pale of the Christian church. Sometimes the Whisker Fiend makes an insidious advance or sally up towards the corners of the mouth; and there-in those small creeks or promontories-does the sin of cultivation invariably flourish more proud and rampant than any where else. The whisker of the cheek is a broad, honest, candid, downright cultivation; but that down about the torners of the mouth is a sly and most impish one-a little pet sin, apt to beset its cultivator in

far less resistible fashion than any other; and t may, indeed, be said that he who has given himself fairly up to this crime is almost beyond. redemption.

There are some men who cultivate white hands, with long fair nails. For nothing else do they care very particularly-all is well, if only their hands be neat. There is even a ridiculous notion that elegant hands are the most unequivocal test of what is called good birth. I can say, for my

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own part, that the finest hands I ever saw belonged to a woman who kept a butcher's shop in Musselburgh. So much for the nonsense about fine hands. Then there is a set of people who cultivate a ring on a particular finger-evidently regretting, from their manner of managing it, that the South Sea fashion of wearing such ornaments in the nose has never come into this country. Some men cultivate neat ebony canes with golden heads, which, they tell you, cost a guinea. Some cultivate a lisp. A few, who fall under the denomination of stout gentlemen, rejoice in a respectable swell of the haunch, with three wrinkles of the coat lying upon it in majestic repose. Some cultivate a neckcloth some a shirt breast-some a jewelled pin, with a lesser pin at a little distance, which serves to it as a kind of anchor. There has also of late been a great fashion of cultivating chains about the waistcoat. Some only show about two irches of

a gold or silver one between the buttons and the pocket; others, less modest, have themselves almost laced round and round with this kind of tracery. There is also to be detected, occasionally a small patch of cultivation in the shape of curious watch-key or seal, which depends from part of the chain, and is evidently a great pet. A not uncommon subject of cultivation is a gold watch.

In our time we have known some men whose taste for cultivation descended so low as the very foot: they took a pleasure in a particular jet of the trouser at the bottom, where it joined the shoe. Then there is a class who cultivate silk umbrellas. It is a prevalent idea among many men that a silk umbrella is an exceedingly genteel thing. They therefore have an article of this kind, which they are always carrying in a neat careful manner, so as to show that it is silk. They seem to feel as if they thought all right when they have their silk umbrella in their hand:

it is a kind of patent of respectability. With a silk umbrella, they could meet the highest personages in the land. A silk umbrella is, indeed, a thing of such vast effect, that they would be content to go in humble guise in every other respect, provided they had only this saving clause to protect them. Nay, it is not too much to suppose them entertaining this belief-that fiveand-twenty shillings put forth on a good silk umbrella produces as much value, in dignity, as five pounds spent upon good broad cloth. How some men do fondle and cultivate silk umbrellas

There is a species of cultivators who may, in some cases, be very respectable, and entitled to our forbearance, but are in others worthy of a little ridicule. I mean the health-seekers; the men who go out at five in the morning to cultivate an appetite, and regularly chill every sharpset evening party they attend, by sitting like Melancholy retired, ostentatiously insisting that they never take supper When a health