"The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign
Here richly decked admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare."

"Hansoms" were unheard of in those days, and tram-cars, of all vehicles the most abominable, were beyond the dreams of the wildest maniac who ever raved in Bedlam. On the other hand there is less likelihood of a man's being hanged nowadays than there was in those more romantic times.

PROUD YOUNG PORTERS.

STUDENTS of the "Loving Ballad of Lord Bate

man will not fail to bear in comic remembrance the "Proud Young Porter," as not the least amusing personage of that delectable romance. His portrait has been drawn by Mr. George Cruikshank, and a very laughable picture, indeed, it is. How pompous is that Proud Young Porter in air, aspect, and expression! How haughty is his mien! How fantastic is his every attitude! He is altogether a most ridiculous fellow, though he has not the slightest suspicion of the fact. It would be a great mistake to suppose that the Proud Young Porter exists only in poetic fiction. Bless your dear heart! he is of constant recurrence in every-day life, and go where he may, he is more free than welcome. The world is infested with Proud Young Porters, but for whom this planet of ours would be far pleasanter and more comfortable than it really is. Be

it remembered that the word "young" has no necessary application to the age of the Proud Porter, but should rather be taken to relate to the unfading verdancy of his folly and the amaranthine vigor of his vanity. In that sarcastic sense, the word “jeune” is often used by the French. "O papa! que vous êtes jeune !”—“Well, рара, how young you are!" as much as to say, "What a fool you are!"-observes a brat of seven summers to his father, aged sixty, in the comedy of La Famille Benoiton. And so it is with your Proud Young Porter. A man may be well on for ninety, and yet be a Proud Young Porter all the same. Nor is it essential that the Proud Young Porter should be a veritable carrier of burdens, or an actual opener of hall-doors. The phrase "Porter" must be understood to express, not the lowly occupation, but the ignoble nature of the man who, for all his pride, has only the soul of a shoe. Proud Young Porters belong to all classes and conditions, all ranks and professions of men. You may find them in the Church, the Army, the Navy, and the Bar; in art, literature, science and commerce. Wherever found, they are snobs and duffers to a man. Your Proud Young Porter, of whatever calling, disdains the poor, deeming poverty and crime convertible terms. He is easily

pleased, for he is contented with himself. It invariably happens that his disesteem of others is in the precise proportion of his inordinate estimate of himself. You would like to buy him at your price, and sell him at his own, but it would be no such easy matter to procure a purchaser. Blackberries cost nothing, and they are filling at the price. As much may be said of civility; but though civility were as dear as ottar of roses, your Proud Young Porter could not be more chary of it than

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he is. He cannot vouchsafe a smile or a courteous word to any fellow-creature who is not exceedingly well-off," but to such a person he is as servile as he is supercilious and offensive to people of smaller means. The Proud Young Porter is afflicted with sudden ophthalmia when he meets an old school-fellow in a seedy coat. For the dear life of him, he cannot see him. Friend he has none, that Proud Young Porter; no, not even himself, for though he knows it not, he is his own worst enemy. To do him justice, he loves his enemy. But proud men never have friends; neither in prosperity, because they know nobody, nor in adversity, because then nobody knows them. Your Proud Young Porter is alone-all alone in the world. It happens almost invariably that he is a bachelor; for I know not how it is, but a married man generally has the "cheek" taken out of him. But married or single, your Proud Young Porter is a nuisance. He has been starched without being washed, and he is, in consequence, the most unpleasant person in the world to have anything to do with.

The Proud Young Porter in the Army puts on a lot of "side;" talks of his uniform as "livery," which he affects to hold in utter contempt; scorns civilians, and hardly deigns to account Volunteers and Militiamen as human beings at all. His speech is only of the "Service," though he never smelt powder stronger than tooth-powder, and perhaps not overmuch of that. He refers to the Heir-Apparent as "Wales," and to the Commander-in-Chief as "George." He would have you believe that he is hand-and-glove with them both, and that he knows all about the secrets of the Horse Guards. Nothing could give him keener delight than.

that England should go to war with all the nations of the earth, for then promotion would go on so quickly; but he hates "Gib.," and has no great stomach for India. The Proud Young Porter is not very common in the Navy, but even there he sometimes crops up, and very edifying, indeed, it is to hear him enlarging on the errors of the Admiralty, and the unseaman-like manner in which Captain Broadside handled his ship in the Channel Fleet. I saw a Proud Young Porter in the pulpit no later than last Sunday, and my word! to observe how superbly he tossed his nose in the air, how daintily he turned over the leaves of his drowsy sermon, how authoritatively he delivered himself upon dogmas the most abstruse, and with what flippant familiarity he discoursed on the most solemn and sacred themes as though he were in the special confidence of Heaven-it was enough to make one shy a hassock at his head. Oh! he was a Proud Young Porter, that little exquisite of a parson, five feet one in his stockings; and it is to be hoped that his mother has not many more like him. Of a very different type was another preacher-one Bunyan by name-of whom Southey narrates that "he had a great dread of spiritual pride; and once after he had preached a very fine sermon and his friends crowded round him to shake him by the hand, while they expressed the utmost admiration of his eloquence, he interrupted them, saying,— 'Ay! you need not remind me of that, for the devil told me of it before I was out of the pulpit!'

But it is ever so. "I never yet found pride in a noble nature, nor humility in an unworthy mind," writes good old Owen Feltham. In a like strain discourses another ancient worthy :-"I have observed many tum

bles through life, but I have invariably noticed that it is the man who mounts the high horse that receives the least pity when he falls." Depend upon it, that Proud Young Porter, ungracious as he is to the world at large, could be obsequious enough where "thrift would follow fawning." In such a case he would emulate the servile conduct of his prototype in the "Loving Ballad":

"O avay and avay vent the Proud Young Porter
Oh, avay and avay and avay vent he,

Until he came to Lord Bateman's chamber,

Ven he vent down on his bended knee."

That is just what your Proud Young Porter invariably does, when anything is to be gained by sycophancy. Another and very odious sort of the Porter is himself a journalist, who not only cannot find merit in any work of art, be it play, poem, or picture, submitted to his judgment, but holds in the most insolent scorn anybody else who does. For the members of his own profession he cherishes sentiments of the most rancorous contempt, affecting to regard them one and all as dunces. He is great upon the decay of critics, little dreaming that he furnishes in his own person the most egregious example of the truth of his theory. The Proud Young Porter of commerce is never to be looked for in the ranks of the Prince Merchants who have contributed so largely to the greatness and glory of England. He is the veriest mushroom. "A self-made man is he, as he delights to tell you with a conceited chuckle, though goodness knows he has but scant cause to be vain of the manufacture. With him the amount of a man's money is the measure of his moral worth, and to be