by-ways, while sophistication and iniquity drive coaches-and-six down Piccadilly, (these being country innocents who do believe in coaches-and-six, in spite of all the Broughams which come and go,) they are angry, I must say, not merely at peril of their veracity, but also of their reputation, as being able to read. To me, it seems impossible to take a walk abroad, or to consult a journal, whatsoever its politics, whatsoever its clients, whatsoever its leaders and its underlings, without being struck by the enthusiasms of friendship and the effusions of gratitude. Seriously, there is no Southcote so outrageously self-complacent or secure as to the world's end, who cannot get followers to receive her strange sacraments-no pill so venomous in its power to sever soul from body, without its list of cases as long as, and more glorious than, those catalogues of accredited cures which science, modest when maturest, simply puts forth; pretending the vulgar mundane creature!-to no infallibility. And in these warrants, credentials, compliments, (call them what you will,) there is far more of sincerity, and less of selfishness, than the world dreams-unless it be, that the root of all fanaticism is Self-the idea of a Self that shall prophesy; of a Self that shall heal; of a Self that shall overthrow; and to which all prophesying or healing or overthrowing done in others' fashions, is offensive and distasteful. People love to believe-especially be the fact large enough, sufficiently sweeping, and one which slaps in the face established truths-and from believing pass on to generalise with a delicious contempt of objection. The Heir of Castle Pimple, who seems to have been actuated by no other principle of life and conversation, than the fear of "falling as the leaves do in October," did well, when in an extremity of effervescence and fever, and irritability, to "surprise his stomach" (as my Mrs. Bell drily put it) by cold water, and to give his limbs a chance, by brisk exercise up a hill, with only a plain dinner" at the top. And no wonder that Pimpleton of Castle Pimple is grateful, warm in praise of the cold element, when he finds that he is now able to sleep without " night-mares in his bed," to eat without terrors by way of grace before, and twinges by way of disgrace, after his meal-now that his head has become clear enough to take pleasure in dwelling upon the concerns of the Carbuncle Cottages, or to organise a vigorous resistance against the branch of Lady Salisbury's pet railway, which was to root up his mother's jointure house. He would be no human 66 Pimple if he did not gush with gratitude. But he has the misfortune to be connected with the Leanshanks family-spare, melancholy, gray-complexioned, feeble people-not one of whom, since the days of "Bluff King Hal," was ever known to "be carried to bed;" and who, for the last two hundred years, have been lifting up small voices in admiration of early hours and blue milk. And he happeneth to pounce upon Meagre Corner, at the very time when Miss Lavinia, the seventh daughter of the house, after pining ever since she was born, seems now as resolute as a Leanshanks can be, to "give up the whole affair as a lost case;" in plain English, "to go out" (for there are departures from life, which hardly deserve an appellation more vigorous). Cousin Pimpleton was always a kind soul: craving to be lethargic, he has become boisterously kind. Something must be done for the fading Lavinia; and that in the "wringing of a sheet." He will have her off to Umberslade, or Malvern, or Ilkley, with all the speed of a cataract! She is to be wrapped up in wet clouts, as she sits in his open carriage on a raw March day! She is to drink a cup of cold water every time she changes horses; and, when they stop for the night, to pass an hour in the rain-tub, ere she is dismissed to bed. These strong measures have the result which any one, save a Naiad, or Nereid, could have foreseen. Ere three weeks are over, poor Miss Lavinia's monument cuts a genteel and woful figure in the churchyard; and her kindhearted cousin and friend wipes his eyes (execrating them the while, that she was let to slip through their fingers, by the drenching having commenced at too late a period) and rushes off to make amends for the waste of this poor dear "drop in a bucket," by a doubly energetic assault on some other ailing creature-let us hope with better success, though with no better sense! These are the people by aid of whom the Solomons thrive, and the Morisons build their Gamboge Castles. There is nothing they won't swear to ; they will sign every thing. If a thumb but has ached, they will vow that they had lost the use of one side! If they were apt to see double "of afternoons," they will print, as a fact, that their "visual organs had, for a considerable period, been essentially impaired." They would put their portraits on the ambulating advertisers, which make such an odd addition to our London vehicles. What do I say?—they would drive a machine themselves, rather than ungratefully, or out of false delicacy, hang back from sharing with others facts so inestimable; a deliverance so precious! The Faculty may counsel caution. Since the days of Job, doctors have been old noodles, or worse. They know better. Friends may recal past counsels, warnings, encouragements, &c., &c., and the like. Friends lie; they always do. And every one (save themselves and the projectors of the nostrum elect) is leagued to keep the human race in the dark; and sickly, and wound round with absurd prejudices, for purposes, the wickedness of which lies on the surface! Stated as above, can anything seem much more absurd than gratitude running a-muck-than enthusiasm knocking down the feeble, by way of helping them to hold themselves up? Yet I appeal to those who have no particular matter in hand of their own, to say whether the humour in which testimonials are oftentimes given-when given voluntarily-is caricatured in my specimen Figure. Ah! long live Faith! Long live Earnestness! Long live sympathy! but long live, too, permission for the bystander to demand a reason for these to ask what manner of man it is that bloweth his