THE SKETCH-BOOK OF FASHION

Is a collection of nouvellettes ; and may be considered another series or continuation of the Fair of May .Fair. The character arid sub. ject of the tales are pretty. much the same : the difference lies chiefly in the inferiority of the Shetch-Book; arising, we should say, from increased rapidity of composition, and increased: con- tempt of the public, natural enough in a lady of Mrs. C.4•07tE.3 sharpness of wit and great success. When a writer gets above taking pains, the natural antithesis is, that the production is he- neatlithe contempt of reader. This, however, would be bsth harsh and untrue, if said of the authoress of Mothers and Daugg, tern : her subject in this case is capable of being treated both with haste and some portion of carelessness by her; without losing much of the spirit of the sketch. It is the nature of a light thing to be painted lightly. The sponge flung angrily against the head of the dog, succeeded in " sketching" the foam which had battled all the painter's laborious attempts. So it is with the froth of life: the flimsiest brush often whips up the follies of fashion in the lightest and most natural manner. Still, these gossamer fabrica- tions are not made to stand : they glitter for an instant in the likeness of the thing repiesented, then crumble, fade, and disappear. Their creation, therefore, is not the worthy occupation of very su- perior talent; and, respecting Mrs. GORE'S abilities as we do and have long done, it is with some regret that we see her running up novels and tales as building contractors run up leasehold houses,

just to_last their season. . .

lu the Sketch-Book' of .p.'ashion, though the subjects are the same in character as those-of the Fair of May -Fair and Mothers and Daughters, they are not so choice—not so fortunate,- and are not so felicitously developed. The persons are all well conceived, but not .so well sustained. The purpose has sometimes fluctuated; the pen, however, has never stopped, and whatever presented itself to. the mind has been put down : the page has never been blotted, for would it not sell as well as another? The authoress has begun to• consider any thing good enough ; 'and, we dare say, has fre- tpsently found her worst and most dubious passages applauded, perhaps picked -out for example. The very points which she, in the days of her anxiety, feared would damn the whole composition either by their feebleness or their failure, she has observed have not even been noticed. The detection of a fault by that very absurd polypus the Public,: would astonish her as much as FIELDING was astonished when the theatre hissed a part he had been de- sired to cut out ; though, probably, she would not express herself in the same strong manner,—" Oh! damn them," cried the author, "they have found it out, have they ?"

The story. which in this book must be taken as an exception to any thing said or insinuated above, is "The Intrigante ;* which deserves to go down to posterity as a true' picture of that society distinguished as Fashionable Life,—and which is called "high' because it costs a great deal, and is worth very little. It is at the same time a bitter satire on the glorious manner in which the country was managed under an Unreformed Parliament. The history of the rise of Mr. Vernon Clermont was never •exceeded by any pen, however light-pointed or sparkling. The Intrigante herself is an admirable conception, admirably supported,—just, true, strikincs.; original, froth the .first change of an • ugly bold- featured girl a fine woman, up to the last great metamorphosis of the new-made Baroness .0aklands into plain Ann Danby.

We would tell every body that desires to Study history in irs most genuine form, that here is the true history of the reign of GEORGE the Fourth. It is a commentary of the most luculent description on our Supplement of TAXATION. If Mrs. GORE had never written any thing else, she would -go down to posterity as the most finished moral satirist that this age at least has seen. It is a pity that such powers should be payed with—should ever be exhausted, or dulled by being applied to unworthy uses. " The Pavilion" is the first tale in the book, and the worst; it is .a sketch of GEORGE the Fourth's court when Prince Regent. The spirit of that good-for-nothing coterie is well caught; but the detail is extravagant—the characters are caricatured : it has, how- ever, many good passages. " My Place in the Country" is full of humour, of character, of life—not fashionable life, but every- day life, every-street life. If any one wishes to know exactly what queer motley things we all are, he or she must come to Mrs. GORE. The libel upon the Honourable Mr. Blickling, Member, for Herts, is, however, a little too bad. "The Second Marriage is a story of shades of feeling, and is only good in parts : it hardly holds together: though pains are taken so to mould and form the characters as to give probability to the chain of incidents, yet it

strikes us as overstrained. The idea of the story is admirably told in a sentence from MONTAIGNE,—" Qui se merle avec un veuf, epouse un homme et un fantome." The phantom, however, is too constantly present to the mind of the second wife ; though, doubtless, such sensations have often enough embittered the minds

