so thrown away, as they would be, if I continued a boutiquier.

The mischief this did me, in my then frame of mind, was incalculable. But for this terrible boutique, the sagacious Monsieur Dove, who said (and I believed him) that he knew human nature à fond, assured me I might be beau garçon in any company in England, perhaps even in France; and, if dancing could effect this, I was at least in a fair way, for I was acknowledged, without a dissentient voice, the first scholar in Monsieur Dove's illustrious academy.

Alas! how little do we know what is good for us! This only tended the more to sophisticate and ruin my mind, for the more accomplished, the less fit for the shop; and as I was incontestably a better dancer than young Mr. Fitzstephen, though an honourable, and always stood up with him in the minuet, or cotillon, which forced a sort of acquaintance in the salle à danser, I saw no right he had to cut me every where else, which he seemed to do upon system. I am ashamed to say how many pangs, both night and day, this gave me. But this is not all.

Become not a little of a coxcomb by the new reputation I had acquired, you may suppose I easily listened to a proposal from the mayor of the town, a very honest mercer (who did not conceal that his daughter, Miss Betsy, who had heard of, and indeed seen, my proficiency, had prompted him to it), to accompany them to the Town Assembly, with a view to be her partner. The lady was just my own age, and was also very pretty, as well as daughter to the

mayor; and though this might give her a claim to something of more consequence, yet, this being her first appearance, and all things uncertain, she not unwisely preferred a known good partner, whom she was acquainted with, and could depend upon, to what at best might be the chapter of accidents. I should have been giddy with vanity at the proposal, even though Miss Betsy alone had been concerned; but when I recollected that the Honourable Mr. Fitzstephen, and probably his sister, that the Englefields, Annesleys, Walters, and a cloud of other aristocrats, generally graced this assembly, I was in a delirium of expectation. But vanity being uppermost all through, it ended in a complication of what I thought disasters. The first mortification came from this confounded Fitzstephen, who, when with an humble doubting step I went up to him for the chance of a recognition, coolly turned upon his heel, and, by his interchange of laughs and sneers with some of his polite friends, told me what I was to expect from him. However I recovered, for I was sure at least of Miss Betsy, who, as the mayor's daughter, would certainly give me consequence, which I, by my excellent dancing, might improve. Alas! the best dancing in the world seemed thrown away upon this sour noblesse, whom, while I tried to despise them for awkwardness, I could have worshipped for a single smile. Miss Betsy and I acquitted ourselves à merveille, and she, at least, was much looked at; nay, an introduction to her was courted by the officers of the county militia quartered in the town, every one of whom appeared to me a Lord

my

leave

Orville or Sir Clement Willoughby. What, therefore, was my gratification (as my age seemed to excuse all necessity for ceremony) to hear myself told to my face, that I was a lucky dog to have such a partner. Nay, though it made me relinquish her for a time, my pleasure was at its height, when the member for the borough, to whom, in a late contest, Miss Betsy's father had brought full twenty votes, asked as well as hers, to go down a couple of dances with her. This was not much, but he sweetened the sacrifice by saying that he should be happy if his dancing could at all be thought bearable after such a partner as myself. The member was a wag, and put his tongue in his cheek as he said this, which I did not see, but I was told of it by Miss Betsy's brother, one of my "d-d good-natured friends," before I left the room. As it was, both Miss Betsy and I thought him the highest-bred man in the kingdom; her father declared there was no one fit to be member but himself; and that I did not burst with the pride which I felt swelling within me seemed to myself almost a miracle. It is true the major of the militia gave a most malicious sneer at the speech of the member, and another winked significantly at the major, while both smiled at my gracious and blushing acceptance of the compliment; but at that time I did not understand this dumb show, and knew not that I was quizzed. It is certain I was elevated to an elysium such as I had never known before. I seemed to have suddenly become one of the gentry, and began distantly, and not

very precisely, but still perceptibly, to conceive a sort of plan, as well as wish, to bid adieu to the church, as well as the pestle and mortar, and assume a red coat. From this dream, however, I was awakened before the assembly was over, and in a manner sufficiently severe to my sensitive feelings.

Though as great a fool as ever was self-deluded by a paltry ambition, I was not so blinded as really to lose all power of observation; I was even naturally quick, and, when not fettered by prejudice, not without sagacity, or, as my father used to say, could look as far into a millstone as another. And this quality, after my first exultation had subsided, found an employment which I little expected. In the first place, I observed that though Miss Betsy was the mayor's daughter, and therefore, as I thought, entitled to stand at the head of the dance, she, even when the member's own partner was most pertinaciously denied this rank by all the ladies not in the station of tradesmen, the member's own sisters among them. On this point they seemed most studiously resolved to preserve their distance, and not even the borough interest of the mercer her father (indeed parliament was then only at the end of its first session) could induce them to relax. Miss Betsy, therefore, was resisted by the élite of the room, in every attempt to edge herself in above a certain number of couples acknowledged to be of the bourgeoisie. Not only this, but the bon ton of the company refused all approach to conversation with her or any others of her level, while, as if to

mark the distinction more pointedly, they were to one

another all

"Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles."

Then, at the upper end of the room, the only halfdozen arm-chairs possessed by the town hall, formed into a circle which no one not of the vraie noblesse dared approach, were allotted to as many dowagers or matrons of quality, all decked in brocades and jewels, which added strangely to my infatuation upon this occasion. Oh how I envied every human being who was permitted to enter this charmed circle, with the happy privilege of apparent equality! What demigods I thought the squires of the neighbourhood, and even the militia subalterns, who were allowed at pleasure to enjoy the converse of these high exclusives. And here I must own all my poignant mortification, brought on, I confess, by such an infatuation as no one but such a greenhorn could have felt, much less displayed. And yet I know not that I can say it was out of nature, though certainly out of all bounds of conventional law. In a word, totally ignorant of this law, and thinking that all persons who met together in the same room, for the same purpose, and had paid their money, had a right to, nay, would be desirous of, a little cheerful intercourse together, and, above all, smitten with the ambition of being allowed to make one in this great presence, I had the courage (it was called impudence) to address myself to a knight's lady in one of the arm-chairs which conferred such dignity upon its possessors.

I