pretty ancles that trip along thy pavement! Ah, the odd country
cousin-bonnets that peer into thy windows, which are lined with cheap
yellow shawls, price £1. 4s. marked in the corner! Ah, the brisk young
lawyers flocking from their quarters at the back of Holborn! Ah, the
quiet old ladies, living in Duchess-street, and visiting thee with their
eldest daughters in the hope of a bargain! Ah, the bumpkins from Norfolk
just disgorged by the Bull and Mouth--the soldiers--the milliners--the
Frenchmen--the swindlers, the porters with four-post beds on their back,
who add the excitement of danger to that of amusement! The various,
shifting, motley group, that belong to Oxford-street, and Oxford-street
alone. What thoroughfares equal thee in variety of human specimens! in
the choice of objects--for remark--satire--admiration! Beside the other
streets seem chalked out for a sect,--narrow-minded and devoted to a
_coterie_. Thou alone art Catholic--all receiving. Regent-street
belongs to foreigners, cigars, and ladies in red silk, whose characters
are above scandal. Bond-street belongs to dandies and picture-buyers.
St. James's to club-loungers, and young men in the Guards, with
mustachios properly blackened by the _cire_ of Mr. Delcroix; but
thou, Oxford-street, what class can especially claim thee as its own?
Thou mockest at oligarchies; thou knowest nothing of select orders!
Thou art liberal as air--a chartered libertine! accepting the homage
of all, and retaining the stamp of none. And to call _thee_
stony-hearted!--certainly thou art so to beggars--to people who have not
the WHEREWITHAL; but thou wouldst not be so respectable if thou wert not
capable of a certain reserve to paupers. Thou art civil enough, in all
conscience, to those who have a shilling in their pocket;--those who
have not, why do they live at all?"

"That's not exactly what surprises me," said Asmodeus; "I don't wonder
_why_ they live, but _where_ they live: for I perceive boards