discomfort, and reflect with pleasure on the digestive powers of the rising generation; while even the cynic will gain something from the scene, for he will be enabled to appreciate Crabbe, and to read him with enjoyment.

DINNERS IN THE PROVINCES.

WE are often told that the privileges of the landed interest are excessive, and that each succeeding year tends to exalt the position which it enjoys. The possession of acres gives its peculiar advantages. The country proprietor may look forward to seeing his name on the Commission of the Peace, and may dream of some day being mistaken for a General at a foreign Court when attired in the resplendent uniform of a Deputy-Lieutenant. In the Midland counties his tenants will take off their hats when they meet him. He may choose any known or unknown animal to represent the device his ancestors wore when setting out for the Crusades; and his wife can patronise the local bazaar, and may possibly be asked to the Yeo

manry ball. This is the bright side of the picture, but, great and indubitable as are the advantages we have described, there are hideous responsibilities connected with the tenure of land, which the auctioneer takes no count of, and which sit behind both Lord and Deputy Lieutenants. When a man has "a stake in the country," whatever that may be, his opinions attain a certain importance, and he is expected to lose no opportunity of declaring them. This is the time of year when the opportunity occurs, and throughout the months of November and December innumerable banquets and dinners give birth to the beautiful speeches which are reported in the local newspapers. To speak—that is to say, to utter words belonging to the English language, and endeavour to apply them to a given subject-seems impossible in cold blood. Meat and alcohol are required to stimulate the nerves to the desired pitch, while the harmony of knives and spoons cheers the speaker as he shows what quaint combinations the English tongue is capable of. The object of the meeting has but little effect in determining the complexion of the entertainment. Everything re

N

solves itself into eating and drinking. The birth of a child, the marriage of an heir, the presentation of a thing of ugliness to be a sorrow on some sideboard for ever, the success of an agricultural association, the formation of a Company to enlist the sympathies of the public on behalf of decayed and indigent mice to protect them against their natural enemies the cats, the desire to do honour to Mr Cobden, or the resignation of some one who has retired a few years after the loss of all his faculties has overtaken himall these offer a curious similarity in the mode in which they are celebrated. Some day is fixed upon which a dinner is to take place in the neighbouring town, at a sufficiently remote period to cause the engagement to dwell as a nightmare upon the minds of the invited guests. When the day arrives it displays in a remarkable degree what inconveniences Englishmen are ready from a sense of duty or custom to submit to. The hour is probably an abnormal one, to enable some one to miss a late train; the chairman is probably unpunctual, and the guests flit about a cold and dismal ante-room; those who are dressed in evening clothes are

vaguely conscious of their peculiarity, while the frock-coated tribe of men are engaged in counting their numbers, hoping to lose their self-consciousness in a sense of their own preponderance. At intervals they cross the room, as if they had some purpose to fulfil, then hurriedly turn back, and subside nervously into a corner. All the professions are represented; there is the squireen who has driven seven miles in a dogcart, and shakes hands as if hands had no sensations. There are clergymen and doctors. Why the health of the medical profession is not drunk at these gatherings we do not know; perhaps that of the county members might be omitted for a few years to create a vacancy, during which interval they might devote themselves to the composition of a speech on the expiration of the Ballot in 1880. There are several reporters, though why they should take the trouble to leave their homes it is not easy to guess. What could be simpler than to write in peace in their own rooms that the Queen was a good Queen, that the Prince of Wales had been ill but was better again, and that no county sympathised more than that particular county; that the