never told, as a great
favour, that Mr Alexander Scaldhead, the phrenologist, is to be there,
and that we can have our "bumps" felt for nothing; or that the Chevalier
Doembrownski (a London pickpocket in disguise) is expected to recite a
Polish ode, accompanying himself on the Jew's harp; we are not bored
with the misconduct of the librarian, who _never_ has the first volume
of the last new novel, or invited to determine whether Louisa Fitzsmythe
or Angelina Stubbsville deserves to be considered the heroine; we are
not required to be in raptures because Mrs Alfred Shaw or Clara Novello
are expected, or to break our hearts with disappointment because they
didn't come: the arrival, performances, and departure, of Ducrow's
horses, or Wombwell's wild beasts, affect us with no extraordinary
emotion; even Assizes time concerns most of us nothing.

Then, again, how vulgar, how commonplace in London is the aristocracy of
wealth; of Mrs Grub, who, in a provincial town, keeps her carriage, and
is at once the envy and the scandal of all the Ladies who have to
proceed upon their ten toes, we wot not the existence. Mr Bill Wright,
the banker, the respected, respectable, influential, twenty per cent
Wright, in London is merely a licensed dealer in money; he visits at
Camberwell Hill, or Hampstead Heath, or wherever other tradesmen of his
class delight to dwell; his wife and daughters patronize the Polish
balls, and Mr Bill Wright, jun., sports a stall at the (English) opera;
we are not overdone by Mr Bill Wright, overcome by Mrs Bill Wright, or
the Misses Bill Wright, nor overcrowed by Mr Bill Wright the younger: in
a word, we don't care a crossed cheque for the whole Bill Wrightish
connexion.

What are carriages, or carriage-keeping people in London? It is not
here, as in the provinces, by their carriages shall you know them; on
the contrary, the carriage of a duchess is only distinguishable from
that of a _parvenu_, by the superior expensiveness and vulgarity of the
latter.

The vulgarity of ostentatious wealth with us, defeats the end it aims
at. That expense which is lavished to impress us with awe and
admiration, serves only as a provocative to laughter, and inducement to
contempt; where great wealth and good taste go together, we at once
recognize the harmonious adaptation of means and ends; where they do
not, all extrinsic and adventitious expenditure availeth its disbursers
nothing.

What animal on earth was ever so inh