lives, and get a woman hanged or burnt, only for being a little too old, and as a warning to all ancient persons who should dare to live longer than the young ones think convenient." Singular, indeed, it is, that these scribes, conversant, no doubt, with their country's history, should have forgotten that "when," to use the language of Alfred de Vigny, "there were no brave men in Israel, Deborah arose!"

Earlier than the days of Martial down to the very present, the fool's sneer, the scoff of "shallow jesters and rash bavin wits" have been levelled at woman's vanity, her love of dress and luxury, and preference of outward beauty to inward excellence. Lycoris, with her tinted cheeks -rouge-pots have been found at Herculaneum; Egle, with her false teeth; Polla burying her wrinkles beneath a layer of bean-paste; Galla retiring to rest, having deposited her uprchased charms and artificial loveliness in a hundred boxes:-gibes and taunts like these have gratified the misogynist's spite in many an age. It is in vain to remind the snarlers that, from the remotest antiquity, the idea of goodness has always associated itself with that of beauty, and that when the sculptor's chisel and the painter's brush have been called on to image vice and wickedness, they have ever represented them under the guise of physical deformity and outward hideousness. To those conversant with the history of art, it is unnecessary to add that, both in classical and medieval times, the artist, in representing evil demons varying in the degree of their malignity and diabolism, ever figured the evilest spirit as the most ugly. In this, surely we discover a sufficient reason that woman should not be indifferent to her personal appearance. When Baptista Porta, one of the most learned men of his time, had to seek a patron to whom to dedicate his greatest work, he chose the Cardinal J. D'Este, and chose him solely because of his beauty. See in what a sarcastic spirit Paradin, in his Chronique de Savoye, is careful to inform the world, to whom it mattered not one jot, that a certain Greek duchess of Vienna was not only so dainty as to suck her food through tubes of gold, but so anxious for her complexion as to bathe herself frequently in dew! The harsh Earl of Shrewsbury was. content enough to play the gaoler to Mary Queen of Scots, but was evidently annoyed at her favourite practice of taking a bath of wine. In what a tone of grave irony does Sir Francis Knollys write to the secretary Cecil-men with hearts hard as the nether millstone-how the poor Queen, a fugitive from her rebellious subjects, and a suppliant of her deadliest enemy, concerned herself on her arrival at Carlisle with the important matter of her head-dress, how she "praysed Mystres Marye Ceaton" for being "the fynest busker, that is to say, the fynest dresser of a woman's heade or heare, that is to be seen in any countrye," and how, "every other day hitherto she hathe a new devyce of head-dressyng!" We find a certain celebrated lady-Charlotte Elizabeth of Bavaria, second Duchess of Orleans -affectedly depreciating her own outward presentment, but who believes she was in earnest? Writing in 1718, she thus pictures her person, "I

must certainly be monstrous ugly. I never had a good feature. My eyes are small, my nose short, my lips broad and thin. These are not materials to form a beautiful face. Then, I have flabby, lank checks, and long features which suit ill with my low stature. My waist and legs are equally clumsy. Undoubtedly, I must appear to be an odious little wretch." This enumeration of defects is too minute and exact to permit us to believe the writer accounted them as such, and the catalogue appears to us an elaborate piece of detestable affectation. Olivia, in the "schedule" of her charms (Twelfth Night, act i. scene v.), is equally depreciatory; but Olivia had had too recent proof of the potency of her beauty to doubt its reality, and had, certainly, at the time she spoke, no intention that its reality should be doubted by her handsome auditor. Was this Bavarian princess one whit more candid?

