1832.] Notes of the Month on Affairs in General. 703 



. 



Mr. Baring was not very enthusiastic in his attachment to the Exchequer. 

 What does that matter ? The Duke of Wellington lias achieved a greater 

 victory than that upon the plains of Waterloo. He has persuaded his 

 mind to consent to its own degradation. He has bound his remaining 

 virtue in an everlasting chain of evil fellowship to his ambition. 



MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE AT MARLBOROUGH-STREET. We beg 

 not to be considered responsible for the perfect truth of the following 

 occurrence : 



A cabriolet driver, according to the newspaper report, was brought before Mr. 

 Laing, charged with being impudent. The man called his master, who gave him 

 a good character, and accounted for his present ill-conduct by the fact of his having 

 taken too much liquor, adding " when the liquor's in, your Worship knows the 

 wit is out." 



" I know the proverb," replied the Magistrate, " but it is my duty to see that 

 the liquor is kept out and the wit kept in." 



We could much sooner suppose the reporters guilty of falsification, than 

 Mr. Laing the author of the foregoing remark. It has a naivete about it 

 which never could have emanated from Marlborough-street. We have 

 heard of a miser whose friend actually saw him put some money into a 

 plate at the church -door, but yet could not believe the circumstance. 

 Had we been in the police-office at the time, we should, in like manner, 

 have doubted our own ears. No, it cannot be true ! When that wander- 

 ing vagabond intellect has reached Marlborough-street, its march will 

 indeed be at an end for ever. 



REGAL PASTIME. Of all the extraordinary fancies with which the 

 brain of Royalty has teemed to forward the rising generation in the grand 

 career of moral and intellectual improvement, none appear to us so little 

 likely to answer such gracious and benevolent intentions as those several 

 annual congregations of the younger scions of nobility, known by the 

 endearing epithet of juvenile balls. This description of philanthropy we 

 believe may date its origin from the known good taste of the last reign, 

 and certainly a more ingenious system could hardly be devised, for instruct- 

 ing a child in all the elaborate mysteries of coxcombry and exclusiveness. 

 To those who delight in the study of human nature, and more particularly 

 the more amiable portions of it, such an unnatural exhibition must be inex- 

 pressibly painful. The early development of the most hateful passions 

 which such unprofitable rivalry invariably calls forth, is sufficiently 

 manifested by these petticoat princes ; while the seeds of coquetry and affec- 

 tation thus early sown in the bosom of the infantile female, exhibit them- 

 selves in a manner of which the following instance will convey the best 

 idea : One of these Lilliputians in long clothes, throwing herself languish- 

 ingly upon a sofa, on her return from church, cried to her mother, " I really 

 must decline going to church in future, at least we must have our places 

 changed." " Why so, my dear ?" asked her astonished parent. " Because 

 there is a person in an adjoining pew who stares at me like a pest, and I 

 do assure you, Mamma, I never gave him the slightest encouragement" 

 This incipient coquet had attained to the respectable age of seven years. 



The example of royalty has of course produced a crowd of imitators. 

 The eldest daughter of a gentleman in Russell Square, aged six, received 



a card which ran thus : " Miss B , at Home at 7 Punch at 8 



Quadrilles." It was for the same evening, rather short notice to be sure, 



