THE VICTIMS OF SOCIETY.

Tuts novel professes to be a picture of English fashionable life: Heaven knows, it is any thing but an attractive one. Frivolity, dissipation, laughter " from the lips outwards " covering gall and bitterness within, utter heartlessness, incapacity of right feeling or serious thought, satiety, ennui, pretligacy, '1nm—these are the colours which the Countess of BLESSINGTON has spread on hr palette; and the painting is such as might be expected from the materials. Whatever may be the merits of the book in other re- spects, it is not without a moral. It may teach unfashionable men and women to prize the blessings they possess—their sound repose gained by mental or bodily toil, their simple fare seasoned by appetite, their amusements enhanced by the labour which they relieve, and their social and domestic affections unchilled and un- polluted,—and to prize them all the more for seeing what is the happiness which accompanies magnificent mansions, glittering equipages, and perpetual holydays. Perhaps, too, the Countess wishes to hold up a looking-glass to the " select " themselves, for their own edification and improvement : but in this she still be dis- appointed ; for, if they are such as she has described them, they are far beyond the influence of any corrective which she, were she ts thousand times the moralist she is, could apply to them. We shall not tell the story of this novel ; for, with many and gross absurdities, there is some interest in it, which we ne.2d not diminish. There are several "victims of society." The principal vic- tim is a young lady of rank, who, brought up in the c■Ain'ry by her primitive parents, makes a Hal toarriage with a ttidideman of the most approved modern fashion. The whole history of this poor young creature is very sweetly and beautifully girt n ; and her cha-

racter, in which a firm and inilk.xihle e (dant y is blci dl with an

expisitely feminine softness of d les honour to the mind of

the fair authoress. It is the brie hut spot of the picture—tho

strong light which relieves, in some degree, the general itukness. This is the victim of English society. There is another victim of French society ; a young Englishwoman brought up abroad, and rendered thoroughly vicious by intercourse with liircign adven- turers of both sexes, and the study of "Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot," and the modern French novels. This lad) 's history is itself very much in the style of a modern French novel—a medley of levity, profligacy, blood, and horror, which our gay neighbours beyond the Channel have the art of compounding with such un- rivalled dexterity. The catastrophe of this tale of modern fashion- able life is almost as deadly as that of Titus Andronirus or Tons Thumb the Great. Lady BLEUINGroN is a clever, but a weak writer; she sketches prettily, but cannot paint forcibly; and makes up for the want of powerful and highly-wrought scenes by an accumulation of startling incidents. The novel is in a set ies of letters; a form which, with some advantages, must always, even in the most skilful hands, protium many incongruities. Humphrey Clinker is the only novel ih which the epistolary form has been used with any thing like na- ture and probability. In the novel before us the absurdity of the epistolary form is carried to the extreme. Miss Montressor, the victim of French s( eiety already mentioned, writes long letters to a Parisian friend as depraved as herself, in which she details all her vile plots, gives vent to all her evil passions, and continues scribbling on while in time jaws of ruin, and in paroxysms

of terror, remorse, and despair; said, to make the matter worse, these letters lead to a discovery of her fatal intrigues, after she

and her correspondent have come to an untimely end. Timis, at all events, is quite wrong : for, if letter-writing under impossible circumstances be considered as a conventional licence in time epis- tolary novel, like soliloquizing or speaking aside in a play, no advantage onght to be taken of such communications. But now for a few of Lady BLESSINGTON'S sketches of that society which she may be presumed to be well acquainted with.

The young Countess of Annandale is brought to London, and introduced into her husband's fashionable circle. At an evening party she sees a number of ladies, each receiving attentions from

a gentleman, "marked by warmth rather than respect:' She innocently thinks it "pleasant to see married people so much attached," though she is surprised, as she had been told "that in society it was not customary for men to sit by their wives, or to walk about with them ; but the persons around us" she inn°. cently remarked, ' never quit each other." She makes some naive observation of this kind, for whieh she gets laughed at ; and next day she is thus schooled by her husband.

Ile told ate this morning, that I must be guaided in my observations in so- ciety, and not display my rusticity with regard to its general usages, under penalty of being exposed to its ridicule •' "a penalty," he added, looking most seriously, " more to be dreaded than all others, being one which is never over- come."

