omit to buy their sixteenths at his shop. Lady Brown's lord and master is a wax-chandler in Mansionhouse-street; let no man who hopes to visit Almack's on Friday seek his spermaceti in any other shop. Sir Ralph Roberts is a wholesale ironmonger in Birchin-lane; I have never heard that he is open to corruption in the way of trade; but he and Lady Roberts have six grown-up daughters, and the subscriber who fails to dance with them all in one night, may look in vain for a renewal of his subscription. Mrs. Chambers's helpmate is a tailor. A rule has recently crept into the establishment that no gentleman shall be attired otherwise than in the old school of inexpressibles terminating at the knee. This regulation (which I believe originated with Mrs. Chambers) has been productive of much confusion. The common attire of most of the young men of the present day is trowsers. These are uniformly stopped at the door, and the unhappy wearer is forced either, to return home to redress, or to suffer himself to be sewed up by a member of the Merchant Tailors' Company, who attends in a private room for that purpose. This ceremony consists in doubling up the trowsers under the knee, and stitching them in that position with black silk: the culprit is then allowed to enter the ball-room, with his lower man strongly resembling one of those broad immoveable Dutch captains who ply in the long room at the Custom-house. It sometimes happens that the party, thus acted upon by the needle, little anticipating such a process, has worn white under-stockings, and a pair of half black-silk upper-hose reaching but to the commencement of his calf. The metamorphosis, in these cases, is rather ludicrous, inasmuch as the subscriber reappears with a pair of black and white magpie legs, and looks as if he had by accident stepped ancle-deep into a couple of ink-bottles. These poor fellows are necessarily forced, by the following Friday, to furnish themselves with a new pair of shorts. I am afraid Mrs. Chambers is at the bottom of all this. I have never heard of any corrupt motive having been assigned to Mrs. Wells; and Miss Jones is a maiden lady of forty-four, living upon a genteel independence.

About eight o'clock on every Friday evening, during the season, (for I assure you the City has its seasons-" a Negro has a soul, your honour") a large mass of hackney coaches may be seen plying about the purlieus of Cheapside, the same having been hired to convey our City fashionables to the scene of festivity. Dancing commences precisely at nine, and the display of jewels would not discredit the parish of Marylebone. The large room with the mirror at the lower end is devoted to quadrilles. Waltzes were at first proscribed, as foreign, and consequently indecent: but three of the six Miss Robertses discovered accidentally one morning, while two of the other three were tormenting poor Mozart into an undulating see-saw on the piano, that they waltzed remarkably well. The rule thenceforward was less rigidly enforced. Yet still the practice is rather scouted by the more sober part of the community. Lady Brown bridles, and heartily regrets that such filthy doings are not confined to Paris: while Lady Simms thanks God that her daughter never danced a single waltz in the whole course of her life. This instance of self-denial ought to be recorded, for Miss Simms's left leg is shorter than her right. Nature evidently meant her for a waltzer of the first water and magnitude, but philoso

phy has operated upon her as it did upon Socrates. There is a young broker named Carter, who has no very extensive connexion, in Mark Lane, but he has notwithstanding contrived to waltz himself into a subscription. He regularly takes out Harriet Roberts, and, after swinging with her round the room till the young woman is sick and faint, he performs a like feat with Jane Roberts, and successively with Betsy. The exhibitor of samples, when this is well over, is as giddy as a goose. He therefore retires to take a little breath; but in about ten minutes returns to the large apartment like a giant refreshed, claps his hands, calls out "Zitti zitti" to the leader of the band, and starts afresh with Lucy, Charlotte, and Jemima Roberts, in three consecutive quadrilles. The pertinacity of this young man is indeed prodigious. When the most experienced quadrillers are bowled out of the ring, he may be seen spinning by himself, like an Arabian Dervise. He is no great beauty, his head being several degrees too big for his body; but this disproportion does not extend lower down, for Lady Roberts says there is not a better-hearted young man in all Portsoken Ward. According to the rules of the establishment, nobody is admitted after ten o'clock, except gentlemen of the common council: their senatorial duties are paramount. About three Fridays ago an odd incident occurred. One Mrs. Ferguson and her daughter alighted at the outer door from a very clean hackney coach, delivered her card to Mr. Willis, and swept majestically past the grating up-stairs into the ball-room. On a more minute inspection of the document, it was discovered to be a forgery. What was to be done? The mother was sitting under the mirror, and the daughter was dancing for dear life. Lady Simms, Mrs. Wells, and Miss Jones (three make a quorum) laid their heads together, and the result was a civil message to Mrs. Ferguson, requesting her and her daughter to abdicate. Mrs. Ferguson at first felt disposed to "shew fight," but, feeling the current too strong, had recourse to supplication. This was equally vain: the rule was imperative: indeed, according to Sir Ralph Roberts, as unalterable as the laws of the Sweeds and Stertions. The difference was at length split. A young stockbroker of fashion had just driven up from Capel-court in a hackney cabriolet. Mamma was consigned to the pepper-and-salt coated driver of the vehicle; and Miss Ferguson was allowed to dance her dance out, Lady Brown undertaking to drop her safe and sound in Friday-street in her way homeward, at the conclusion of the festivity.

