motley assemblage which now surrounds us it would be difficult
to attempt a picture. The pencil of a Cruikshank or a Rowlandson might
indeed convey some idea; but all weaker hands would find the subject
overpowering. A mob of manufacturers, melting hot, elbowing one
another into ill-humour, by their anxiety to teach their offspring the
fashionable vice of gaming; giving the pretty innocents a taste for
_loo_, which generally ends in _loo_-sening what little purity of
principle the prejudice of education has left upon their intellect.
In our more fashionable _hells_, wine and choice _liqueurs_ are the
stimulants ~321~~to vice; here, the seduction consists in the strumming
of an ill-toned piano, to the squeaking of some poor discordant whom
poverty compels to public exposure; and who, generally being of the
softer sex, pity protects from the severity of critical remark. I need
not say our report to the Dalmaines was unfavourable; and the divine
little countess, frustrated in her intentions of honouring the libraries
with her presence, determined upon promenading up the West Cliff,
attended by old Crony and myself. The bright-eyed goddess of the night
emitted a ray of more than usual brilliancy, and o'er the blue waters of
the deep spread forth a silvery and refulgent lustre, that lent a charm
of magical inspiration to the rippling waves. For what of nature's
mighty works can more delight, than

'----Circling ocean, when the swell
By zephyrs borne from off the main,
Heaves to the breeze, and sinks again?'

The deep murmuring of the hollow surge as it rolls over the pebble
beach, the fresh current of saline air that braces and invigorates, and
the uninterrupted view of the watery expanse, are attractions of delight
and contemplation which are nowhere to be enjoyed in greater perfection
than at Brighton. The serenity of the evening induced us to pass the
barrier of the chain-pier, and bend our steps towards the projecting
extremity of that ingenious structure. An old Welsh harper was touching
his instrument with more than usual skill for an itinerant professor,
while the plaintive notes of the air he tuned accorded with the
solemnity of the surrounding scene. "I could pass an evening here,"
said the countess, in a somewhat contemplative mood, "in the society of
kindred spirits, with more delightful gratification than among the giddy
throng who meet at Almack's." Crony bowed to the ground, overp