Little Britain.

good old English manners and their horror of innovation ; and I applauded the silent contempt they were so vociferous in expressing for upstart pride , French fashions , and the Miss Lambs . But I grieve to say that I soon perceived the infection had taken hold , and that my neighbours , after condemning , were beginning to follow their example . I overheard my landlady importuning her husband to let their daughters have one quarter at French and

music , ancl that they might take a few lessons in quadrille . I even saw , in the course of a few Sundays , no less than five French bonnets , precisely like those of the Miss Lambs , parading about Little Britain . I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die away ; that the Lambs might move out of the neighbourhood ; might die , or might run away with attorneys' apprenticesancl that quiet and simplicity miht be again

, g restored to the community . But unluckily a rival power arose . An opulent oilman died and left a widow with a large jointure , and a family of buxom daughters . The young ladies had long been repining in secret at the parsimony of a prudent father , which kept down all their elegant aspirings . Their ambition being now no longer restrained , broke out into a blaze , and they openly took the field against the family of the butcher . It is true that the

Lambs , having had the first start , had naturally an advantage of them in the fashionable career . They could speak a little bad French , play the p iano , dance quadrilles , and had formed high acquaintances , but the Trotters were not to be distanced . When the Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats , the Miss Trotters mounted four , and of twice as fine colours . If the Lambs gave a dance , the Trotters were sure not to be behindhand ; ancl though they might not boast of as good company , yet they had double the number , and were twice as merry .

The whole community has at length divided itself into fashionable factions , under the banners of these two families . The old games of Pope-Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are entirely discarded ; there is no such thing as getting up an honest country dance ; and on my attempting to kiss a young lady under the mistletoe last Christmas , I was indignantly repulsed , the Miss Lambs having pronounced it " shocking vulgar . " Bitter rivalry has also broken out as to the most fashionable part . of Little Britainthe Lambs

, standing up for the dignity of Cross-Keys Square , and the Trotters for the vicinity of St . Bartholomew ' s . Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal dissensions , like the great empire whose name it bears—and what will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself , with all his talent at prognostics , to determine , though I apprehend that it will terminate in the total downfall of genuine John Bullism .

The immediate effects are extremel y unpleasant to me . Being a single man , and , as I observed before , rather an idle good-for-nothing personage , I have been considered the only gentleman by profession in the place . I stand , therefore , in high favour with both parties , and have to hear all their cabinet councils and mutual backbitings . As I am too civil not to agree with the ladies on all occasions , I have committed myself most horribly with both parties by abusing their opponents . I mi ght manage to reconcile this to my

conscience , which is a truly accommodating one , but I cannot to my apprehensions—if the Lambs ancl Trotters ever come to a reconciliation and compare notes I am ruined ! I have determined , therefore , to beat a retreat in time , and am actually looking out for some other nest in this great city , where old English manners are still kept up ; where French is neither eatendrankdancednor spoken ;

, , , ancl where there are no fashionable families of retired tradesmen . This found , I will , like a veteran rat , hasten away before I have an old house about my ears—bid a long , though a sorrowful adieu to my present abode—and leave the rival factions of the Lambs and the Trotters to divide the distracted empire of LITTLE BRITAIN .