There happened, on the day I speak of, to be a man of some rank at table, with whom I had a slight, a very slight acquaintance; but in passing from the room he caught my eye, came over and conversed with me for a few minutes. From that moment Lady Lonsdall’s manners underwent a great change in my regard. Not only did she venture to look at me without expressing any air of supercilious disdain, but even vouchsafed the ghost of a smile; and, as we rose from table, I overheard her ask the Honourable Jack for my name. I could not hear the first part of his reply, but the last was couched in that very classic slang, expressive of my unknown condition-- ‘I take it, he hain’t got no friends!’ Notwithstanding this Foundling-hospital sentence, Sir Marmaduke was instructed to invite me to take coffee--an honour which, having declined, we separated, as do people who are to speak when next they meet. Meditating on the unjust impression foreigners must conceive of England and the English by the unhappy specimens we ‘grind for exportation,’ I sat alone at a little table in the park. It was a sad subject, and it led me further than I wished or knew of. I thought I could trace much of the animosity of foreign journals to English policy in their mistaken notions of national character, and could well conceive how dubiously they must receive our claim to being high-spirited and honourable, when their own experiences would incline to a different conclusion; for, after all, the Fleet Prison, however fashionable its inmates, would scarcely be a flattering specimen of England, nor do I think Horsemonger Lane ought to be taken as a fair sample of the country. It is vain to assure foreigners that these people are not known nor received at home, neither held in credit nor estimation; their conclusive reply is, ‘How is it, then, that they are admitted to the tables of your ambassadors, and presented at our courts? Is it possible you would dare to introduce to our sovereigns those whom you could not present to your own?’ This answer is a fatal one. The fact is so; the most rigid censor of morals leaves his conscience at the Ship Hotel at Dover; he has no room for it on a voyage, or perhaps he thinks it might be detained by a revenue- officer. Whatever the cause, he will know at Baden--ay, and walk with-- the man he would cut in Bond Street, and drive with the party at Brussels he would pass to-morrow if he met in Hyde Park.