at a great dinner, and I sat next to a Mr. Johnson, who is eldest son to a baronet of large fortune in this neighbourhood. So long a time had elapsed before he condescended to speak to me, that I had hopes of being entirely forgotten, which, however mortifying to my _pride_, was compensated by the kindness of a _nice crisp_ little elderly gentleman on my left hand, who, with great goodnature, talked to me of his crops in such a manner as to make me feel that he thought himself conversing with a rational creature, capable of estimating the signs of the times, and understanding the difference between wheat and barley, turnips and mangel worsel. But though Mr. Johnson had sat during half an hour with his back turned upon me while he was talking over, in horrible detail, a pugilistic match fought near Portsmouth a few days ago, the movement of my head in bowing to some one who had asked me to drink wine, brought me in a flash of recollection to his mind, and I could scarcely preserve my gravity, when, like lightning, he _whisked_ round, and said, as if for a wager, it was so rapidly done, “Do you waltz?” I feared that this was a beginning which augured a long list of balls, respecting which I should have the humiliating confession to make that I had not been at one in my life; but I was spared this lowering avowal as the entire notice which he took of the simple negative with which I replied was contained in the monosyllable “_Oh_,” which, by the bye, is the most comprehensive little word except _nice_ in the colloquial intercourse of England; and from the variety of meaning which the several intonations of voice with which it is pronounced, are capable of imparting, assumes as wide a range of interpretation as the “Spectator” allots to the exercise of the fan. There is the _oh_, inquiring; the _oh_, surprised; the _oh_, satisfied; the _oh_, contemptuous; the _oh_, affected; the _oh_, languid; the _oh_, inquisitive; the _oh_, doubtful; in short, there is scarcely a state of the mind which an English provincialist cannot contrive to convey by a correct modulation of the many keys upon which may be played those two letters; and as for the twin-brother of this _multum in parvo_--_nice_, I heard it on one day lately, applied to Lord Eldon, who, a lady near me, said, was a “nice chancellor.” Afterwards to the French nation, who, a gentleman opposite, declared, are the nicest people in the world; then to Der Freischütz, Miss Stephens, a calve’s head, wild ducks, the Hampshire breed of pigs, red Lammas wheat, Cheshire cheese, cream, coffee, and the Courier! Does _nice_ mean _any_, or _every_ thing?