could desire. He was, of course, a member of the clubs, etc. He was,
in short, of that oft-described set before whom all minor beaux sink
into insignificance, or among whom they eventually obtain a subaltern
grade, by a sacrifice of a due portion of their fortune.--Almack's
Revisited.

By the soul of the great Malebranche, who made "A Search after Truth,"
and discovered everything beautiful except that which he searched for,
--by the soul of the great Malebranche, whom Bishop Berkeley found
suffering under an inflammation in the lungs, and very obligingly
_talked to death_ (an instance of conversational powers worthy the
envious emulation of all great metaphysicians and arguers),--by the soul
of that illustrious man, it is amazing to us what a number of truths
there are broken up into little fragments, and scattered here and there
through the world. What a magnificent museum a man might make of the
precious minerals, if he would but go out with his basket under his arm,
and his eyes about him! We ourselves picked up this very day a certain
small piece of truth, with which we propose to explain to thee, fair
reader, a sinister turn in the fortunes of Paul.

"Wherever," says a living sage, "you see dignity, you may be sure there
is expense requisite to support it." So was it with Paul. A young
gentleman who was heir-presumptive to the Mug, and who enjoyed a handsome
person with a cultivated mind, was necessarily of a certain station of
society, and an object of respect in the eyes of the manoeuvring mammas
of the vicinity of Thames Court. Many were the parties of pleasure to
Deptford and Greenwich which Paul found himself compelled to attend; and
we need not refer our readers to novels upon fashionable life to inform
them that in good society the _gentlemen always pay for the ladies!_ Nor
was this all the expense to which his expectations exposed him. A