precise fop, and after which he changes to the somewhat foppish precisian, which is the best definition of him.  He would be an excellent member of society were he not a little too nice for its every-day work, which, to speak a truth in metaphor, will not always admit of white gloves.  He is remarkably consistent in all his proceedings, however, and the outward man is a perfect and complete type of the inward, and vice versa.  His soul is never out of pumps and silk stockings, and picks its way amidst the little mental puddles and cross-roads of this world with a chariness of step, which is at once edifying and amusing.  Of inward show he is not less “elaborate” than of outward; and, though a descendant of Eve, takes equal care of the clothing of both mind and body.

Were his tailor to be abandoned enough to attempt to palm upon him a coat of the very best Yorkshire, instead of the very best Wiltshire broad-cloth, (an enormity of which—­horresco referens—­he was once very near being the victim,) the one would be sure to lose, if discovered, the best of his customers, and the other the best of a month’s sleep.  If he wears a wig, his expenditure with his peruquier is never less than five-and-twenty guineas a-year.  His cigars, though he smokes little, cost him nearly as much.  His hat is water-proof; his stop-watch and repeater are of a scapement that never varies more than six seconds in the twelve months from the time-piece at the Observatory at Greenwich, where he has a friend, who is so good as sometimes to compare notes with him.  By the advice of his boot-maker—­who, by the way, has some knowledge of the length of his foot—­he never puts on a new pair until they are at least a year old; and he parted with his last footboy because he one day discovered a perceptible difference between the polish of the right and left foot.  In winter, he wears and recommends cork soles.  His toilet is no sinecure; and on the table are always to be found, besides his dressing-box, which contains an assortment of combs, scissors, tweezers, pomades, and essences, not easily equalled, a bottle of “Eau de Cologne, veritable,” a Packwood and Criterion strop; a case of gold-mounted razors, (the best in England,) which he bought, nearly thirty years ago, of the successor of “Warren,” in the Strand, and a silvered shaving-pot, upon a principle of his own, redolent of Rigges’ “patent violet-scented soap.”  His net-silk purse is ringed with gold at one end, and with silver at the other; and although not much of a snuff-taker, he always carries a box, on the lid of which smiles the portrait of the once celebrated and beautiful, though now somewhat forgotten, Duchess of D——­, or the equally resplendent Lady Emily M——.