xisted equal to the
requirements of the present day. The municipality was great only on
dinners and donkeyism. It had indeed a dining senate, but that august
body never was known to discuss the practical reform of anything but
turtle-soup, and that with an horrid carving of the English language.

"The beggar, (we name the worst nuisances first), the begrimed sweep,
the butcher, the hawker, the ignorant costermonger, the 'cute cabby,
the wily tradesman, who seeks favors and pockets frowns from his
distinguished clowns--the Lord, whose rank is known by his tinsel, and
the Duke, so deeply identified with flunkeyism,--all move along,
helter-skelter, helter-skelter. And then there came the small men of
smaller titles, and the commoner whose grumbling was only equalled by
his apeings. To dine with my Lord Flippington was to him something
great; nor could his airs and ostentation be well improved. The little
man of little titles, too, stood profound in his dignity: no man was
larger, nor thought he that his own little self wasn't great. To the
tailor who made him he paid money down. Of all men was he the largest
dabbler in that divine essence of things called men--the philosophy of
blood. But to keep up the dignity it not only required a great deal of
experience, but a large amount of tin in the pocket, which for the
minus thereof was it necessary to have a deal of brass in the
face. This principle, then, which is strictly in accordance with
natural philosophy, being very well developed in this worthily aged
country, makes the truly great very great of modesty; while the man of
pewter greatness--that is, great because Our Sovereign Lady said he
might take upon himself the name of Sir Simpleton Somebody! always
boiling over with the froth of his own follies. With tin in his
pocket, brass in his face, and never a forlorn _h_ in his vocabulary,
is he the fellow to do brown the 'rag and tinsel.'

"Well, Mr. Smooth felt conscious of his own importance, and that same
was something among the good British. With philosophy profound in his
long face, Mr. Smooth made his compliments to the new and very sedate
minister, who some facetious wags called the very unobsequious Jimmy
Buckanan, of Pensylvane. This worthy and very firm-fisted statesman,
who was too much of the old school ever to be President of our United
States, advised the doing of a great many things, the diplomacy of
which Mr. Smooth seriously doubted. Especially did Smooth