tentions and projects in the minds of great statesmen, of which they had not at the time fully determined, but were actually canvassing and balancing-weighing the benefit and counting the cost-and one syllable about which they had never dropped to a colleague.

What a benefit is it to have a body of men like this in a country where political action is so easy to discount into gold, and where the certainty of this enactment or the repeal of that could resolve itself into fortune to-morrow! Nor is it small praise to a profession when can say that what in other lands is guarded by legal enactment, and fenced by the protection of the tribunals, can be, and is, in our country, left to the honourable feeling and right-hearted spirit of true gentlemen.

we

There is another service Doctors have rendered society, and I declare I have never found it either acknowledged or recognised. Of all men, there are none so vigilantly on the watch to protect the public from that pestilence of humbug and deceit which, whether it call itself spiritualism, mesmeric agency, clairvoyance, or any other fashionable trickery of the day, has now resolved itself into a career, and has assumed all the outward signs and dignities of a profession.

To all these the Doctor is the sworn foe, and very frequently to his personal detriment and loss. Who has not heard at the dinnertable or the fireside the most outrageous assertions of phenomena, alleged to be perfectly in accordance with natural laws, but of which experience only records one instance or two perhaps in five or six centuries, met by the calm wisdom of the physician, the one man present, perhaps, able to explain the apparent miracle, or refute the palpable absurdity? It has been more than once my own fortune to have witnessed such controversy, and I have never done so without a sense of gratitude that

there were disseminated throughout every walk of our social system these upright and honest guardians of truth.

It would be a very curious and a very subtle subject for inquiry, to investigate the share of the Doctors in the political education of society. The men who go everywhere, mix with all ranks and gradations of men, talk with each of them on the topics of the day, learning how class and condition influence opinions and modify judgments, must gain an immense insight into the applicability of any measure, and of its bearing on the different gradations of society. With this knowledge, too, they must be able to disseminate their own ideas with considerable power, and enforce their own opinions by arguments derived from various sources, doing these things, not through the weight and power of a blind obedience, as the priest might, but by force of reason, by the exercise of a cultivated understanding aided by especial opportunity. If I were a statesman, I would cultivate these men. say this in no sense that implies corruption, but I would regard them as an immense agency in the govvernment of mankind; and I would take especial pains to learn their sentiments on measures which touch the social relations of the world, and secure, so far as I might, their honourable aid and co-operation.

I

They have replaced the Priest in that peculiar confidence men accord to those who are theirs, not by blood or kindred, but by the operation of that mysterious relationship that unites relief to suffering.

I say, again, I would cultivate the Doctors. They see more, hear more, and know more than other men, and it would be my task to make them the channels of opinion on the interesting topics of the day, by extending to them the amplest confidence and the freest access to information.

I would open to them every avenue to the truth, every access to

I wish there was a society for the suppression of our droll people. Don't mistake me: I do not mean veritable wits-men of infinite jest, gossip, and humour-but the socalled drolls, who say dry things in a dry voice, relate stories dramatically, give imitations, and occasionally sing songs. Most cities have three or four of these, and drearier adjuncts to social stupidity I know not. First of all, these creatures have their entertainments as "cut and dried" as any stageplayer. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing of apropos, about them. What they say or sing has been written for them, or by them, it matters not which; and in the very fact that they can go on repeating it for years, you have the measure of their capacity and their taste.

I suspect that the institution is an English one—at least, I cannot at this moment remember having ever met one of these people either German, French, Italian, or Spanish. No other nation, I am certain, would endure the infliction but our own. It must be to a people hopelessly unable to amuse themselves, longing for some pastime without knowing what it should be, and trained to believe the Adelphi or the Strand amusing, that these insufferable bores could possibly be welcome. Our English attempts at fun are, like our efforts at statuary, very ungainly and awkward, and only productive of laughter and ridicule. We are a dry, grave, occasionally humoristic people, and so intently bent on the practical, that we require an illustration to be as efficient as the thing it typifies -that is, we want the shadow to be as good flesh and bone as the substance. Our droll is therefore a great boon to us; "he makes me

VOL. XCVII.-NO. DXCI.

laugh" is an expression compounded of three parts self-esteem and one part contempt. It is the last word of the helplessness of him who never yet amused any one, and has yet an expression of disparagement for the effort made to interest himself. Yet is the droll in request. Without him how is the dreary evening party to be carried through? How is that hour to be reached when it is meet for people to say "good-night," without any show of the weariness that weighs on them?

How are the incongruous elements of society to be amalgamated without this reconciling ingredient, who, at least, inspires one sentiment in common amongst thema sincere contempt for himself? We have agreed in England that the man who condescends to please us must be more or less of an adventurer. Nobody with any honest calling or decent means of livelihood would think of being amusing. From this axiom it comes that the drolls are ever taken from the hopeless categories of mankind; and thus, in the same spirit with which we give all the good music to the devil, we devote the profession of wit to the poorest intelligences amongst us. Drolls are therefore depreciated-depreciated, but culti vated. Our tone is, have them and maltreat them. Now, I wonder what would take place in Great Britain if the drolls were to combine and strike work-declare that they knew their social claims, and felt their own importance that until some more liberal treatment should be secured them by law, not another joke should be uttered, not the shadow of a bon mot be detected. Dinners, déjeûners, picnics, and routs, might go on, with what material resources cookery, confection

