part of his connexion lies among serious families—and we have heard of such who, when they condescend to dine, make dinner a most devout piece of business-our Diner-Out must speak of proof impressions of portraits from the "Evangelical Magazine," sent to him with the autograph compliments of the originals.

The Diner-Out must pay particular attention to that portion of his wardrobe which may be said to belong to his profession-his dinner-suit must be faultless: he must have the last fold-the last wrinkle-the earliest intelligence of enlarged cuffs-of coat-tails narrowed or widened-of trowsers gathered in, or rendered more expansive; and, in these days, he must not fail to let his "wit," like Laverdine's, in Fletcher's old play,

"Lie in a ten pound waistcoat."

A few fathoms of gold-chain, with diamonds (if to be had) for shirtbuttons, and as many rings on his fingers as a rattle-snake has in its tail, are, to the Diner-Out, almost indispensable. He is scarcely fit for decent company, if he do not appear as though he had come from a sitting for the sweetmeat portrait of a gentleman to the "World of Fashion."

Pierre de Montmaur, professor of Greek at the Royal College of Paris, in the reign of Louis XIII., was a Diner-Out of considerable reputation. Menage gives an anecdote of him singularly illustrative of his genius for we are told that the professor resided at the College of Boncour solely that, from its elevated situation, he might watch the smoking chimnies of his friends below!

We have, we trust, registered the principal requisites for a professional Diner-Out; a character, as we humbly conceive, blessed beyond his fellow-men, inasmuch as he may be said to walk through life upon a dining-room carpet, seeing the best part of human naturefor surely man never so unreservedly displays "the silver lining" of his soul as at, and after, dinner—and judging of the world in its happiest and most benevolent moments.

Dinner!-a word that to tens of thousands of men is associated with anxieties, and fears, and carking cares a word, involving butchers' bills, fishmongers' bills, bills of bakers, bills of brewers, bills miscellaneous, not safely to be thought of at the time of shaving -all these hard and stern realities are to the Diner-Out nothing more than fictions; things that he has heard of, but never known. What is the butcher to the Diner-Out? No other than the executioner to the cook-the cut-throat to the kitchen. The fishmonger is a kind of benevolent Triton; a creature bringing the treasures of the deep to earth, for the especial gratification of our hero; he

vends turbot, crimps skate, for the palate of our Diner-Out, who eats in happy ignorance of a future call. The wine-merchant is to him the genial and generous vassal of Bacchus the cup-bearer deputed by the glorious god-calling men to drink and never bringing in the score. The gardener, who raises peas at only five guineas per quarter-peck, and flings pine-apples at the head of holly-crowned Christmas, what is he to the Diner-Out, but the servitor of Plentyof Plenty in her most luscious and delightful aspect?

Is it possible, then, that the Diner-Out can be otherwise than a good-tempered creature? Can he have one spot in his heart touched with uncharitableness-with malice-with envy of dinner-giving man? Indigestion may come upon him; the gout may, sometimes, make him scream; but, when misanthropic, discontented, folks speak of the frailties of human nature, of the meanness and cruelty of this sometimes mean and cruel world, our Diner-Out will, with an ineffable look of charity, lay his hand upon his belly, and seriously avow his conviction that all men are the very best of people, and that the world itself is a world of milk and honey. He will avow, with almost a grateful tear standing in each eye, that he has lived and dined forty-fifty-sixty-years, and therefore "ought to know."

And wherefore this charity?—wherefore this philanthropic softness? Why, to our Diner-Out, all men—at least, all his connexions, which of course contain all the world—are associated with something luscious and beautiful. Let the faces of his friends pass before his mental vision: they are not the faces of men—the visages of mere humanity; no! they are fantastically, yet withal delightfully, merged into the aspects of kitchen and cellar comforts. The Diner-Out conjures to his mental eye the countenance of his dear friend Tissue, the banker; is it the countenance of Tissue? No! but a dindon aux truffes, upon the banker's shoulders; Tissue having been for years immortalised for his turkies with truffles. The thoughts of our Diner-Out wander to Ledgerly, the Indian merchant; when up starts Ledgerly, with a face distorted to something very like a haunch of venison. Again, our Diner-Out has grateful recollections of Moidore, the great billdiscounter: enter Moidore, with his square head shooting up into a bottle, whereon Chateaux Margaux is most legibly emblazoned. Thus, with our Diner-Out, his biped friends are but the types of better things. He knows the names of Tissue, of Ledgerly, and of Moidore; but they are endeared to him by their association with turkey, venison, and glorious wine.

We have ten sons; and thrice a day say we, to each and all of them, "Boys, BE DINERS-OUT!"

THE STOCK-BROKER.

BY OWEN PENGUIN.

It is universally admitted that we-the English-are the very best people to be found in the world; and yet, it has sometimes occurred to us, that rather too much deference is paid to wealth in this country. It is not, we have occasionally ventured to opine, the all-in-all-the only needful-the "tottle of the whole." We have been now and then betrayed into the momentary belief that poverty is not altogether infamous, and that virtue in rags is hardly dealt by when it is sent for three months to the treadmill: it should be two months-say, six weeks. Having avowed our heresy, we proceed at once, lest we should be "put down by clamour."

Profound was the remark of that sage, who must have read human nature to some purpose, when he averred that there were good and bad of all professions. We are entirely persuaded of this. Honest lawyers are to be found, if a man will but diligently look after them; the treasurer pro tem. does not always go off to America; and orphans sometimes come by their right. Accordingly, there are good and bad Stock-Brokers; many very good; some so-so, by which we mean, so at one time, and so at another; and a few, we dare say, bad enough. Indeed, we once knew a gentleman of the last description (he is now settled in New South Wales) who, had Ariel appeared to him, with the intimation,

"Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones is coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;"

would have bethought him, "What a glorious spec. if one could fish up dad, and effect a sale of him by retail to the jewellers."

The overweening reverence for wealth (which is at once the criterion of, and the substitute for, morals) to which we have adverted above, certainly sets men upon strange contrivances to acquire it. Money must be got, or how is a man to be respectable? the wherewithal must be forthcoming, or how is one's station in life to be

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