As to eating, _quoad comedendum constipandumque_, we keep up the Boeotic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions; and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks--and that's a fact, too; but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper times, there, _selon nous_, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may happen to use it--from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at Naples,) or as clear as--clear can be, that John Bull does not know how to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room--a real comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have done so once--we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about rooms and houses.