1. of sensitive persons. The history of the first marriage is excellent : the scene under the magnolia tree beautiful and affecting—it brings Mrs. GORE on common ground with the authoress of the chaperon, her only rival, but in another walk. "The Old and the Young Bachelor" is clever, is just, and contains many good 4 sketches of character. Mr.Wittenham, the valet, must have been written for BRINDAL the actor. The moral is also founded on just views of life. "The Maneuverer Outwitted, or Relations from India," is in Mrs. GORE'S broadest style,—which is not the best.

"4 Of "The Intri.ante " the last tale in the three volumes, we have already spoken. We will now content ourselves with picking up some of the few sparkling specimens we have marked.

THE SPIRIT OF LONDON FASHIONABLE LIFE.

" Of all the capitals of Europe,- London is the place where the forms of so- ciety are loosest in definition and strictest in observation. The slightest infrac- tion of the arbitrary code of conventional law is fatal to the convicted culprits; . and not the most pitiful little court of ceremoniouit Germany is half so scrupu- lous in the exaction of its etiquettes and the infliction of its penalties. In the beau-monde of May Fair, court any infamy rather than that of ridicule. Instead - of the lambent flame which, in foreign society sports, alike innocuous round the head of the lance or the point of the fan, you will find the persiflage of the English a scorching and corroding fire, eating into your heart and bequeathing an ineffaceable scar. Be vile,---be prodigal,—be false,—but do not make your- self ridiculous. A butt or bore ranks with the worst of criminals. Believe only half you hear ; say only half you think ; do nothing you are asked ; and in process of time you may achieve a tolerable degree of credit and popularity in fashionable society."

FINERY.

There is nothing more vulgar among: the sins of social life than what is termedfinery. It is, in fact, a distinguishing mark of absence of caste; for what can a person really distinguished by birth or merit gain by presumptuous disparagement of the rest of the human race ? It is the policy of the eminent to elevate the claims of those beneath them, in order that by raising the standard of comparison, their own superiority may attain yet higher distinction ; and the moment a man or woman affects to be fine—to shrink from contact with any bat the elect, and to raise a glass of inquiry to the unknown physiognomies of plebeian life, it is to be inferred that "something is rotten in the state of Den- mark ;" that so studious an arrangement of the folds of the velvet mantle and ermined robe, purports the concealment of some gash or blemish beneath, known only to the wearer.

JANUARY.

Byron has informed us that the heart of man has its ides and epochs of sensi- bility ; that March has its hares, and May must have its heroine. But if there be a month peculiarly consecrated to the tender perplexities of the female heart, it is decidedly that of January. Every thing is so cheerless—so cold—so deso- late,—there is so little communication between house and house, man and man, or man and woman ;—no rides, no drives, no lounging visits, no sunshine, no flowers, no any thins to distract the attention of the fair afflicted from her own emotions. Seated in a well-scorched dress by the fireside, a book in her hand, but her eyes engaged in building castles among the glowing coals, she reviews the past, and speculates concerning the future ;—talks o'er again antecedent con- versations,—recalls to mind every look,—to heart every sigh ;—accuses herself of harshness, of want of candour, of blindness to her own happiness ;—then, sauntering to the window and casting a wistful gaze upon the sloppy state of the pavement or the slippery condition of the roads, retreats back again to her chimney corner with the mounful certainty that it is "a naughty day to swim . in," and that she has no chance of the visit she would give so much to secure.

DINNER-GIVING PEOPLE.

