ng the philosophy of the devil when sick, had
resolved on prudence when there was no more liking for dissipation. He
was almost a stranger in his club; the very waiters at Mivart's asked
his name; while the last new peer's son, just emerging into life, had
never even heard of him before. So is it decreed--dynasties shall fall
and others succeed them; Charles le Dix gives place to Louis-Philippe,
and Nugee occupies the throne of Stultz.

Few things men bear worse than this oblivion in the very places where
once their sway was absolute. It is very hard to believe that the world
has grown wiser and better, more cultivated in taste and more correct in
its judgments than when we knew it of old; and a man is very likely to
tax with ingratitude those who, superseding him in the world's favour,
seem to be forgetful of claims which in reality they never knew of.

Sir Harry Wycherley was not long in England ere he felt these truths
in all their bitterness, and saw that an absence of a few years teaches
one's friends to do without them so completely that they are absolutely
unwilling to open a new want of acquaintance, as though it were an
expensive luxury they had learned to dispense with. Besides, Wycherley
was decidedly _rococo_ in all his tastes and predilections. Men did not
dine now where they used in _his_ day--Doncaster was going out, Goodwood
was coming in; people spoke of Grisi, not Pasta, Mario more than Rubini.
Instead of the old absolute monarchy of fashion, where one dictated
to all the rest, a new school sprung up, a species of democracy, who
thought Long Wellesley and D'Orsay were unclean idols, and would not
worship anything but themselves.

Now of all the marks of progress which distinguish men in the higher
circles, there is none in these latter days at all comparable with the
signs of--to give it a mild name--increased 'sharpness,' distinguishable
amongst them. The traveller by the heavy Falmouth mail whisked along
forty miles per hour in the Grand Junction, would see far less to
astonish and amaze him than your shrewd man about town of some forty
years back, could he be let down any evening among the youth at
Tattersall's, or introduced among the rising generation just graduating
at Graham's.

The spirit of the age is unquestionably to be 'up and doing.' A good
book on the Oaks has a far higher preeminence, not to say profit, than
one published in 'the Row'; the 'honours' of the crown are scarcely on a
par