me? or he, whom Mrs. Blackadder, by way of being genteel, would always call Boswell? What if Michael Angelo wanted a new study for his " Vanity Fair ?" I rehearsed the whole scene; their graciousness; my diffidence-their holding out the Golden Sceptre-my touching the same. After many a lowly "Too kind!" (Miss Le Grand's answer to common "How do you do?")a trouble of which I had never heretofore dreamed, seized me. What manner of garments would it be proper to wear among the Singing Strawberries and at The Snails? Then, I had dim visions that when Authors went to Court it was proper that they should take copies of all their works handsomely bound and wondered how Mr. G. P. R. James managed. One of Miss Le Grand's most frequent stories was of what Queen Adelaide had said to the Reverend Ozias Cockle, on the latter presenting Her Majesty with his sermon, for the Lying-In Hospitals. Perhaps something of the kind might be expected in great houses. Believe me, a Castle in the Air is not to be completed without much anxiety as to all its stories, both upper and lower! I am more thankful than I can express, that my Mrs. Bell was not with me during those few days! The new suit of black is paid for: and I will never tell what it cost.

My court attire (somewhat modester than dear Goldsmith's bloom-coloured apparel) had not, however, been tried on-when, early in the day of the tenth, while my Boy was sitting drawing, and I at my desk, a note was brought in. It had a smell of musk, poisonous enough to put the Sanatory Commission on the scent for the day; and was sealed with something which my Boy compares to the wrong side of a half-crown reflected in a spoon. I have cut off the seal for little Anne; and here is the substance of the "inclosure " for Mr. Jerrold's readers :

"THE SNAILS, July 9th. "Lady loses no time in acquainting Mr. Bell and his son, that finding herself mistaken as to the latter being a musician, she cannot receive them at The Snails on the fifteenth."

I pushed the note to my Lame Boy-for the moment too entirely ashamed of my folly to utter one word. He turned very red : but it was because he saw I was vexed. joke about me since.

He has never cut a

So this was what the civility of the Queen of the Snails had meant Music for the Aristocracy, and Plebeians to find themselves in coach-hire! Great Artists to succour Little

Gentlefolks! My boy declared, that he was confident that he had seen Mustapha's phaeton in our street, the day before: "asking," he supposed, "from the Postman, or Mr. Lillyvick the Water-collector, whether we did play on the Jew's-harp or 'not-whether we got up our faces with a black which stood in the open air." I discredited his story at the time but some light was thrown thereon in the Court Crawler of the sixteenth. There, among other fashionable intelligence, figured a flaming report of Musique et Fraises. Lady 's Matinee.

:

Heaven bless us what greatness had been well nigh thrust upon me. Among other royal and noble personages had been the (Half) Crown Prince of Saxe-Würstlingen; the Heir Apparent of Assam, Sian, or Seringapatam (I forget which) with his suiteand Dr. Polyglott by way of interpreter. There had been the three great Heiresses-the Juno--the Venus-and the Minerva of our golden Olympus-and THE DUKE-" revelling," said the Crawler, among the " ' graces and the strawberries:" Then, after the grandees came plainer persons, the "Messieurs" A. E. and I. O. U. to go no farther. The glorious chronicle of this sweetly rural festivity-the air of which was to have done us so much good —was wound up with a panegyric on the concert, which was principally contributed by "a recherché party of amateurs, The Misses and the Messieurs Etcetera: whose performances had all Une telle the thorough-bred je ne scais quoi of dillettanti - and whose ennobling position in the highest circles renders them superior to the rage of lucre"-aided by some professional guitar playing and singing from Signor Bellini and his son!

"that

The Crawler added, with its usual perspicacious accuracy, these were the sole surviving relations of the distinguished composer of 'Norma,' who had been rescued from their obscurity by the notoriously fostering patronage of Lady," &c. &c.,-to which followed the well-known doxology of adulation.

66

Why, Father!" almost screamed my Boy, in the delight of a discovery" those must be those half-starved looking people who play on the guitar at number 6 B! Mrs. Tankard told me their names were Bellamy!

Even so it proved to be. We have, subsequently, come to know both Father and son: (I, to gain, thereby, a close insight into Prodigy Life by which your readers may be the better); and it turns out that my Boy was right: that the Queen of The Snails did pay them a visit on the Ninth Ultimo―did promise them,