Now the coterie to which the Martindales instinctively attached themselves, - was of the genus called " dinner-giving people," a large and (as the newspapers say) " influential " body (chiefly resident in the N.N.W. of London), who make it the business of their lives to assemble at their tables three or four times a month sixteen well-dressed individuals, severally poossessed of an amount of plate, linen, china, and domestics, equal to their own ;---and who, in reward for this mechanical act of hospitality, are entitled to dine on all the other days, in a company equally numerous, and on viands equally delicate. The ambition of displaying at their own board meat in due season, and fruit out of it—of obtain- ing Sir Thomas's opinion that their hock is superior to that of Sir Charles, and securing Lady. Charlotte's verdict that their peaches are three weeks earlier than those of Sir Thomas—suffices for their happiness - and there is a steadiness of dull decorum about the tribe, an affectation of rationality and "charming people"-sort of excellence, essentially different from the sprightliness of ball- haunters and the brilliancy of genuine fashionables. Fashionable, and ball- haunters of course occasionally dine out ; but they always remain distinct from the lumbering class of regular dinner-giving people.

FASHIONABLE VALET AND MASTER.

It was very amusing,—it proved so at least to an accomplished valet de chain- bre, who had been recommended to Sir Francis Norton by Lord Farnley,—to observe the look of blank mortification and disappointment with which the young man threw himself into the hard dressing chair, when the old man quitted the room ; glancing on the scanty and tasteless furniture ; the cold square white dimity bed, ornamented with fringe of Mrs. Cheveley's own knotting ; the fireplace filled with branches of rue, and graced with a worsted hearthrug of Mrs. Cheveley's best tent.' stitch. On the toilet-table, the tall narrow dress- ing-glass of which was decorated with sweeping draperies of muslin, the offi- cious valet had been careful to set out a profusion of boxes and bottles of crystal and gold, belonging to his master's dressing-box, round two slender tapering cruets of peppermint and elder-flower water, manufactured in the housewifely still-room of Cheveley Manor.

"What abominations have we here ?" cried Sir Francis, on perceiving the medicated vapours of his toilet-table. "Pray take away this doctor's shop from among any brushes." "You will find it necessary, Sr Francis, to give a considerable number of similar orders," said Mr. Wittenham, removing the offending decoctions with a very supercilious air, "if you wish to make either the place or the people at all like the rest of the world. Housekeeper's apartment quite a dispensary, Sir ;- no newspaper allowed in the steward's room ;—and when we arrived, .Sir (four o'clock m the afternoon, and a very sultry September afternoon), I found Cheveley's people drinking hot tea, and eating hot bread and butterl—Very nauseous habits. When I resided with the Duke of Whitehaven (although two hundred miles further north) I saw nothing half so barbarous." "Be to good as to remember, Whittenham, that Mr. Chevely is my guardian and much esteemed friend ; and however barbarous you may find the habits of his house, I expect my servants to conform to them." " Oh ! certainly, Sir Francis ; certainly !—I trust, Sir, I know how to assert myself to all descriptions of company. I pique myself on being a citizen of the world ;—seen most parts of Europe, Sir, and even touched a little on Africa. When I lived with Lord Mizen, Sir Francis, we usually yachted througla the summer at the Mediterranean. I recollect a devilish awkward scrape we got into at Morocco ;—and"— " Give toe my waistcoat." " Mizen and I were going on shore one evening after dark, and "- 4' Bring nie my shoes." " A confounded ugly-looking dog of an Algerine, who had been skulking about the landing-place all the afternoon, took the opportunity of "— " My pocket handkerchief."- " I had already warned his Lordship that I did not choose to venture on terra firma unless we were to be properly armed ; so just as "- " Have you scented it with bouquet?" " With lavender water, Sir Francis. And as I was observing "-

" Open the door—that is the second bell. Recollect, Wittenham' I expect you will conduct yourself during my stay at the Manor, with respectability and decorum."

" I am sure it will be bringing coals to Newcastle," was the valet's rejoinder, as he closed the door after his young master. " There is respectability and de- corum in this same mansion Of Chevelev Manor, enough to stock half a dozen families of distinction. I suppose we shan't stay long. A young man like Sir Francis, just come to his estate, and years of indiscretion, will be apt to have quite enough of respectability and decorum in the course of a week ;—so I shall just let fly a line to Farnley's people, to let them know how things are going on."

