venture, at a table like yours, laid out for the express purpose of feeding the public with savoury and wholesome viands (none of your cheap soups for the poor!") to complain of a dish set before us too frequently; and, of late, like the Peacock of chivalrous banquets, with a triumphant flourish of trumpets before it. It is denominated "BENJAMIN'S MESS"Benjamin, on this occasion, being active, not passive in the receipt. How it got the above name is a matter about which Doctors differ. Those of divinity declare the thing to be of antique origin, stating that some mention of it may be found among the Rabbinical traditions, and that it takes date from the head of the youngest of the tribes, whose allotted part was to "ravin like a wolf in the morning," (somewhere about the time of a London midnight, say the close of a protracted May debate) "to devour the prey: in the evening to divide the spoil." But I think this folly. Your reverend Doctors are able to prove any and everything they please, whether it be to fight the fight for Authority or for Rationalism! Another set, the Natural Philosophers, who investigate all matters save their own perpetual quarrels as influencing our social atmosphere, assert that they detect in THE MESS, the presence of a well-known sticking substance derived from a plant, "of flimsy stamina, obtuse in the point of stigma, silky rather than downy-which, in taste, is sharp, pungent, and acidulous; when cold without smell, but on applying heat, sending forth an ungrateful odour." (Vide REES). This, however, my Mrs. Bell insists, is merely one of the thousandand-one materialist conjectures which are brought forward to cast discredit on things ecclesiastical-Gum Benjamin being a leading ingredient in incense, and as such, certain to be treated with sad disrespect by Professor Pry and Professor Parrot, the investigators in question. Why the unwholesome stuff should be called BENJAMIN'S MESS, must, therefore, for the present, remain a mystery: unless my namesake, Mr.. Bell, who answers all conceivable inquiries with as profound a certainty as if omniscience were his foible, like Professor's, will favour us with his lights on the subject. Meanwhile, come the confection from the East or the West-from Old Jewry or Park Lane-it is altogether deleterious, if not distasteful; and honest heads of households, who believe in Roast Beef, and hearten themselves up to fight iniquities and abuses on Brown Stout, are bound to grumble at it, as the most pretentious imposition of the kick-shaw school of philanthropic cookery...

To speak plainly-making an end of my tables metaphor, and leaving others to dish my simile I don't like the style of some among those who profess to teach, or to sympathise with, the People at present. I mistrust the Trader who takes up the pack of Autolycus, because he possesses no longer a coin to support the magnificence of Alcibiades. Crockford's is a bad school for the orator who is to lecture his dear friends the Operatives on the virtues and beauty of Savings Banksthe "steaming board?? of this Apician Duke, or the other Bacchanalian Marquis, comical field over which to rehearse Temperance Orations Nor, to be candid, do I much relish the notion of the gentleman who ran away with Lady and would have done as much by sundry other married women, they or their lords permitting talking to my Mrs. Bell and our growing girls, about the domestic charities." Don't misunderstand me. I am not meant ing "to fling" at the morals of any class. Nay, I have often thought the temptation and vitiation to which the noble and rich are exposed are more mélancholy than the want and wretchedness of the humble and poor. But I would not have Libertines, Adventurerswe Infidels in human virtue-experienced men who have come to treat the passions like so many beads and shells belonging to ta Savage-curiosities which the well-born and well-bred have got past using or caring about to be respected or recognised as Leaders; simply because they can sentimentalise about Factory Children, because they can talk to Country Labourers, as if the latter were so many primroses of beauty and innocence ;-because they can write showy poems, or showy novels, or showy letters in the newspapers or showily quote the Platonists when they have to debate upon the Sewer Bill, or the Cheap Food Question. I cannot give my trust to men who have trafficked with moneychangers, until they have been compelled to part with their principles among other marketable things I cannot act with those who have dawdled among opera dancers, till they cease to find indecorum in the Pas Seul of the rouged and tinselled Liberator in the "Dreary Abodes of the Desolate and the Oppressed," or disgrace in his carrying the hat round, with the true ballet nimbleness and seduction, saying-as plain as pantomime entreaty can speak it" Do drop a Place in!"

How now," cries some angry Colonel Cambric, some exquisite Sir Hyacinth, fragrant as Bucklersbury in simpling time;' How now? would you establish the Inquisition among free-born

Britons? encourage Slander to pry into family histories, and Party-spite to blacken private character?-deny refined Humanity its noblest privilege of aiding in the work of social progress? maintain the barriers which so long have kept Gentle and Simple, Learned and Unlearned, Rich and Poor, asunder?"-I hope not, gentlemen. Could THE MESS be proved nourishing; tending neither to produce flatulence, heart-burning, debility, or St. Vitus's Dance, I would not inquire too curiously if the cook wore a pigtail, or when he last beat his wife; or by which of the patent roads he intended to reach the Celestial City ! But it is the manufacture, which has led me to consider the training of the manufacturer. How many are the appeals made day by day, to my fellow-labourers, in nothing more suitable to their object of befriending the bodies and balancing the minds of the People, than the wardrobe for private theatricals, which was taken out to America by the wellknown Lady who sailed forth to colonise in a cane-brake, all "Wright," Republican; and who came back all right divine,”ready to do, in three vols. post octavo, any grievance, which might be thought a good speculation. Here's one, for instance, who tries to authenticate his fitness as a popular Leader, by showing to the factory - pale-faces, how their Legislators riot in the exquisite dainties of a gaming-house supper: while he would fain entertain his aristocratic patrons into admitting him as one of their favourite sport-makers, by exhibiting to them the Debating Society, the Dancing-hall, the Penny Concert, and the Farthing Reading-room of some manufacturing town-one session hand and glove with the spinning Jocks and Jennies; the next with his arm round Hodge the ploughman's neck, brimful of the old "back-bone" truisms, which one might have thought were worn to death in the days of Hone and Cobbett. Liberalism is no longer low; it has become the fashion. Those who "flamed amazement" at the Opera in wondrous pantaloons, and strangling cataracts of satin round their throats, some fifteen years since, are now. trying to top the mode" by preaching and teaching in May Fair;-clad in fustian! not, however, resisting the dear delight of "coming Opera or May Fair" over the Manchester tradesmen, when down in his hemisphere, to play the part of the Lion or of the Sympathiser. And so well do I know the deep-rooted love of finery in which the Englishman is steeped, that it is precisely because of plain John's accessibility to the tawdry civilities and Monmouth-street grandeurs of such philanthropists as make THE MESS, that I raise my voice