Women's fondness for gauds and finery has not, of course, escaped the notice of censorious criticism; and the instances of its malice in this direction are as numerous as the leaves at Valombrosa. Harpsfield, a sour old monk and chronicler, that is a recorder of incredible legends and monstrous lies, tells a pretty tale of a certain saint, one St. Ethelreda, better known as St. Audrey, who died of a swelling in the throat, and piously refers the source of her malady to her wickedness in early life, when she was mightily given to the wearing of smart necklaces. The crabbed old priest did not know that, originally, the necklace, or collar, was only a mark of rank or distinction, and afterwards was worn as an amulet or charm against disease, and that it should have brought on the mumps, as he pretends, is nothing better than a gigantic fib. Selden, a thorough misogynist, as became his Puritanical humour, and as his Uxor Hebraica sufficiently shows, has his fling at the sex, remarking that "it is reason a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him. He that will keep a monkey, it is fit he should pay for the glasses he breaks." Bunyan said nothing worse than this when he disabled woman's judgment by the remark—“ Such a thing may happen as that the woman, not the man, may be in the right, but ordinarily it was otherwise." Even Herrick, the English Catullus, whose amatory effusions resemble honey sweetened with sugar when characterizing womankind, could say nought better of it than that it is a sorry mixture of good and bad, gold and dross, worthiness and worthlessness, for so are his words to be interpreted :—

Learn of me what woman is,

Something made of thread and thrumme,
A mere botch of all and some!

Shop.

IT happened to the writer of this article, not very long ago, to find himself in the back parlour of a celebrated dog-fancier on the Surrey side of the river. His object was to purchase for a country friend the ugliest, and crossest, and smallest bull-dog that could be got for money. The proprietor of the establishment, however, while professing to know exactly the kind of dawg that was required, admitted with great candour that he had none such in his possession. Propitiated by his sincerity, we consented to order from the bar-for he kept a public-house-two glasses of brown fluid, of the same price as sherry, one of which we devoted to wishing Mr. Napper health, happiness and prosperity. He sipped sparingly the other in acknowledgment of our politeness; and we then fell into conversation. Among the other claims to distinction which our host possessed, he evidently ranked none higher than his intimacy with the celebrated Mr. Calcraft; a friendship which seemed to have had its origin in the remarkable circumstance that the first pair of "Balmoral boots" which ever clasped the trim ankles of Mrs. Napper were fashioned by that illustrious artist. Rejoicing at the opportunity thus presented to us of learning something of that public functionary's tastes, habits, and manners in private life, we pressed the subject into detail. Mr. Napper disclosed to us many particulars of his friend's life and character which seemed to show that he was by nature of a peaceful and unoffending disposition, but which do not concern the purpose of the present article. But a trait which does concern it, and one on which Mr. Napper laid great stress, was this: that the carnifex was excellent company," and that you might drink with him a whole evening without discovering his profession. We were a good deal struck with the observation, though less surprised at the reticence .of the gentleman in question than at Mr. Napper's appreciation of it. For it was quite clear that he did not connect Mr. Calcraft's habitual abstinence from professional topics with the unpleasant nature of his avocations. Far from this-he evidently saw in it but the modesty of a great man, and the taste of a well-bred one, who dislikes talking about himself, or making much of such little services as he may have been able to render to the State. Mr. Calcraft, in short, though under strong temptation so to do, never "talked shop," and herein set an example to the world, on which it is our present purpose to moralize.

It is often said that he must be a very stupid man who cannot talk well about himself, and the truth which is expressed in this saying is the best excuse there is for your ordinary egotist. And where half-a-dozen people of different professions are assembled together, the record of each.

VOL. XI. No. 64.

