dinner,
that the driving habiliments appear like complete masquerade disguises.
Indeed, any thing that is natural is considered quite out of nature; and
this affectation is not wholly confined to the higher circles, for in
the City even the men and the women seem to have changed places.

"Man-milliners and mantua-makers swarm
With clumsy hands to deck the female form--
With brawny limbs to fit fine ladies' shapes,
Or measure out their ribbons, lace and tapes;
Or their rude eye the bosom's swell surveys,
To cut out corsets or to stitch their stays;
Or making essences and soft perfume,
Or paint, to give the pallid cheek fresh bloom;
Or with hot irons, combs, and frizzling skill,
On ladies' heads their daily task fulfil;
Or, deeply versed in culinary arts,
Are kneading pasty, making pies and tarts;
Or, clad in motley coat, the footman neat
Is dangling after Miss with shuffling feet,
Bearing in state to church her book of pray'r,
Or the light pocket she disdains to wear;{1}
Or in a parlour snug, 'the powdered lout
The tea and bread and butter hands about.
Where are the women, whose less nervous hands
Might fit these lighter tasks, which pride demands?
Some feel the scorn that poverty attends,
Or pine in meek dependance on their friends;
Some patient ply the needle day by day,
Poor half-paid seamsters, wasting life away;
Some drudge in menial, dirty, ceaseless toil,
Bear market loads, or grovelling weed the soil;
Some walk abroad, a nuisance where they go,
And snatch from infamy the bread of woe."

"It is a strange sort of infatuation, this fashion," said Bob, "and it
is much to be regretted it should operate so much to the injury of the
fair--"

"Do you see that young man on the opposite side of the way,"inquired
Dashall,(stopping him short) "in nankin breeches and jockey-boots?"

"I do," replied Tallyho; "and pray who is he?"

"The son of a wealthy Baronet who, with an eye to the main chance in
early life, engaged in some mercantile speculations, which proving
productive concerns, have elevated him to his present dignity, beyond
which it is said he cannot go on account of his having once kept a shop.
This son is one of what may be terme