too, country air, strawberries, patronage, and the fervid gratitude of the always-prevented Sir Mark: that the poor people had toiled to Sion, through the heat and the dust, "on speculation "as the Father owned and there was a sort of squalid and trading tone in his confession which made me sick at heart-that the Hostess had introduced them to nobody-Sir Mark being never at his wife's parties; had hardly thanked them for their playing and singing; and that not only they, but also the Würstlingens and Assams and Golden Venuses and illustrious Dukes-to say nothing of the Messieurs I. O. U., etc.-had complained loudly of being entrapped thither on false pretences. Not one Strawberry was to be seen, or found, or heard of, about The Snails! They, the Bellamys, had subsequently made inquiries: (and here, to be just, let me observe that Artists seem always nervously unwilling to make inquiries before hand). The Great-no, the Little-Lady was well known it seems. She it was who had gone down on her knees to Paganini: She had chaced Malibran-Heaven knows where! She it was who had been only prevented by Teutonic perseverance, from donning one of Sir Mark's box coats and hats, and casting in her lot with the German serenaders, when they assailed the Brompton villa of Mademoiselle Jenny! and distanced in this, and subsequent like advances, she has since grown critical and depreciating and said cutting things with regard to Master Betty's Meteor and Mob popularity! She was well known. to the real Bellinis et id genus-who would no more of her strawberry leaves and hence, unable any longer to snow "distinguished foreigners," like a woman of spirit, had of late commenced patriotically snowing "native talent," and sunk (must I say?) from the Bellinis to the Bellamys !

So much for a Little Lady on the largest possible scale !—one of a class merely-and the class a large one-who are the fittest possible subjects for the microscopic observation. It is desperate,, to fancy, that in the scale of animated nature, there should be found creatures subsidiary to these Emmets! Yet such are all who minister to, or employ them; or, like Bell or Bellamy, allow themselves to be cajoled into the slightest acceptance of their advances, We have no business to rail too righteously against the antics of Dwarfs; if we hold a clerkship in the Dwarf manufactory. But I find the Pygmies, their littleness, and the World's consent, grow upon me, just when I should have done. There is, alas! room enough for a second mission into Lilliput.

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THE CLIMAX OF THE MIDDLE AGE MANIA.

THE EXHIBITIONS AT WESTMINSTER.

AT the beginning of the last month the competition for oil paintings took place, and the works of the competitors were exhibited at Westminster Hall. There were 120 pictures, not one of which was positively bad. That those which gained prizes are quite entitled to them no one, we believe, who has seen them, can doubt.

It is not, however, our intention to dwell on this transient exhibition: it is another and more permanent one to which it is our purpose to direct attention that presented by the New House of Lords-to all intents and purposes a "Show Place." The whole scope of its designers has been to please the public by suddenly revealing a blaze of finery, very little consideration being given to the purpose and objects of the apartment. Now, therefore, that public admiration has subsided, we deem it a fitter opportunity to examine this production closely and coolly than when its "wonderful effects won the praises of every superficial observer.

The first instalment of the great debt to the people and the parliament due by that exalted firm, of which Mr. Barry the architect is the acting member, and of which the Royal Commissioners of Fine Arts are sleeping partners, was paid on the 15th of April. After nearly ten years' struggle with bricks and mortar -with stone-masons' " strikes," and ventilating quackery-with dissatisfied artists who were beaten in competition—with mediæval sculptors with plumbers, painters and glaziers in the style of the Middle Ages with makers of modern-antique furniture and manufactures of Gothic decorations--with in short mediæval maniacs of every shade of artistic delusion-the House of Peers was opened. It has already received that grave and reverend Seignory, known in this country as the "Lords spiritual and temporal."

It is natural that public expectation should have been most vividly excited towards this small instalment of a great promise. It is.

the first sample from which they could judge of the probable effect, scope, and character of the bulk-one little bit of the Present from which they could peer into that vista of the Future; at the end which they may see, as through an inverted telescope, the entire palace complete. Indeed there was scarcely a circumstance omitted either in the preliminary proceedings, or in the progress of this national edifice, calculated to raise bright anticipation to the highest point. In the first place, besides providing the legislators of Great Britain with a roof to cover them, the new palace of Westminster was intended to give such an impetus to art, as art had not experienced at any previous epoch of architecture or history. With this view every possible means and appliance was created: a committee of taste was formed with royalty at its head; and every sculptor and painter in the kingdom was invited to offer his aid and his skill in adorning the gigantic design of Barry. Sound judgment in selecting from the cloud of candidates was to put aside the prestige of celebrity, and the influence of name; proficiency was alone to gain each prize, and competition was to conquer the fiercest assaults of jobbery. From the new edifice, English art was to commence a vigorous career, and a national school to have a local habitation and a name. Ever since it was begun, the Royal Commission have had the credit of so diligently superintending the progress of the work, that no portion of it from the stupendous magnificence of the Victoria tower to the minute tracery of a frieze or a boss-but has been modelled in little, "sat upon," and considered with the fond hope of ensuring such harmony of parts as would produce a grand, unique, and comprehensive whole.

The effect has been a vision, which has, for the last ten years, been floating before the public, of a legislative palace which will― if the present generation survive long enough to see it completed— combine all possible elegance, splendour and brilliancy of detail, with grandeur, dignity, utility and fitness of mass. The decorations, it has been dreamed, though not deficient in brilliancy, would be by the subduing and harmonising influence of the Royal Commission-subordinated to the architectural tone and business purposes of the various interiors which the walls enclose. British patriots, therefore, have been swelling with the hope that at some distant day there will stand in Westminster an edifice worthy of the age and of the nation.

The opening of the New House of Lords helped to dissolve this