trumpet so loudly, without said bystander being branded as infidel, or put to do penance in the broad sheet, as irreverent, or lashed by brute sarcasm (there is a brute sarcasm no less than a brute force and a brute folly) as bigoted. But would that these were the only testimonials going!Vanity is a noxious thing. A Duke who fancies he has a taste in sculpture, and picks out a stone-cutter for his protégé, may disfigure London with a Monster on an Arch, past the power of any Press earthquake to dislodge. A fine lady who believes in the philanthropic clairvoyance of a Mademoiselle Felicité, may inspire her coterie of fine Ladies with curious assurances, that the same Parisian demoiselle is to cure them of the need of employing rouge, or hair-dye, or any other material for the making-up of Evening Youth and Candle-light Beauty. And a Monster, as has been said, or a false colour given to several silly women, may come of it, past all hope of redress or cure: to the vexation of all touchy and honest persons. But think of the testimonials which are not given in good faith!-Think of the rubbishy statues, and the rubbishy French-women, authenticated "for a consideration "the Public not choosing, nor desiring, even to examine! Consider to dwell upon an important topic, as Mr. Carlyle will bear me out in styling it,-to wit, the Clothes Question-consider ye, the certificates published by the Advertising Tailors-the letters from customers no less august than the personages mentioned in the Irish ballad,-to wit, "The famous Duchess of Bavaria," which the proprietors of the Autumn Impervious Coblentz, and the Winter Hyperborean Capot-the Summer Dust-Inimical Overalls, and the Spring "Deeds-not-Words" Paletot have to show. One Crowned Head, believed to lie under considerable peril from Illuminati, Carbonari, Right-Diviners, or Wrong-Defenders, cannot rest on its pillow, till "Two of the same pattern as the last-one with mother-of-pearl buttons, for the Château "-have been "forwarded by the very earliest opportunity!"-Her Peninsular Majesty writes, in no less urgent an agony, "For a Habit of the Patent Superfine Blue Steam-pressed Camlomere," signing herself "Isabella" in a scrawl which you can read from the top of an omnibus. Jenny Lind must have "A Patent Seal ParDessus" (at least so the elderly gentlemen who fetched her from Vienna writes to Messrs. Stickle & Snow) on the spot, "or she is unable to contemplate a tour of our cold English Provinces, howsoever solicited to do so, at the instance of His Grace the Lord Bishop of Two years ago, I should have put implicit trust in all these records of Royal anxiety and haste to purchase. Alas, sir, the bloom has been taken off my confidence! or, as my Lame Boy impudently puts it (to vex me, because I cannot bear slang), I have ceased to be downy. We have made acquaintance with a Testimonial Writer :-the very person who returned thanks for the Queen of Madagascar, when the New Patent Parasol was not sent her :-and who described, touchingly, the tears which had come into the eyes of the Monarch of Java or Japan ('tis all the same!) when the Five-Guinea Packet of Mellifluous Amberated Soap reached him!-He it was who indited that letter "To a Lady in the Country," beginning: "You are sensible, dearest Emma, that my greatest pleasure is to contribute pleasing facts for your amusement. Within the last few years my hair has entirely turned of a sickly grey," &c. &c.-He devised the Romance of "The Blue Morocco Pocket-Book, with a silver clasp, engraved with the Austrian coronet, a shield, and motto: containing correspondence in cipher-which was taken from its owner, while standing in a crowd in Newgate Street, to see the Duke of Wellington come out of the warerooms of Messrs. Neate & Cleanly, makers of the Alpaca Protected Gaiters. (Please copy the address, No. 500)." My boy might have made a handsome living would he have associated himself with Mr. Slum, by undertaking "the Pictorial department;" but he declined, declaringthe rogue !—that he had no testimonials to bring forward warranting him qualified for the task! To turn to another branch of the subject, the use of testimonials in what may be called social transactions, is yet more unblushing and precious than the fine language which accredits the wonders of Tailordom, as reigned over by Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, or Madame Spinks' pleasing invention for annihilating, not time, but old age, and making "Lovers happy" by eradicating Grey Hairs. In all the navigations of courtship, for instance, how comical are the things "answered for," and the persons who answer! Think of the references adduced by The German Baron, seven feet one, who, "actuated by no mercenary motives, and being of a domestic disposition," advertises for some congenial soul having 300l. to 400l. a year at her uncontrolled disposal, whom "it will be the study of his future life to cherish with tenderness!"' The German Baron's Reference is an inch taller than himself a man who has seen service, with a venerable white moustache: and who says little, but that little to the purpose: aware that the reserve of English Ladies demands reserve, and honourably anxious to avoid the possibility of disappointment, by stating facts in too rosecoloured a fashion. I once knew some most droll cases of reference, in a person far less magnificent (and, let me whisper, less of an adventurer) than my advertising Baron: but who, like him, was "girdling the earth" in quest of a congenial soul.-How such an elderly, bashful person as Mr. Timothy Deedes ever wrought himself into the idea that matrimony was expected from him, passes my comprehension; but the efforts he made to fulfil that expectation, were only less signal and unwearied than those of Old Scrawdon himself. He was the man, who, after a hot chace of Miss Drury the clothier's daughter, announced "That he had been on the point of being married to her, only she refused him!"-He it was, who, before committing himself to Mrs. Harbottle, a widow who was known to have "a pretty fortune at her own disposal," consulted the Parish Register to ascertain what was the age of the gentlewoman; whether |