E

ery, and a cellar could provide, but as regards the most ethereal elements there would be a famine. Why, dancing without music would be nothing to it. The company might just as well try to be their own orchestra as their own jester. And is not this a most humiliating avowal! Here you are, a party, let us say, of sixteen souls ranged round a dinner-table. You are well fed and well ministered to, and yet somehow the thing flags. The talk is per saltum-broken and in jets; there is no movement, no ensemble, for somehow you want the hardihood of a certain social adventurer, who will "go in" recklessly to assert something, contradict something, or explain something, with a dash of indifference as to consequences that will inspire the rest with some of his own hardihood. The great thing is to shock Mrs Grundy; till that be done, her sway is indisputable. This man is quite prepared for such a service. He has a shot that will startle her; he has a story that will stun her. Now, I ask, where, out of the professional ranks, are you to meet with these qualities? and if you really want them-if they be a requirement of your age and your social system, why-I ask again-why not have them of the best? why not secure the good article, instead of putting up with the poor counterfeit? It is for this reason I say, suppress your present drolls, and make a profession of it. There may come an age in which lawyers will defend prisoners without a fee, and physicians go forth to cure the sick unrewarded. In such a glorious millennium, droll people will doubtless be found ready to be witty without being fed. Till this blessed time shall arrive, however, let us provide for human wants with human foresight. Our age is a hard-pressed, overworked age. We come daily to our homes jaded, wearied, and exhausted; our money-seeking is a hard fight, and leaves us very tired towards the close of the day's battle. We find, then, that we need a re

fresher after it a sort of moral "schnaps"-that may rally us into that condition in which enjoyment becomes possible. To this end, therefore, do I say, let us not destroy our healthy appetite by a corrupted or adulterated liquor. Let, in fact, the wits who are to amuse us be really wits-no amateur performers, no dilettanti "Drolls," but trained, tried, and approved practitioners-licentiates in humour, duly qualified to practise in the best society-men who would no more repeat a known anecdote than Francatelli would reheat a cutlet.

Trained in all the dialectics of the dinner-table, such men know the exact amount of talk that can be administered during a course; and, in their marvellous tact, are they able to regulate the discursive conversationalists around them, giving time and emphasis and accent, just as Costa imposes these qualities over an unruly orchestra.

It is an inconceivable mistake to commit the task of amusing to the book-writers. Men who are much versed in the world's affairs have really little time for reading

they read hastily, and judge imperfectly; we want, therefore, a society who shall disseminate the popular topics of the day-not carelessly or inaccurately, but neatly, appropriately, and exactly-able to condense a debate into the time of the soup, or give a sketch of a popular novel in the space of an entrée. What a savour and relish would such men impart to society! The mass of people talk very ill. They talk loosely-loosely as to fact, and more loosely as to expression. They mistake what they read, mistake what they hear, not from wilfulness, but out of that sloppy insipid carelessness which is assumed to be a feature of goodbreeding-accuracy being to the men of fashion about as vulgar an attribute as haste or hurry. Now, the example of a professional talker will have great influence in suppressing this dreary inanity.

I know I am well aware that what I propose will be a deathblow to "haw-haw," and a fatal injury to "you know;" but who regrets them? Is it not a generation which has grieved us long enough? Have they not lowered the national credit for pleasantry to the verge of bankruptcy? Are we not come to that pass that we must repudiate our droll people, or consent to be deemed the stupidest nation in Christendom?

Add to the Civil Service Com

mission, then, an examination for diners-out. Make a pursuit, a regular career, of the practice, and see what abilities and what excellences you will attract to it. Abandoning conversation to pretenders, is like leaving medicine to the quacks or theology to the streetpreachers. I have seen a deal of life, and you may take my word for it, amateurs never attain any high excellence, except it be in wickedness!

The French have an adage, that "tous les gouts sont respectables," which must be a great comfort to many people, but to none that I know of more than that innocent section of mankind who make it their business to collect postage stamps. What these people of much leisure and little ingenuity mean by it I never could make out! Have they discovered any subtle acid, any cunning process, by which the stamp of disqualification can be effaced, and are they enabled to cheat the Treasury by a reissue? This would be a grave impugnment of their honesty, it is true; but while thus accusing their hearts it would vindicate their heads.

They might, perhaps, have heard of that famous Dutch doctor who made a great fortune by buying up all the sick and disabled negroes in the West Indies, and, having cured, resold them, very often to their former masters, who never recognised, in the plump and grinning Sambo, the wretched object he had "cast" a few months before and sold off as a screw. Though the philanthropic portion of this device-and it is the gem of its virtue-could not certainly be applied to the postage-stamp question, all the profitable elements offer a great similarity. With even my very limited knowledge of these collectors, however, I am far from imputing to them such intentions. I am certain that the pursuit is a most

harmless one, and if I cannot vindicate it on higher grounds, I am ready to maintain its innocence.

Let me, however, ask, What is meant by it? Is it the intention to establish a cheap portrait-gallery of living princes and rulers? Is it to obtain, at a minimum cost, the correct face and features of the men who sway the destinies of their fellow-men? If so, the coinage, even in its basest form, would be infinitely preferable. The most battered penny that ever was bartered for a gill of blue ruin is better as a medallion than is the smudged and semi-glutinous bit of dirty stamp as a print. But, I ask, whose face, amongst all the kings and kaisers, do we want to know better or more intimately than we have them in 'Punch' ?

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If you want living resemblances, there is a Commissioner " "every day at Whitehall the very image of Victor Emmanuel; and as for Louis Napoleon, I'll show you six French Emperors any day you please, within ten minutes, in Holywell Street. Would you desire the Queen of Spain?-but let us not be ungallant. And now, again, I say, what curiosity can any reasonable being have to possess the commonplace effigies of the most commonplacelooking people in Europe?

If this postage-stamp mania were instructive in any way-were it even suggestive-I could understand it; but it seems to me the