ciety, we gather the
same light from facts; we see that the same laws determine the ultimate
success or failure of governments. The policy which preserves and
maintains a state in its ancient security and customary order is also
the only policy that can bring a revolution to a successful close, and
give stability to the institutions whose lasting excellence may justify
it to succeeding ages.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

My father, whose manners were at once highbred and lively, had some
great acquaintances; but I recollect none of them personally, except an
old lady of quality, who (if memory does not strangely deceive me, and
give me a personal share in what I only heard talked of; for old
autobiographers of childhood must own themselves liable to such
confusions) astounded me one day by letting her false teeth slip out,
and clapping them in again.

I had no idea of the existence of such phenomena, and could almost as
soon have expected her to take off her head and readjust it. She lived
in Red Lion-square, a quarter in different estimation from what it is
now. It was at her house, I believe, that my father one evening met
Wilkes. He did not know him by sight, and happening to fall into
conversation with him, while the latter sat looking down, he said
something in Wilkes's disparagement, on which the jovial demagogue
looked up in his face, and burst out a laughing.

I do not exactly know how people dressed at that time; but I believe
that sacks, and negligees, and toupees were going out, and the pigtail
and the simpler modern style of dress coming in. I recollect hearing my
mother describe the misery of having her hair dressed two or three
stories high, and of lying in it all night ready for some visit or
spectacle next day. I think I also recollect seeing Wilkes himself in an
old-fashioned flap-waistcoated suit of scarlet and gold; and I am sure I
have seen Murphy, the dramatist, a good deal later, in a suit of a like
fashion, though soberer, and a large cocked-hat. The cocked-hat in
general survived till nearly the present century. It was superseded by
the round one during the French Revolution. I remember our steward at
school, a very solemn personage, making his appearance in one, to our
astonishment, and not a little to the diminution of his dignity. Some
years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots,
and a round hat, with powder and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with
his hat off his