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man's personal experience is not unlikely to form the best kind of conversation of which the company is capable. Again, of course, when all the individuals of the party are of the same profession, it is only natural they should talk about it, and their talk will bore nobody. But when people denounce the habit of talking shop, thay mean something different from either of these supposed cases. They are thinking of the position of some one or two unfortunate outsiders in a circle of professional men who persist in keeping the conversation to their own peculiar interests, either careless if the strangers are entertained with it or not, or else taking for granted that what is interesting to themselves must of necessity be so to other people. To suffer under this infliction is one of the commonest of the evils to which humanity in society is heir. Who does not know the symptoms which announce its coming? who has not made, in his own person, frantic but futile efforts to arrest its course? Say you are at a dinner-party where the host and a majority of the male guests are barristers. While the ladies are present, some attempt at general conversation will, of course, be made, and, in proportion to the ability and general information of the company, will be successful. But no sooner have they disappeared, and the host bustling about towards the fire, has observed that it is a cold night, than Jones sees his chance even in this innocent remark, and informs his neighbour that he hopes it will be warmer to-morrow, when he has to start on circuit. Quid plura? At that magic word every tongue is unloosed. Feebly you murmur something about the hard winter, or the skating, or the hunting. Your words are drowned in copious reminiscences of the bar mess, circuit jokes, and judicial eccentricities. The demon of "shop" has taken the bit between his teeth, and you might as well attempt to make an angry woman hear reason as to divert the conversation into other channels. The reader will, of course, understand that we are very far from meaning that barristers when they form the majority of a company always conduct themselves in this way; we merely mean to recall by the reproduction of a few of its salient features what is the result when they do. Again, take a party of clergymen. You try to adapt yourself to your company by asking the reverend gentleman opposite, who looks as if he would like to talk, whether he has read the Bishop of Oxford's last speech? Before he has time to reply, the word "bishop" has acted like a charm, and roused the train of ideas ever uppermost in clerical minds. "Have you heard," shouts a fresh-coloured curate, from one end of the table to the other, "what our bishop said to little Chapters the other day about that new schoolroom he wants to build at Puddlestone?" In vain you try back to him of Oxford; that prelate has excommunicated you for the remainder of the evening. Idly you endeavour to make your tormentors turn and rend each other by raising the Colenso controversy: in such a company as that there will probably be no readers, and but one opinion, of the work in question. No, it is no use; and you resign yourself for the next two hours to mild chaff of the diocesan-to the politics of the vestry and the schoolroom-to the deep-dyed depravity of Groggins, who won't

make his waggoner go to church-and the still darker wickedness of Gallons, who takes his wife to the public-house.

In exclusively rural neighbourhoods, where the guests are chiefly agricultural, the same nuisance may be looked for. At the very first pause in the conversation, after the men are left alone, is sure to come the ominous question, "At Oatsbro' last Wednesday, Mr. Mangold?" Yes, Mr. Wurzel, I were; I didn't see you." "No, I had to look at some beast. Do you know what old Furrows got for his barley?" And so on to the end of the third bottle of port. It is unnecessary to multiply instances. Military shop about "knapsack drill" or Miss Velox; sporting shop; theatrical shop; even medical shop, the least offensive perhaps of any, are all pretty much alike in this one common feature: that all deal with the mere mechanical details of the respective professions which evoke them, and not with those higher interests which make all professions akin, and appeal to feelings and opinions which are common to mankind.

If we turn this subject round, and look at it from the other side, we shall get a still clearer view of the true nature of the offence. Why should this kind of talk be called "shop"? Doubtless the epithet was given to it, in the first instance, as simple slang. But is there no deeper propriety in the application of it than belongs to a mediocre witticism? Does not the reader now see that the word "shop," as applied to conversation, bears exactly the same relation to a higher order of professional discourse, as the shop proper bears to commerce in its best sense? There is no disgrace in keeping a shop. It is a creditable and useful occupation. Neither is there anything abstractedly unworthy in the barrister's talk about Mr. Baron Boozer's last joke, or what a mess poor Mr. Duffin made of his first brief. The bishop's reply to Mr. Chapters, and the iniquities of Groggins and Gallons, may be discussed with much practical advantage by an assemblage of clergymen. The price of Mr. Furrows' barley is instructive to the farmer. And knapsack and crinoline mix the utile with the dulce very properly for the youthful subaltern. There is nothing for either lawyer, parson, soldier, or farmer to be ashamed of in discussing these respective subjects. But what they should be ashamed of is the obtrusion of these topics upon persons not conversant with professional technicalities. And they deserve the ridicule which has been very freely showered upon them, from all time, if they imagine that every one outside of their own profession is dying with curiosity to know something of its common everyday routine.

Professional conversation of every kind has within itself the capacity of rising into a higher region, in which it becomes more or less catholic, and touches, as we have said, emotions common to mankind. But nobody ever dreams of calling this kind of conversation "shop." Law, divinity, the military art, medicine, even agriculture have, for their final causes, objects in which the whole human race is interested; and are, when engaged upon a large scale of action, concerned with those phenomena which are the fuel of romance and poetry. The description of a