The managing committee meet monthly, at the King's Head in the Poultry, picking their road on a pavement strewed with live turtle, "with what appetite they may." Precisely at two o'clock Mr. Willis makes his appearance, with a large blue bag full of application cards, accompanied by proper certificates: these latter consist of the portrait of the candidates, a statement of their stature, age, &c. Each of the female candidates sends also her right shoe, to exhibit the size of her foot. I doubt whether the latter custom be any thing more than Brutum Fulmen. For certain it is, that I have seen feet at Almack's on a Friday, that never could have passed the ordeal of criticism. The gravity with which claims are here discussed, would not discredit a meeting of Privy Councillors to debate on the Recorder's report. Little Miss Fifield was recently debated upon. Her residence in Bond-court, Walbrook, just placed her out of the select line, or as

Lady Roberts denominated it, on the wrong side of the post: and the committee were upon the point of passing to the order of the day, when Willis, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed, "Ladies, have mercy upon her she is but young and her poor uncle, who is now dead and gone, kept the Grasshopper tea-shop, at the corner of Paul's Chain." The appeal was not to be resisted, and little Miss Fifield got her subscription. It would be unpardonable to omit mentioning an incident, which, in the glorious days of immortal Rome, would have entitled our Lady Patronesses to six civic wreaths. The Lord Mayor of London, at the third meeting in last June, drove up to the door in his gorgeous private carriage, but, not having brought his ticket with him, his Lordship was refused admittance, and was constrained to finish the evening at half-price at the Tottenham-street Theatre. I have already mentioned the generating of a mass of disaffection in the excluded fauxbourgs. Lady Pontop, the wife of Sir Peter Pontop, a coal-merchant in Tower Royal, is among the loudest of these malcontents. This lady, who has been nicknamed the City Duchess, has been heard to utter threats about "knocking up Almack's," and mutters something about establishing a rival concern. The Lady Patronesses, however, laugh to scorn these symptoms of rebellion, and say that Cheapside has not lived to these days in comfort and credit, to be bearded by Tower Royal! A slight accident occurred last Friday se'nnight, which might have been attended with heavy effects. Young Carter, the broker, was quadrilling with Jemima Roberts: he had passed the ordeal of the Mount Ida step, wherein the shepherd is destined to foot it several seconds with three rival goddesses, and had looked as stiff and as sheepish as young men usually do at that effort, when he came suddenly and unexpectedly, dos-a-dos, against huge Miss Jones, who, though denominated a single woman, would make three of the ordinary size of the softer part of the creation. The consequences were obvious: the lady, weighty and elastic, stood firm as a rock, and "the weakest went to the wall," young Carter, the slender broker, being precipitated head-foremost against the wainscot.

Before the conclusion of the evening's diversion, the ladies and their partners walk the Polonaise round the room. Last Friday evening the order of march was suddenly impeded. Miss Donaldson, the grocer's daughter, having insisted upon taking precedence of Miss Jackson, whose father sells Stiltons, that mock the eye with the semblance of pine apples, at the corner of St. Swithin's-lane. The matter was referred to the Patronesses, who gave it in favour of Miss Jackson, inasmuch as, at dinner, cheese comes before figs. I am aware that certain caustic tradesmen, who dwell eastward of the magic circle, are in the habit of throwing out sarcasms upon those who choose to go so far West in quest of diversion. "If you must have a ball," say these crabbed philosophers, "why not hold it at the London Tavern, or at the George and Vulture, Lombard-street?" But surely this is bad reasoning. If the pilgrim glows with a warmer devotion from visiting the shrine of Loretto, well may a Miss Dawson or a Mr. Toms move with a lighter heel, when kicking up a dust upon the very same boards, which, on the Wednesday preceding, were jumped upon by a Lord John or a Lady Arabella.

