When tired with contemplating what I will venture to call the physiognomy of walking, you may betake yourself to some large dinner party, should your good fortune have furnished you with an invitation. There you will rarely fail to have an _in-door_ treat quite equal, if not superior to the former, in witnessing other modes developed by speech, in which "the Would Be's" betray their ruling passion--a treat, by the way, which some travesty wag has most maliciously called "_the feast of reason and the flow of soul_," when all who have ever tried it, perfectly well know, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, it is very little more than the flow of good liquor, and the feast of good viands--not that _I_, Mr. Editor, mean to object to _either_, when _used in a way_ to heighten all the innocent enjoyments of social intercourse, without endangering health or shortening life, as they are too often made to do. But having been always accustomed to deem it very disgraceful for rational beings to rank either eating or drinking to excess among these enjoyments, I cannot forbear to enter my protest against any such misnomer. Might I be permitted here to say what should be the chief object of all social parties whatever, I would decide that it should be _mutual improvement_, and that the individuals who compose them should consider themselves as members of a kind of joint stock company, met, on such occasions, to perfect each other in their parts, as performers in the great drama of human life--that whenever called on _to act_, they might acquit themselves most naturally, agreeably, and usefully, both to themselves and others. Few indeed, "and far between," will be the dinner parties answering this description; for, in general, there are no social meetings at which you will find a greater assemblage of the Would Be's. Here you will often find very garrulous and deep critics in wine, who if the truth were known, would probably vastly prefer a drink of fourth proof whiskey, gin or brandy, to the choicest products of the best vineyards in the world. Occasionally you may also see exquisite amateurs of music, who, would they be candid, must plead guilty of utter ignorance on the subject, or confess a decided preference for some such old acquaintance as "Poor Betty Martin tip toe fine," or "Yankee Doodle," on a jews-harp or hurdy-gurdy, to the finest compositions of the most celebrated masters, performed by themselves, in their highest style, on their favorite instruments. A good assortment too of gormandizers is rarely wanting at such places; men whose gift of speech is never exercised but in praise of good cookery--whose mouths seem formed for little else than to eat and drink, and whose stomachs may truly be called "_omnibuses_," being depositories for full as great a variety of dead eatable substances, as the vehicles properly so called are of living bodies. The chief