We have a mortal aversion to fine lads. And, wherefore, pray? Why, because in nine cases out of ten, if not positively in every case, they are the dullest and most insipid of all human beings: they are good, inoffensive creatures, certainly, but oh, they are dreadful bores! If you doubt it, just you take an hour of a fine lad’s company, with nobody present but yourselves. Shut yourself up in a room with him for that space of time, and if you don’t ever after, as long as you live, stand in dread and awe of the society of fine lads, you must be differently constituted from other men, and amongst other rare gifts must possess that of being bore-proof. But, pray, what after all _is_ a fine lad? To the possession of what quality or qualities is he indebted for this very amiable sort of character? Why, these are questions which, like many others, are much more easily put than answered. But, speaking from our own knowledge and experience, we should say that it is not the presence, but the absence--the entire absence of every quality, good, bad, and indifferent, that constitutes the fine lad; and hence his intolerable insipidity. The fine lad is a blank, a cipher, a vacuum, a nonentity, a ring without a circumference, a footless stocking without a leg. In disposition he is neither sweet, sour, nor bitter; in temper, neither hot nor cold; in spirit, neither merry nor sad. He is in fact, so far as any thing positive can be said of him, a mere concentration of negatives. In person he is neither long nor short, neither fat nor lean, neither stout nor slender. There must in short be a total absence of all meaning, all expression, all character, in the happy individual whom every body will agree in calling a fine lad. Between the fine lad and the world the matter stands thus: the latter finding him destitute of all distinctive characteristics, is greatly at a loss what to make of him. It cannot in conscience call him clever, and it does not like to say he is an ass, so it good-naturedly calls him a fine lad, taking shelter in the vagueness and indefiniteness of the term, since nobody can say precisely what a fine lad really means. Unlike most other reputations, that of the fine lad is wholly undisputed: it is generally bestowed on him by universal consent--no dissentient voice--every body agrees in calling him a fine lad. This is well, and must be a source of great comfort and satisfaction to the fine lad himself.