often has in a remarkable degree,—but it is the most unpoetical and the least picturesque of all others. I cannot explain what I mean by this variable telegraphic machinery of polite expression better than by an obvious allusion. Every one by walking the streets of London (or any other populous city) acquires a walk which is easily distinguished from that of strangers; a quick flexibility of movement, a smart jerk, an aspiring and confident tread, and an air, as if on the alert to keep the line of march; but for all that, there is not much grace or grandeur in this local strut: you see the person is not a country bumpkin, but you would not say, he is a hero or a sage—because he is a cockney. So it is in passing through the artificial and thickly peopled scenes of life. You get the look of a man of the world: you rub off the pedant and the clown; but you do not make much progress in wisdom or virtue, or in the characteristic expression of either. The character of a gentleman (I take it) may be explained nearly thus:—A blackguard (_un vaurien_) is a fellow who does not care whom he offends:—a clown is a blockhead who does not know when he offends:—a gentleman is one who understands and shews every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them. Politeness and the pretensions to the character in question have reference almost entirely to this reciprocal manifestation of good-will and good opinion towards each other in casual society. Morality regulates our sentiments and conduct as they have a connection with ultimate and important consequences:—Manners, properly speaking, regulate our words and actions in the routine of personal intercourse. They have little to do with real kindness of intention, or practical services, or disinterested sacrifices; but they put on the garb, and mock the appearance of these, in order to prevent a breach of the peace, and to smooth and varnish over the discordant materials, when any number of individuals are brought in contact together. The conventional compact of good manners does not reach beyond the moment and the company. Say, for instance, that the _rabble_, the labouring and industrious part of the community, are taken up with supplying their own wants, and pining over their own hardships,—scrambling for what they can get, and not refining on any of their pleasures, or troubling themselves about the fastidious pretensions of others: again, there are philosophers who are busied in the pursuit of truth,—or patriots who are active for the good of their country; but here, we will suppose, are a knot of people got together, who, having no serious wants of their own, with leisure and independence, and caring little about abstract truth or practical utility, are met for no mortal purpose but to say and to do all manner of obliging things, to pay the greatest possible respect, and shew the most delicate and flattering attentions to one another. The politest set