ellars, and the whole of the Grecian, Roman, British, Cambrian,
Eagle, Lion, Apollo, Domestic, Foreign, Zoological, and Mythological
Saloons, they "most do congregate." Once set your eyes upon them, once
become acquainted with their habits and manners, and then mistake them if
you can. They are themselves, alone: like the London dustmen, the Nemarket
jockeys, the peripatetic venders, or buyers of "old clo'," or the Albert
continuations at _one pound one_, they appear to be _made to
measure for the same_. We must now describe them (to speak
theatrically) with decorations, scenes, and properties! The entirely new
dresses of a theatre are like the habiliments of the professional singer,
i.e. neither one nor the other ever _were entirely new_, and never
will be allowed to grow entirely old. The double-milled Saxony of these
worthies is generally _very_ blue or _very_ brown; the cut
whereof sets a man of a contemplative turn of mind wondering at what
precise date those tails were worn, and vainly speculating on the
probabilities of their being fearfully indigestible, as that alone could
to long have kept them from Time's remorseless maw. The collars are always
velvet, and always greasy. There is a slight ostentation manifested in the
seams, the stitches whereof are so apparent as to induce the beholders to
believe they must have been the handiwork of some cherished friend, whose
labours ought not to be entombed beneath the superstructure. The
buttons!--oh, for a pen of steam to write upon those buttons! They,
indeed, are the aristocracy--the yellow turbans, the sun, moon, and stars
of the woollen system! They have nothing in common with the coat--they are
_on it_, and that's all--they have no further communion--they decline
the button-holes, and eschew all right to labour for their living--they
announce themselves as "the last new fashion"--they sparkle for a week,
retire to their silver paper, make way for the new comers, and, years
after, like the Sleeping Beauty, rush to life in all their pristine
splendour, and find (save in the treble-gilt aodication and their own
accession) the coat, the immortal coat, unchanged! The waistcoat is of a
material known only to themselves--a sort of nightmare illusion of velvet,
covered with a slight tracery of refined mortar, curiously picked out and
guarded with a nondescript collection of the very greenest green pellets
of hyson-bloom gunpowder tea. The buttons (things of use in this garme