I was thus proceeding with apologies, when she stopt me, as she had once before.

"No apologies, if you please; I have told Lord Castleton that I would take you as a pupil, and I will even produce you when you feel bold enough to wish it. In short, exclusive of Lord Castleton's interest about you, there is something in you that pleases me; and as he has commended you to my instructions, in order to obtain the only thing you say you want, this tournure, this ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, I have given you leave to cultivate me, and you shall study my acquaintance, which will, perhaps, enlighten and initiate you into what you, who are a philosopher, will no doubt call the philosophy of fashion, better than all direct lectures or your own speculations."

I thanked her, as became me, and said, with a low bow, that in such a school, and with such a sincere admiration for my preceptress, I was not without hopes that I should succeed.

"Very good," said she, "your bow and your gratitude are particularly graceful, and in a tête à tête, such as this, I will not blame you for a few compliments to my ladyship's abilities; but if your wish be to acquire the real tournure we talk of, and which alone can be denominated real fashion, I must caution you to be as sparing as possible of direct compliments, and particularly the repetition,

or, if possible, the mention of the hackneyed title of ladyship. It would defeat your pretensions in a moment."

I thought this odd. "What," said I, "may I not express the approbation, or admiration, or shew the respect I feel, if I am sincere!"

"Nothing so dangerous,” replied she. "If ever you shew the least dependence upon another for any thing which such compliments imply, you are gone. And as for the perpetual recourse to one's title, far from evincing the politeness aimed at, it will rank you with menials. No one will look upon you except as an object of compassion, and you will be far, very far, from that admission of perfect equality, for which all persons of true fashion give one another credit. You may be guilty indeed of a little flattery now and then, but it must be well wrapt up, and rather by innuendo than staringly obvious."

Here she laughed at her own learned mode of treating the subject; which, however, she said was important enough to justify it; to which I agreed, and promised never to let approbation, or respect, for any body, or any thing, again dishonour my pretensions. But as to ever understanding the arcana of what did or did not constitute fashion, I owned I despaired.

"At Oxford, in your cloister, and among pedants who know nothing of courts, but their

quadrangles, I could believe this," said Lady Hungerford. "But here, in the very midst of nous autres, as we are called

"Ah! those happynous autres,'” I cried. "Though I see and feel all their superiority, I know not what precise qualification it is that gives them their claims to that mysterious appellation. For I see people possessing it as a title of the first consequence, who are yet of not much consequence themselves, nay, some of them of no consequence at all, but really in downright poverty; while others, rolling in riches, toil often in quest of it in vain. Now, I should have thought that riches, at least, which command every thing else, might command this also."

"Riches," replied Lady Hungerford, rather contemptuously, "are the last things which can confer it upon any one not fitted for it. It cannot be bought with money, and you might as well suppose a Dutch skipper, refined, as Congreve says, from a whale fishery, could have sculptured the Venus de Medicis, as that a man on account of his wealth could pass muster as a man of fashion.”

"But riches would surely go a good way towards it," observed I.

"Of themselves, not a step," said she; "nay, in many instances they would be much in the way, by enabling people to make themselves ridiculous, which persons of fashion never are. I allow, how

ever, they are sometimes very convenient, so as occasionally to make their possessors tolerated, but no more, and only on particular occasions."

"Well, but," said I, "it was but yesterday that I dined with Mr. Grogram, the great scrivener, who asked me, because I was Lord Castleton's secretary, to meet Lord Rufus Urban. Lord Rufus has this tournure, I suppose ?"

"Nobody more of it; scarcely any one so much. But what then?"

"Why, Mr. Grogram is the most vulgar of mankind-vulgar in mind, in person, in manners, conversation, and dress; and yet Lord Rufus seemed quite at home with him; nay, enjoyed his dinner, pronounced the claret excellent, and in the evening played several rubbers at whist; though, even to me, Mr. Grogram and all his company were of the very coarsest tone."

Lady Hungerford smiled, and said " You will soon find this out. As high men in rank and breeding as Lord Rufus, will sometimes, nay, not unfrequently, lay aside their refinement for the sake of a very good dinner, which I suppose Mr. Grogram gave."

"The best possible," said I, "as to cookery; indeed the cooks and most of the matériel were from Paris."

"Just so; and as to the whist, pray did Mr. Grogram win or lose ?"

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"O! lost considerably, and well he might, for he cannot play at all-nay, even revoked."

"Perhaps on purpose," said Lady Hungerford. "All dans les règles. But these are mysteries which cannot yet be explained to you; you will know them in time. Meanwhile should Mr. Grogram attempt to get into White's, his low birth, and lower manners, would for ever defeat such an attempt, and, notwithstanding their seeming intimacy, Lord Rufus would be the first to black ball him."

"What an advantage then is birth," said I, thinking I had now discovered one at least of the ingredients of fashion.

"Be not misled by that supposition,” replied my instructress; "recollect Pope :

'What will ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?

Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.'

"So it is with real fashion. All the birth in the world will not necessarily give that cool self-possession, that air of internal superiority to all awkward feelings, or what Chesterfield calls that intrepidity of assurance, which genuine fashion confers. Why the Duchess of herself,

though full of humble piety, and an angel in goodness, handsome withal, as well as among the highest of the high born, is not considered as ton."

Beat out of this, I tried talents and genius, and mentioned one or two persons eminent in literature,