en
Receive even Friendship's overtures, and shun
The softer sex their wiles and blandishments;
Walk cautiously the streets, of crowds beware,
And wisely learn to fly each latent snare.

~185~~ AMONGST other occurrences of the preceding day, Cousin Bob
adverted, at the breakfast table, to the confused intermixture of
carriages, dissonant din of attendant lacqueys clamouring for vehicles,
and the dangers occasioned by quarrelsome coachmen, precipitately,
and at all hazards, rushing forwards to the doors of a mansion, on
the breaking-up of a route, each claiming, and none willing to
concede precedency in taking up their masters and mistresses,--" I am
surprised," said the Squire, "that any rational being would sacrifice
his time and comfort in making one of an assemblage where within doors
you are pressed to the dread of suffocation, and in making your exit,
are environed by peril and difficulty."

"Such," rejoined Dashall, "are the follies of fashion. Its influence
predominates universally; and the votarists of _bon ton_, are equally
assiduous in the pursuit of their object, whether with the satellites
in the gay and volatile regions of the court, or amongst those of 'sober
fame' in the mercantile bustle of the city. In the purlieus of the
great, _bon ton_ is characterized by inconvenience; four or Ave hundred
people, for example, invited to crowd a suite of rooms not calculated to
accommodate half the number, the squeeze must be delightful! But

'Custom in every thing liears sovereign sway!'

~186~~ thence yield the followers of High Life in the West to the
follies of fashion, where the enjoyment of ease is a subordinate, if not
altogether exploded consideration.--Eastward on the other hand:

'I loves High Life, and all the joys it yields,'
Says Madam Fussick, warm from Spitalfields.
'High Life's the day, 'twixt Saturday and Monday,
'And riding in a one-horse chay on Sunday,
''Tis drinking tea on summer afternoons,
'At Bagnigge Wells, in china and gilt spoons.'"

"Again," added the Squire, "what a vast expence is incurred by these
idle and ostentatious displays of luxury, without one object of
advantage gained!"

"Unproductive result," rejoined Tom, "is not always the case; it not
unfrequently happens that a route and card-party are united; when
the lady of the mansion generally contrives, by skill and finess