orms were banqueting on
his greatness. A world of strange fancies came over us as we mused on
England's poets. And we dined with several Dukes and a great many more
Earls, declining no end of invitations of commoners. Very well! we
reply, adding a sigh. And on your return to your home, that you may not
be behind the fashion, you compare disparagingly everything that meets
your eye. Nothing comes up to what you saw in Europe. A servant doesn't
know how to be a servant here; and were we to see the opera at Covent
Garden, we would be sure to stare our eyes out. It is become habitual to
introduce your conversation with, "when I was in Europe." And you know
you never write a letter that you don't in some way bring in the
distinguished persons you met abroad. There is something (no matter what
it is) that forcibly reminds you of what occurred at the table of my
Lady Clarendon, with whom you twice had the pleasure and rare honor of
dining. And by implication, you always give us a sort of lavender-water
description of the very excellent persons you met there, and what they
were kind enough to say of America, and how they complimented you, and
made you the centre and all-absorbing object of attraction--in a word, a
truly wonderful person. And you will not fail, now that it is become
fashionable, to extol with fulsome breath the greatness of every
European despot it hath been your good fortune to get a bow from. And
you are just vain enough to forever keep this before your up-country
cousins. You say, too, that you have looked in at Almacks. Almacks!
alas! departed greatness. With the rise of the Casino hath it lain its
aristocratic head in the dust.

Well!--the St. Cecilia you must know (its counterparts are to be found
in all our great cities) is a miniature Almacks--a sort of leach-cloth,
through which certain very respectable individuals must pass ere they
can become the elite of our fashionable world. To become a member of the
St. Cecilia--to enjoy its recherche assemblies--to luxuriate in the
delicate perfumes of its votaries, is the besetting sin of a great many
otherwise very sensible people. And to avenge their disappointment at
not being admitted to its precious precincts, they are sure to be found
in the front rank of scandal-mongers when anything in their line is up
with a member. And it is seldom something is not up, for the society
would seem to live and get lusty in an atmosphere of perpetual scandal.
Any amount of