ALFAIMA'S LAMENT.*

Is a dungeon fit home for a queen,
Where the day-spring ne'er pours its light!
Must she in Grenada once seen

In the splendour and pomp of a diadem bright-
In the purple of power and bathed in delight,
Be captived, forsaken, forlorn,
An object of pity and scorn!
Beauty, royalty, innocence, now
Alas! ye can serve me no more;
To the cruel Boabdil I bow,

To the rage of a husband and tyrant, before
Youth's time is gone by or the minutes are o'er,
When life is all hope, and we think

Rich draughts without limit to drink.

Ye Zegris, perfidious and base,

Ye slaughter'd my friends unaware;

Not enough was the blood of their race,

But with them ye dared pierce with the shaft of despair,

With calumny's arrow a heart that must bear

To be victim, in fulness of woes,

To the virtue and worth of your foes.

Ye say I'm not true to the bed

Of a monster of jealousy ;

That love's flame for another I've fed;

But the love of my honour is first love with me;
And if in the depths of my soul there should be
One blush of ill passion conceal'd,

It shall ever be kept unreveal'd.

O Grenada! O my sad home!

Do there none of thy warriors remain ?

Not one that to save me will come

And enter the lists for his queen, and regain

Her freedom once more? Are they all with the slain?
O Muça, haste thou to my aid,

Lest I perish belied and betray'd!

My country, my parents, my throne,

Is the morn, the sweet morn of my days,

Not its hopes and its wishes alone,

But its mantle of grandeur, its incense of praise,

To be trod in the earth? are its glorious rays

To be shorn from my royalty's brow,

Polluted and darken'd as now?

The wolf keeps his haunt and his lair,

The eagle his mountain-nest free,

The peasant his home, and in air

The birds soar in sunshine and liberty

But the Queen of Grenada is captive, and she
Must in sorrow and misery lie,

Or dare, 'reft of honour, to die.

O Mahomet! weak is thy power
When innocence suffers in vain ;
When evil the good may devour-

When thou canst not the strong from oppression restrain!
I abjure thy religion, I own not thy reign,

I will worship a God I can trust,

To avenge me the cause of the just.

* See the history of Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Grenada.

THE SPIRITS OF THE AGE.—NO. IV.

Sir Walter Scott.

SIR WALTER SCOTT is undoubtedly the most popular writer of the age-the "lord of the ascendant" for the time being. He is just half what the human intellect is capable of being: if you take the universe, and divide it into two parts, he knows all that it has been; all that it is to be is nothing to him. His is a mind "reflecting ages past"-he scorns "the present ignorant time." He is "laudator temporis acti"a "prophesier of things past." The old world is to him a crowded map; the new one a dull, hateful blank. He dotes on all well-authenticated superstitions; he shudders at the shadow of innovation. His retentiveness of memory, his accumulated weight of prejudice or romantic association, have overlaid his other faculties. The cells of his memory are vast, various, full even to bursting with life and motion; his speculative understanding is rather flaccid, and little exercised in projects for the amelioration of his species. His mind receives and treasures up every thing brought to it by tradition or custom-it does not project itself beyond this into the world unknown, but mechanically shrinks back as from the edge of a prejudice. The land of abstract reason is to his apprehension like Van Diemen's Land, barren, miserable, distant, a place of exile, the dreary abode of savages, convicts, and adventurers. Sir Walter would make a bad hand of a description of the millennium, unless he could lay the scene in Scotland five hundred years ago, and then he would want facts and worm-eaten parchments to support his style. Our historical novelist firmly thinks that nothing is but what has been; that the moral world stands still, as the material one was supposed to do of old; and that we can never get beyond the point where we are without utter destruction, though every thing changes, and will change, from what it was three hundred years ago to what it is now-from what it is now to all that the bigoted admirer of the "good old times" most dreads and hates.

It is long since we read, and long since we thought of our author's poetry. It would probably have gone out of date with the immediate novelty, even if he himself had not made the world forget it. It is not to be denied that it had great merit, both of an obvious and intrinsic kind. It abounded in vivid descriptions, in spirited action, in smooth and flowing versification. But it wanted character. It was poetry "of no mark or likelihood." It slid out of the mind, as soon as read, like a river; and would have been forgotten, but that the public curiosity was fed with ever-new supplies from the same teeming, liquid source. It is not every man that can write six quarto volumes in verse, that shall be read with avidity, even by fastidious judges. But what a difference between their popularity and that of the Scotch Novels! It is true, the public read and admired the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," 66 Marmion,' and so on; and each individual was contented to read

Note by the Editor.-The writer of this paper, and not the Editor, must be considered as here presuming to be the critical arbiter of Sir Walter's poetry. A journal such as this cannot be supported without the aid of writers of a certain degree of talent, and it is not possible to modify all their opinions so as to suit every body's taste.