especial dance of the season at which they
were sure to enjoy themselves. They talked
rapturously of the charming music, and
the brilliant lighting, and the pretty
decorations, and the nice supper. Old ladies
and gentlemen used to beg piteously that
they might not be left out on account of
their years. People of all ages and tastes
found something to please them at the
Bachelors' Ball, and never had a recollection,
in connection with it, which was not of
the happiest nature. What prevents us, now
we are married, from following the sensible
proceeding of our younger days? The stupid
assumption that my house must be big
enough to hold all my friends comfortably,
because it is my house. I did not reason in
that way, when I had lodgings, although my
bachelor sitting-room was, within a few feet
each way, as large as my householder's
drawing-room at the present time.

However, I have really some hopes of
seeing the sensible reform, which I have
ventured to propose, practically and
generally carried out, before I die. Not because
I advocate it; not because it is in itself
essentially reasonable, but merely because the
course of Time is likely, before long, to leave
obstinate Prejudice no choice of alternatives
and no power of resistance. Party-giving is
on the increase, party-goers are on the
increase, petticoats are on the increase,—
but private houses remain exactly as they
were. It is evidently only a question of
time. The guests already overflow on to the
staircase. Give us a ten years' increase of the
population, and they will overflow into the
street. When the door of the Englishman's
nonsensical castle cannot be shut, on
account of the number of his guests who are
squeezed out to the threshold, then he will
concede to necessity what he will not now
concede to any strength of reasoning, or to any
gentleness of persuasion. In the mean time,
our daughters' gowns get all but torn off
their backs; and our sons—if they are fond
of dancing—go to casinos. We all of us
groan over the depravity of our young men.
How many of us remember that the laws of
respectable society refuse them the casino-
privilege of having room enough to dance in?

DOWN AMONG THE DUTCHMEN.

VII.

THE Village Feast, after David Teniers:
Boors Drinking, after Brawer. A dull, dark
interior lightened with reddish tones. Boors
with slouched hats at the table in bacchanalian
postures. Boors in the background
bending over the fire, their heads together,
and pipes in hand. One boor waving a queerly-
shaped goblet over his head. Another boor
overcome by drink, with a fat female on his
knee: in short, the usual Dutch bibbing scene,
as painted a hundred times, as engraved a
thousand times, as enacted, it may be added,
up to the present day, ten thousand times over,
without loss of effect. The boors are there
to this hour; so are the dark interiors and the
compendious Venuses on their knees. Nay,
going along this very morning, I have seen
squat Dutch lads—which term, speaking Hibernicè,
properly takes in every age from fifteen to
fifty—I have seen these heavy-built gossoons
creeping behind a Dutch pie-woman and
deftly snatching the stool from under her. The
pie-woman was rolled over, and a shower of
her own pies came tumbling after. The
heavy-built fellows went their way quite
doubled up with laughter at this broad and
eminently Dutch joke. I have seen other
comic gentlemen oversetting water-cans,
snatching baskets from comely maidens going
by—perhaps roughly tumbling the comely
maidens. Look into the nearest tavern,
you will see more of this rude tumbling;
put the buff slouched hats on the
performers you will find there, and the buff and
brown garments; add a reddish tone generally,
and you have the Boors Drinking, after
Teniers Junior, Maes, or any of them. This
tumbling of females is, to this hour, a
favourite Dutch speciality.

I am led into this pictorial train of thought
by the memory of a certain fête, or merry-
making, that came off one Sunday evening
just outside a little town hard by to Mæstricht,
and at which I had the good fortune to be
present. The scene was certain tea-gardens
along the roadside, a mile or so out of the
town. These same Rosherville tea-gardens
are pleasant enough as places of resort in
the cool summer evenings: much frequented,
too, of the autumn nights; provision being
made against the darkness by festoons of
gas tubing carried on stiffly from tree to tree,
each light being fitted neatly with a shade of
frosted glass, as lights are within doors. An,
odd notion truly. To these gardens used to
repair students, sturdy burghers, and others, to
swill and make merry, and enact over again
those rough scenes from Ostade and other
painting men, that knew their country fellows,
so very well.

Looking out from the bow window of the
hostelry on that Sunday morning; taking a
glance now up the street, now down the
street; noting what a prospect of shining
red brickery it was; how the very paving-
stones glistened shiningly in the sun, as if
they had been polished over night; how
every little house went up and ended in a
shape of its own; how the roofs of some
were cut away in steps as it were. Noting,
too, how this red brickery was not of our
own dull manufacturing-town red, but of a
bright vermilion inspiring tint; noting, too,
how, the street being now quite empty and
deserted, and most people at worship, a little
door would be opened softly—it might have
been a practicable door in a scene on the
stage—and shut to as gently, and there
would issue forth a little figure in a scarlet