THE CHANGE FROM GIRLHOOD TO WOMANHOOD.

How often has the step of man traversed in ignorance and indifference, &space of earth beneath whose blank surface the red gold was lying dense and heavy in its clayey bed • how often has the beggar sat hungering on a spot where the treasures of the mine were sweltering in fruitless inaction. Anne Danby, with all her cold reserve, her apparent torpor, held within her heart the germ of deep and powerful passion. She had ambition enough to have made a hero in& marred a saint ; and, untoward as were her prospects, and scanty her means and appliances of raising herself above their influence, she was already as sanguine in her hopes of personal distinction as Perrette while musing over her pot-au- lit. Nature had done little in her favour ; but she resolved to brave this idg- gardly distribution of her gifts and put the stepmother to shame, by her own miraculous art of gathering grapes from thorns and figs from thistles. Whether this heroic determination were the cause of shaming her grudging benefactress into a kindlier mood, or whether the glowing spirit thus ronsed into energy is, power to break the spell under which she had so long vegetated, cer- tain it s, that on attaining her seventeenth year, Anne Danhy began to give pro- mise of becoming a fine woman. Her long shaggy hair was now braided and twisted into shape, or twined in glossy bands around a magnificent forehead ;, an aniendnsent that gave to view a pair of large dark oriental eyes, hitherto un- heeded, and a line of countenance of the most impressive character. Determi- nation lurked around the small compact mouth ; and discrimination darted with every searching glance. The sallowness which blended so unbecomingly With her neglected attire and slouching gait, assumed the deep tone of one of Murillo's pictures, when mingling with the commanding contour of her fine features ; and scarcely had Nancy, in her lonely walks in the greenwood, detected within herself the impulse of ambitious fervour by which her existence was animated, when the spark shone out in every look andmovement. Without knowing Why, the inhabitants of Dynington,—woolly-heatled pupils and all,—confessed that she was an altered creature. Some said she was now " a fine-grown giel ;" others thought that " with a little teaching, she might be made.as useful and as clever as Miss Betsy." In short, though few anapng the tribe were capable of discerning the energy of mind which brightened her fine countenance, while the progress of womanhood filled out the features and form uncongenial with the delicacy of extreme youth, they had, at least, wit to notice that she was expand- ing into a splendid woman ; and that Berkley Murray (one of the former mat- headed pupils who, on his progress to Oxford, occasionally passed a day or two at Dynington) was of a similar opinion.

POLITICAL PROMOTION.

His Lordship had not half done wondering at his blunder, when the deep rumble of passing under an embattled gateway informed him he had arrived at home ; a circumstance the less cheering that he had merely taken up his quar- ters at the Castle on his road from another seat to the metropolis and had not a single visitor, nor the hope of one, to render the three days he was about to pass in his own company less formidably dull. The prospect of a long spring Sunday, passed alone in the old library, induced him almost to regret that he had not followed the family custom, and invited both vicar and curate home to dinner. But "a change" was on the point of overtaking "the spirit of his dream," which rendered such a catastrophe superfluous.

As he passed through th,. inner vestibule, Lord Farrington was struck by the sight of a hat lying in a familiar guise on the marble slab ; nor did the bosom o. Robinson Crusoe beat with wilder vehemence on detecting the footprint on the sand, than that of the desolate lord at the sight of a" town-macie" Bond Street sold beaver, so full of promise as the one before him. He anticipated no com- mon guest. There was a dashing originality in the cut of the article, that con- vinced him the incomparable Frank Bradshaw was his inmate ; and scarcely was the door of the book-room thrown open by the sedate, well-powdesed, priggish butler in waiting, when he beheld his cousin in propriu persona, at- tempting to vault over the parapet wall bounding the terrace.

" Frank ! Frank Bradshaw, my dear boy!' ejaculated Lord Farrington; "by Jove, I'm delighted to see you!" But he might as well have restricted-his apostrophe to the hat. Bradshaw was, according to his custom, engrossed' by the object of the moment; and till he had fairly accomplished his project, and cleared at a bound the terrace wall, with the flower border and the gravel walk below, his noble friend had no chance of catching eye, or ear, or tongue.

