1829.] A fairs in General. ' 319 



lapel the British name must be undone. The tailor is in immediate requi- 

 sition in every regiment from Bermuda to Bengal — the grand reform of 

 coat-breasts and breeches is made, and the British army is made invin- 

 cible by the magic of the needle and thread-paper. The evil is not 

 over yet, for the tradesmen advance their prices with every new 

 change. To take a single instance, the common cap of the infantry 

 officer, about a year since cost six pounds — exactly three too much. 

 But it has pleased the higher powers to order a change in this cap, and 

 the price charged by those honest tradesmen is now actually eleven 

 pounds, or nearly twice the former. How has this been done ? A 

 clumsy piece of gold twist is hung in front of the cap, which tarnishes 

 in a week into the colour of so much brass wire, and which is a mere 

 incumbrance to the head, and an ugly iilcumbrance. And for this 

 foolery the set-off is seven guineas ! What can be more preposterous 

 than all this .'' Or are we to be surprised if, while the army is putting 

 new stripes upon its breeches, tailors should flourish about in their 

 curricles, purchase villas, and plant their monstrous wives in opera 

 boxes .-* 



We never knew a radical who was not a slave in his inmost soul, nor a 

 hunter after mob popularity who was not a pitiful creature. What has 

 become of Westminster's darling ? Where, as the bard of repubUcs 

 says, 



Liveth he with his dear constituents. 

 Showing his noble piresence and his rents; 

 Scattering around the land his beef and beer. 

 Sublime on fifty thousand pounds a year? 



One merit, however, he has. No man has ever less administered to 

 the coi-poreal corruption of his followers ; stomachic bribery has been 

 scrupulously avoided ; and if patriotism was ever, like poetry, the more 

 dinnerless the more divine, the patriotism of his lovers and counti-ymen 

 was in a fair way of reaching the highest point of perfection. 



Of Sir Francis Burdett's innate slavery, his panegyric upon Sir 

 George Murray's harangue on the benefits of a military cabinet is proof 

 that will last him all his life. As to his pitifulness, take the fact that 

 notwithstanding his large rental, and the number of splendid mansions 

 placed upon his different estates in various parts of England, he has not 

 at present a single country house in his own possession. A villa now 

 occupied by Lady Burdett and her family, at Twickenham, is only hired 

 for a limited period. And why ? not only because lodgings are cheap 

 and houses dear, but because the poor devil who lives in lodgings has 

 the excuse of a poor devil against seeing any body inside them. Din- 

 ners and the common hospitalities of English life are, of course, quite 

 incompatible with the " unsettled establishment" of gentlemen gliding 

 from one hired floor to another hired floor. The world must excuse them — 

 recollect the inconveniences of their locomotive state, and put off their 

 expectations of recbption until " the family have a house that they can 

 call their own." "The patriotic baronet has half-a-dozen. But it is 

 a much better contrivance to let them than to live in them ; and thus 

 after dragging out the costly periods of the year in the obscurity of the 

 .suburbs of Paris, the baronet escapes the London spring, and runs down 

 to a hovel twenty miles out of town. Such is the advantage of knowing 

 the difference between sixpence and sixpence farthing. 