I asked to what be alluded, wondering what I could have said to subject my- self to so grave an exordium. "Did you not observe," he replied, "bow Lord Henry Mercer laughed when you made that very naive speech about Lady Harlestone? a few more such speeches will render you the talk of all the clubs, nay, more, the subject of their merriment. I thought the Compteese of Hohenliuden would never have ceased laughing when Mercer told her of I felt my anger a little excited at learning that I had been ridiculed, while ignorant as to the cause ; and my reflections led to his making me a disclosure that has shocked and disgusted me. Yes, Mary, the man who has vowed to love and protect me, and whom I have vowed to love, honour, and obey, has torn the bandage from my eyes, by informing me that nearly all the women in the circle in which I live—that circle into which he has led me—are supposed to have attachments with the men whom I, in the simplicity of my heart, be- lieved to be their husbands, judging from the familiar attentions I witnessed, and which attentions I thought, even from husbands, too familiar for public exhibition !

" And, knowing the conduct of these women," said I, "you could permit them to approach me ! "

" You must, really, my dear Augusta," was his reply, 46 learn to understand society. The ladies you allude to ore the most fashionable in London ; univer- sally sought after and received, and living on the best terms with their hus- bands. 'Why, then, should I object to your associating with them ? Such an absurd piece of prudery would expose me to the ridicule of all London, were I so wanting in tact as to put it in practice." "if the ladies in question," replied 1—and I felt my cheeks glow with indig- riation—" are sought after, and well received, and live on the best terms with their husbands' it must be because, adding hypocrisy to vice, they deceive the world, and the husbands they betray."

"By no means : society has no right to pry into the private conduct of any woman whose husband has not denounced her; and most husbands have too much philosophy or good-nature, to be severe towards their wives ; who, grate- ful for their forbearance, repay it by similar indulgence. Lady C. receives D., because it is agreeable to bird C. ; who, in turn, permits the constant pre- sence of Mr. E.; and thus domestic harmony is preserved, eselandres avoided, and husbands and wives, who no longer could be lovers, instead of proving a source of mettle yene and torment, become friends."

"You surely jest," said I, "and are imposing on my inexperience by the statements you have just made." "Pus de tout ma chere ; I assure you I have only stated the fact. Nine out of every ten married pairs belonging to our circle stand precisely in the posi-

tion I have described ; which is the secret of the good understanding that sub- sists between the greater number of them."

Here are two more. A WOMAN OF FASHION.

You osk me, chi.:re anrie, for a description or definition of a woman of fashion, according to the conimon acceptation of the term here. They are actresses, who play difficult parts on the stage of life, to audiences who are ever more prune to hiss than to applaud their pet for inauces. They Lose their individuality as wives, daughters, isters, and mothers, the sole parts women ought to enact, being recognized only in those fictitious rilies in which they have chosen to ex- hibit before the public ; and for which frivolous mummery they are paid by slander, mockery, and contempt. They, as you may well believe, are little aware of the sentiments they excite; au contraire, they imagine themselves to be admired and envied ; and even should some demonstration of the reverse meet their observation, they would, in all probability, attribute it to jealousy and envy. There are few metiers more fatiguing than that of a woman of fashion. She is condemned to a perpetual activity to maintain her position, as Napoleon was to make war abroad to preserve his power at home. Indolence on her part would quickly lead to her deposition; for there are as many competitors for the rtile as 10f that of premier ; and, like their political parallels, the most incapable are those who are the most indefatigable in seeking the distinction.

A woman of fashion must be callous to the domestic affections. How could sloe fulfil the arduous duties of her post, were she watching by the sick bed of some dear relative or consoling some bereaved one? How could she devote that attention to the regulations which, as a patroness of Almaek's, she must see enforced, were her mornings devoted to superintending the studies of her chil- dren or overlooking the details of her nd.nuye ? Luckily for women of fashion, excellent nurses care now be hired, who perform for gold the duties to the sick Which were wont to be fulfilled at the instigation of affection. Humble com- panions, known here under the appellation of toadies, speak, look, or read, ac- cording to order, by the easy chair or sofa of the mourner ; governesses, with "all manner of accomplishments" and no manner of knowledge, instruct the young ladies how to—catch rich husbands; and maitres d'Ivitel regulate the establishment, and also the percentage they are to receive for encouraging waste and extortion in it.

