ing consisted virtually of nothing else!

I next take the word 'lout,' of which Johnson gives two derivations for
our choice: it is either the past participle of 'to lower, or make
low;' a lowed person, (as our House of Lords under the direction of
railway companies and public-house keepers); or else--and more strictly
I believe in etymology--a form of the German 'leute,' 'common people.'
In either case, its proper classical English sense is given by Johnson
as "a mean, awkward fellow; a bumpkin, a clown."

Now I surely cannot refer to any general representation of British
society more acceptable to, and acknowledged by, that society, than the
finished and admirably composed drawings of Du Maurier in _Punch_ which
have become every week more and more consistent, keen, and comprehensive,
during the issues of the last two years.

I take three of them, as quite trustworthy pictures, and the best our
present arts of delineation could produce, of the three Etats, or
representative orders, of the British nation of our day.

Of the Working class, take the type given in Lady Clara Robinson's
garden tea party, p. 174, vol. 79.

Of the Mercantile class, Mr. Smith, in his drawing-room after dinner,
p. 222, vol. 80.

And of the Noblesse, the first five gentlemen on the right (spectator's
right) of the line, in the ball at Stilton House, (July 3d, 1880).

136. Of the manner or state of lout, to which our manufacturing
prosperity has reduced its artisan, as represented in the first of
these frescoes, I do not think it needful to speak here; neither of the
level of sublime temperament and unselfish heroism to which the dangers
of commercial enterprise have exalted Mr. Smith. But the five
consecutive heads in the third fresco are a very notable piece of
English history, representing the polished and more or less lustrous
type of lout; which is indeed a kind of rolled shingle of former
English noblesse capable of nothing now in the way of resistance to
Atlantic liberalism, except of getting itself swept up into ugly harbor
bars, and troublesome shoals in the tideway.

And observe also, that of the three types of lout, whose combined
chorus and tripudiation leads the present British Constitution its
devil's dance, this last and smoothest type is also the dullest. Your
operative lout cannot indeed hold his cup of coffee with a grace, or
possess himself of a biscuit from Lady Clara's salver without
embarrassment; but, in his own m