
suggests not violence, pride, ambition, but is
suggestively eloquent of mild beer and milder
pipes. In both does Bompazek mildly
delight.

Yes. This big, barbated, spicated basso, with
the beard of a sapeur, the stature of a Colossus,
the strength of a Tauridor, the lungs of a
Stentor,is the mildest, meekest, most placable,
soft-hearted creature that you can imagine.
He is a great friend of little children; and
though they are frightened at first at his
tremendous bass voice, they soon venture to climb
on his knees, and play with the breloques of his
watch chain, and make use of his beard for
prehensile purposes, and listen to the little
lieds he sings them in the biggest voice that ever
you heard. He is the victim, milch cow, and
bête de souffrance, of herds of hungry, ragged,
disreputable foreigners, who come to him with
torn and greasy passports, and letters of
introduction from people he never heard of; who
drink his beer, smoke his pipes, eat his suet
puddings, sleep in his drawing room, borrow
his money, wear even his sacred shirts, and
call him Dummerkopf for his pains. He
is always giving or lending money, singing
for nothing, subscribing to charities. He
has always some "baufre eggzile" whose
rent he pays, and whose " lit " is always
being taken from under him and redeemed
by Bompazek.

It is reported that Bompazek cannot go
back to the Grand Duchy of Schloss-
Schinkensteiu, his native place, as he was
seriously implicated in the revolutionary
movement of forty-eight; and the Grand
Duke is furious against him. I cannot
for the life of me conceive to what greater
extent this big harmless man could have
compromised himself in a political sense than
by drinking beer out of a conspirator's glass,
or giving a pipe-light to a democrat. Perhaps
his beard went against him. It is decidedly
the most revolutionary thing about him.

Bompazek lodges in Great Blenheim Street,
where he occupies the first floor, and has
irretrievably ruined four carpets with
expectorations. His drawing-room and bed-room
are one large pipe. The whitewashed ceiling
is smoked to a golden colour, the walls are
covered with the marks left by lucifer matches
rubbed against them for ignition; tobacco
ash lurks in the chairs, the keys of the piano-
forte, the curtains, and the music books. The
smell of tobacco is overpowering, but not
offensive; it has no time to grow stale— fresh
pipes being continually lighted. When
Bompazek says " Gom and bipe vid me dis evedig,"
you find a table covered with pipes of every
imaginable form and size, a bottle of hollands,
a huge porcelain jar of tobacco, and an
armoury of pewter pots. Six or seven
Germans, including Bompazek, range
themselves round the fire-place, each man wrapped
in a dry blanket of smoke, and gravely spit
the fire out; the loudest sound that is heard
being the coughing of Mrs. Pickwinkle, the
landlady, and her servant 'Melia, in the
kitchen below.