thankful--for look around, O
Jones, and see the myriads who are not so fortunate,) to wear honest
linen, while magnificos of the world are adorned with cambric and
point-lace, surely we ought to hold as miserable, envious fools, those
wretched Beaux Tibbs's of society, who sport a lace dickey, and nothing
besides,--the poor silly jays, who trail a peacock's feather behind
them, and think to simulate the gorgeous bird whose nature it is to
strut on palace-terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fan-tail in the
sunshine!

The jays with peacocks' feathers are the Snobs of this world: and never,
since the days of Aesop, were they more numerous in any land than they
are at present in this free country.

How does this most ancient apologue apply to the subject in hand?--the
Dinner-giving Snob. The imitation of the great is universal in this
city, from the palaces of Kensingtonia and Belgravia, even to the
remotest corner of Brunswick Square.

Peacocks' feathers are stuck in the tails of most families. Scarce
one of us domestic birds but imitates the lanky, pavonine strut, and
shrill, genteel scream. O you misguided dinner-giving Snobs, think how
much pleasure you lose, and how much mischief you do with your
absurd grandeurs and hypocrisies! You stuff each other with unnatural
forced-meats, and entertain each other to the ruin of friendship
(let alone health) and the destruction of hospitality and
good-fellowship--you, who but for the peacock's tail might chatter away
so much at your ease, and be so jovial and happy!

When a man goes into a great set company of dinner-giving and
dinner-receiving Snobs, if he has a philosophical turn of mind, he will
consider what a huge humbug the whole affair is: the dishes, and the
drink, and the servants, and the plate, and the host and hostess, and
the conversation, and the company,--the philosopher included.

The host is smiling, and hob-nobbing, and talking up and down the
table; but a prey to secret terrors and anxieties, lest the wines he
has brought up from the cellar should prove insufficient; lest a corked
bottle should destroy his calculations; or our friend the carpet-beater,
by making some BEVUE, should disclose his real quality of greengrocer,
and show that he is not the family butler.

The hostess is smiling resolutely through all the courses, smiling
through her agony; though her heart is in the kitchen, and she is
speculating with terror lest there be any disaster the