against them and their compound-against all Lord Blarneys, however resonant be their tales of Sir Tomkyn-against all specious Orators of the Skeggs family, charm they ever so wisely, by the hackneyed assertion, that "virtue is beyond all price,'

Enough of BENJAMIN'S MESS au Romancier:-there is anotherpreparation of the same materials heavier to digest-au Financier; of which we are hardly suspicious enough. Who knows not the Leader whose Leading Article would come to a dead halt, but for the instructive remarks" of the last "distinguished foreign traveller?" Who knows not the Orator, relying for his appearance of acuteness and universal wisdom on some feather-headedFrenchman, or some leaden-seated German, who has "come, seen, conquered" all the difficulties of all the problems of our social life-written two thick volumes instanter, describing his conquest; and, what is more cruel, published them. Admirable, valuable to be listened for by every true man who loves truth better than his own insular vanity, are all foreign criticisms of our imma. culate establishments, and our sublime social ordinances !-but let us take them as hints derived from impressions, not codes, according to which our Legislators are to rule us, and our humble," as Landor hath it," to hold up hands." The account of long residence, minute sympathy (use of language premised), power of independent observation-as opposed to glimpses through the spectacles of Mr. Millowner this, or the green glasses of Lord Landed Proprietor t'other!-required, ere. conclusions can have any serious worth, seems to be oddly lost sight of by all parties. I have been in a position, sir, to watch how some of these oracles collect their wisdom, living as I do in a manufacturing district, and having (more's the pity,) relations among your London authors; and I shall tell an instance,-one among many.

It is not a hundred summers ago, that a very clever and very honest French journalist, and politico-economist, came to England on a tour of inspection. I mean my epithets seriously. Mr. Qhas a sharp neat pen, a clear arrangement of paragraphs, and considerable reasoning power. I happen to know, too, that he has proved his integrity by heavy sacrifices of fortune, a melan-. choly rarity in the annals of the French press. He came to us with some knowledge of English affairs he had mastered the fact, usually a choke-pear with our neighbours, that your Lord Mayor of London is not next in greatness to our Sovereign. He spoke cuttingly of the exquisite ignorance of M. Alexandre Dumas,

who in his drama of "Kean," makes the Prince Regent transport the tragedian for a year to America! He was aware that English young Ladies had other names than Miss Kitty or Miss Jenny. He did not expect to find the "zions of our nobility," as Titmarsh calls them, going to bed in their buckskins and top-boots after a steeple-chace; nor boxing in the pit of the Opera. He had even reached that extreme of enlightenment, of admitting that the quiet English Sunday need not mean a Day of Mortification exclusively; but might also mean a Day of Rest to a people cleverer at leaning against posts than in dancing! Gravely: he was "well up" in our history, even the history of our "Wighs" and Tories could name our leading men, and "discuss the same" to Lord Brougham in English, at least as fluent as his blithe Lordship's French! Well, Mr. Q- came over to examine our mannfacturing districts-the morals and desires of their population. He had promised to write on these matters; to write serious facts, not Sibylline fictions. He applied in London for letters to some of our leading people; he was to see and to approfondir, Birmingham, Derby: Manchester (of course)-Glasgow, including a Loch or two, if possible-in a fortnight! The party to whom he addressed himself, Sir, respecting him sincerely, ventured to point out to him, that his time was rather short, and his field of inquiry' very wide; that Cotton has one life among its myrmidons, and Crockery another; that those who spin Flax, and those who spin Iron (for really to spinning do recent manufactures of iron amount) have different humours and habits; that the Lancashire Collier in "his posey jacket," and the Spitalfields Weaver, with his auriculas, hardly even speak a common language, have a common belief, save that money is a good thing, and all Rich people are born oppressors! 'Twas in vain :-these representations ran down, without penetrating his self-complacency. Talk of Mackintosh, or the inventor of Pannus Corium, as impervious! mere sieve, I say, to a Frenchman of conscience steeped in a system! Mr. Qheard my relative with tolerable patience: that was all. But it is not all which I have to tell. The introductions were taken, and the philosophical tourist started behind the Iron Courser for Birmingham, there to begin his wondrous round. But betwixt the noise and dust and scents of his first day's tour of the manufactories, and the misery of his second day's deprivation of the bottle of St. Julien and dish of spinach for breakfast, the French traveller fell sick, and took to bed. There he lay till it was time