"

Fare! my fine fellow," cried he at last, when, perceiving the arrival ofthis host, he dashed back through the open window, and was stretched at full length on the air-cushion sofa, with the celerity of a harlequin. " Here we cross, at the equinoctial point—you up to town for the season,—./ to the North for sal- mon fishing. Like to see my new fly ?—Linnean Society going to present:me with a medal for the invention. Got a thousand ready made up. Caught two swallows and a sand-martin with them already, angling out of the britchka as I came down from town.— Like to see one ?"

" Thank you, I am no judge. My brother Berkley is the Piscator of the family ; or was, before he took to spreading his nets in Parliament, and baidng his hooks with—" .".Berkley ?—Berkley Murray is just now floundering in a stream whence fish are landed only to be made bait of. Berkley'!—no, no ! his days of rod and line are past and over. But to judge from appearances he has provided a ro4for his own back in a new line ;—eh ?—ah?—rod—/ine—smart—eh?" "A new line?—I should have thought that Downing Street left him lhtle leisure for novelty hunting ?"

"By the way, they say. this Mrs. Clermont is no novelty. It seems that she and Berkley used to play Plicebus and Daphne together while he was-an urehin. in petticoats !—eh ?--ah ?,-Pherbus and Daphne ?—eh ?" -who,—what,—where,—which,—why ;—Parson Irving, St. John Long, Ramo- hun Roy, the Duteliess de Berri, Fanny Keinble, Walter Scott,—good, bad, indifferent, far, or near ; Hatton Garden, Fonthill, Skolholt, or the ball of St. Paul's."

" And my Either's attorney's son's wife, then, is, at this present gossipping, the centre of the fashionable sphere ?-0h ! ye Athenians !" • " Eh !—what !—Ilow !—Lord Farrington's son's attorney's wife, did you say ?—Mrs. Clermont the wife of an attorney's son ?—Mrs. Clermont—the Mrs. Clermont ?—A frank, my dear Fdrr !—a- frank ! I'm a made man. Lady Louisa Marcham will put nie into her white book for the remainder of my days' for such a piece of intelligence. A frank, an thou lovest me !" Nay, I shall lend no aid to the circulation of a libel so big with the great- ness of truth, respecting any dulcinea of my brother's. If Murray,—or the stars,—or the foolhood of the great world, choose to instal Miss Nancy as a god- dess,—with all my heart ! Let her even call herself the Lady Anne Clermont, and I will do nothing to nip her budding honours." " What !—connive at a tacit impoSture?—Fie, my dear Farr !—I tell you this thing of pounce and parchment is received as a fashionable geni of the first water."

" And what then ?—In these enlightened times, when every blockhead one meets afficts the cunning blade, and all the women in the world pretend to be thought women of the world, it is delicious to see the knowing ones taken in. In spite of Almack's, with all its voucheis,—in spite of Tattersall's, with all its pedigrees,—one sometimes finds such gross frauds successful ! People who in- sist upon seeing into a millstone, are so apt to break their noses in the examine- ton I" "My philosophy is of a very different nature," cried Frank, taking a gold patent pen-maker from his waistcoat pocket, and proceeding to the writing table. ' The onlp esprit to which /pretend is esprit de corps. pIn the purity of my conscience I really cannot allow Lady Louisa and my own especial clique to be imposed upon ;—So here goes- • DzAii LADY Loo,—Cut the Clermont sans cirintonic (the creature is a country curate's daughter,—a London attorney's daughter-itelaw I•' and phtee your escape from

her acquaintance to the account of Your Ladyship's obedient,

'Farrington Castle.' F. ISRADSIIAW: There I—I need not add Sunday,' by way of date.—Who writes letters in the country except on Sundays ?" " Well, my dear Bradshaw, since you insist on nicking a little mischief, here is your envelope. The history may circulate for a week or two, as one of Bradshaw's entire;' and there will be no great harm done." There was harm done, however—very considerable harm. An association between Frank's anecdote and Lord Farrington's frank, with sonic mysterious connexion previously suspected between Mrs:Clermont and the Murray family, induced more faith in the tale than was usully bestowed on Frank Bradshaw's romances; and Lady Louisa, whose designs on Berkley had been circumvented by the arrival of the Maltese goddess, now permitted herself to assume towards her a tone of the most piquant impertinence. It is surprising how far a woman of fashion may push her insults, having the majority on leer side. The word "adventurer," enlisted a considerable party on that of Lady Louisa ; both prompting her and prompted by her, to pursue a war of words of the most harassing and vexatious kind with the discoinfited lady of Berkley Murray's love.

