A Hundred Years Ago
Undoubtedly, Fashion has not yet had so pleasant an expositor. The author is a neat, light-handed satirist ; a person of good sense, who writes a charming style, and is not the less agreeable because he understands that which he is writing about. The hero of the School of Fashion is a fine young man of family and presumptive fortune, falling into the society of one of the "root and branch" system of philosophy—a young lawyer without practice, negligent in his dress, but starched in his principles—becomes a convert to the new light : from being a thoughtless, hunting, shooting, driving, dancing, hearty boy, of agreeable behaviour, and of good natural though uncultivated abilities, he is quickly converted into a Utilitarian prig—in other words, an intolerable bore : he conceives it his duty to Interrupt the progress of dinner with demonstrations of the absurdity of the whole system of society as at present established : he contradicts every person who utters opinions underived from the true cede; and will not permit the utterance of the most casual sentiment without trying it by the test of Utility ; in short, to the infinite satisfaction of himself, and the disgust of everybody else, he prates incessantly of the deepest questions in the shallowest and most impertinent- style, and whether in season or out of season, insists upon turning the world upside down, in the most indecent manner, before the face of every man who is constrained to listen to him. The natural effect of this change, of behaviour, and also of his style of thinking, is to fill him with an utter contempt of all his former friends and relations : his "coxcombry alienates his uncle and patron ; and his principles lead him to neglect and despise an anniable and lovely person to whom he had been attached before his conversion.
THE LATE Mn. TERRY.
Terry, if not the last, was of the very last few surviving intellectual Performers, of whom Kemble, and, before him, Garrick, are the departed chiefs. It is not the intention of this obituary tribute to ill-appreciated excellence, of however high an order, to claim for Terry an even rank with those great names ; but he was of them, and he is high in the class in which they were pre-emirient. Terry exerted in the study a strong understanding cultivated by scholar- ship ; and found full employment for a mind above the common level, in what the actors of this day see only an exercise of features, voice, and limbs—pleasing, as has been well remarked, when they chance to please, they know not why," and offending, as they mostly do, they know not how."
RETROSPECT OF LONDON SEASON.
The only novelty of the season has been a refinement in dinners, which does away entirely with dishes on the table. People of the first water now dine after the Russian fashion. The table is spread with the dessert only ; and the fish, meat, soups, dtc., are handed round. This mode is too fine to last ; and it is incompatible with the observance of the directions of the wisest men to dinner guests :— "When thou sittest at a ruler's table, consider diligently what is set before thee."
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