The woman of fashion, having emancipated herself from the drudgery of household cares and domestic duties, and having substituted the services of lbirelings, has ample time to perMriii the self-imposed functions of her office. She can devote a considerable poi thin of her mornings to looking over and an- swering the various applications for admission to Almack's. She can reject or accede to the humble petitions for the success of which young hearts throb and old ones deign to sue. She can receive the elite of her coterie, sit in con- clave on the admissibility of those who aspire to enter it, take a femininely warm part in the politics of whichever faction she has adopted, and pronounce en the ineligibility of those of the opposite one, without having ever given a serious thought (for ladies of fashion arc not addicted to serious thoughts) to the merits or qualifications of either party. Thus half the life of the being I have attempted to describe is passed, not so much in welting her own gratiti- Cation, as in endeavouriog to impede that of others.

A wish of displaying the power she has usurped, induces her, not tare.

quently, to an arbitrary and ill-natured abuse of it, exhibited in preventing the access of others to scenes where they, in their ignorance, imagine enjoyment is to be found, but where she, in her knowledge, has only too often proved the fallacy of their supposition.

TASHIONA BLE SPORTSMEN.

A young man of fashion, for to such only does my censure apply, thinks that certain expenses are indispensably necessary to his happiness. The cost of a wife, he calculates, must diminish the means of gratifying his personal lain- ices; therefore he will not marry until he shall have lost the taste and activity for shooting, hunting, and yachting. Then, however, the foods appropriated to these expensive pursuits may, he thinks, be directed to the support of a matrimonial establishment.

How could a young man of fashion exist without a shooting-place in the

game and dogpsartotakruen:ta a gi:

country, with a train of keepers to preserve his whatever may be the cost ? A moor in the Highlander of Scotland foritgdrouse..."' shooting, it would be impossible to forego ; and a party to

ments must be assembled. This gratification is obtained at the 'rue% several hundreds; but the payer has the pleasure of reading in the pasapcenLes", he and his guests shot so many hundred 'brace of birds on certain loilna,isse,reansk'd: is satisfied. Many are they who frequent the Highlands with little or no desire for boss ing ; but who, haying no rational pursuit, are at a loss to know how to 4 D; the two months that intervene between the close of the London season 1,1s;

opening of the hunting one; consequently, at the mandate of foal' and — mode of getting rid of time.

The young man of fashion must, therefore, hunt at Melton; and to d0 with "'decent dignity," requires an establishment of grooms andehmetalpbenilest0hatthelin would astonish Nimrod himself, could he behold them ; and the hills for allies seldom fail to astonish the purses of their owners. But it is not the horses and grooms alone that consume thousands g Melton : the chasseurs find that French cooks alone can produce audbanquets as they require to recruit their exhausted frames, and collect at their 4, best society." During the interminable evenings, the chase of the day furnishes tthhee huitiextu; haustible topic of conversation, each biped arrogating to himself the merit flit; belongs solely to his more intelligent quadrupeds. Prolix details of he dr iowe: equestrian prowess—each narrator the hero of his own tale—enlivened by epi sodical histories of their favourite hunters, past and. present, fill IT that intervene between dinner and the period of retiring to bed; unless cordial' dice are introduced, to diversify this rational mode of whiling away hours. ,

Many of the chasseurs at Melton are as little partial to hunting as those oho frequent the Highland moors are to grouse-shooting. The truth of this user. time is hest proved by the joyous alacrity with which, the moment a frost sets in, they rush up to London, like boys released from school, and plunge into all the amusements and dissipation of the metropolis, until a thaw sends thern dorm again, with lengthened faces and shortened purses, to renew their support.

How often is the thermometer examined with wistful eyes, and an approach to the freezing-point hailed with pleasure ! You will naturally wonder wsy,0 heavy an expense as a hunting-establishment is incurred, if they who entail it on themselves like not the amusement. Fashion, ostentation, and the puerile desire of even that species of celebrity which this extravagance can acquire, furnish the inducements; added to the reflection of the utter impossibility of otherwise filling up the winter months.

We need not pursue these illustrations of the morality, utility, and happiness of "fashionable" society : the book is made up of them. In spite of an ambition of epigrammatic sentences, the pre- vailing characteristic of Lady BLESSINGTOWS remarks is that of plain good sense, not very original. Her composition is regular and rounded; all the worse for the profusion of French phrases she interlards it with, and which French is not always pure.