• The old history of Mademoiselle de la Valli4e and the Dutehess of Orleans, was accordingly renewed. It is not to be supposed that the high-spirited Murray would leave her exposed to the impertinence of a set of insolent women, to whom she was only obnoxious on account of her devoted friendship for himself. No sooner did they commence their attack upon his lovely friend, no sooner did their raillery draw tears from her fine eyes, than putting lance in rest, he ap- peared publicly as her champion. Generously sensitive to the indignities in-

, curred by Mrs. Clermont for his sake, he rendered his homage more marked, wore public than ever; was seldom to be seen in the circles of the beau monde without his Circe leaning on his arm; was constantly to be detected behind the crimson curtain of Lady Gertrude's opera-box; and to be suspected behind that of Mrs. Clermont's boudoir window,—when a general sentence of "not at home" excluded daily multitudes of less interesting visitors. Tears afford, after all, one of the most potentarguments of the sex ; and (from the period of those wept by Maria Theresa to her Hungarian States which collected an army round ler throne, to those with which Miss O'Neill washed away the offences of Mrs. Bailer in the sight of all the prudes in the kingdom) never was there a more effective flood than the one extorted from the onyx eyes of Mrs. Clermont by the

• insolence of her rival.

• Perhaps it was the dread of a second attack upon his susceptibily from the same channel, that induced the exertion of Secretary Illurray'sinterest,by which (six months after Mrs. Clermont's arrival in England) his Majesty's Gazette announced his Majesty's nomination of Thomas Vernon Clermont, Esq. to be a Commissioner of his Majesty's Excise. Perhaps he inferred from the depres- sion of her spirits, how eager she was that her loving lord should become the servant of his Majesty's Government, in any other department than the Colo- ? Frank Bradshaw and Lady Louisa Marcham thought otherwise. They dirclared to each other, and even whispered to Lord Farrington' that Mrs. Clermont was aware the world had begun to wonder how she could be so ill and Zook so well; and how soon she would find it convenient to return to her con- jugal duties in the Mediterranean. The grimace made by Frank on learning that the Clermonts had engaged a capital mansion in Spring Gardens which it Was their intention to render a general rendezvous to the official world, was almost as ripe with implications as the wagging of Lord Burleigh's head in the Critic. But itsignified little what was said or thought on the subject. Mr. C. winnow the annuitant of the country to the amount of between two and three thousand a year; and Mrs. C., at five-and-twenty, had accomplished a triumph over time, place and circumstance, entitling her to rank among the most sue- siessful intrigasjes of the day. "Mrs. Clermont !..—The lovely and accomplished individual we read of in the Morning Post, is, after all, then, positively and truly old Danby's ugly hoyden? —Phcebus and Daphne, my dear Frank !—Trnst me, the nymph has experieneed ' a metamorphosis twice as miraculous!"

" Ugly 2 never beheld a more splendid creature ! A poet's beau ideal of Cleopatra;'

• Fair is her brow, but darkly delicate

Her cheek?'

Mignon in her maturity !—Ninon in her girlhood !—His Majesty's Secretary for the Home Department has every excuse for his infatuation."

his homage to this obscure adventurer?" sign, overt or covert, to repeal the Legislative Union between England, 1. " Obscure ?—Mrs. Clermont is just noiv the person par excellence. Society land, and Scotland, be deemed high treason, and subject to the pains 07 has always a bagged fox in reserve, to insure a good season's sport. No matter penalties attending thereon. Until this act he passed, let the supreme autlb.