the Manager of the Opera-house,—­it would have been such a consolation to all the rejected operatives,—­it would have been the prettiest hardship entailed on a great man ever since the time of that speaker who was forced himself to put the question whether he had been guilty of bribery, and should be expelled the House, and had the pleasure of hearing the Ayes predominate. Je me mete with the affairs of the Theatre—­they are in my diabolic province, you know.  But if the stage be the fosterer of vice, as you know it is said, vice just at this moment in England has very unattractive colours.”

“Ah, wait till we break the monopoly.  But even now have we not the ‘Hunchback?’

“Yes; the incarnation of the golden mediocre:  a stronger proof, by the hyperbolic praise it receives, of the decline of the drama than even the abundance of trash from which it gleams.  Anything at all decent from a new dramatic author will obtain success far more easily than much higher merit, in another line; literary rivalship not having yet been directed much towards the stage, there are not literary jealousies resolved and united against a dramatist’s as against a poet’s or a novelist’s success.  Every one can praise those pretensions, however humble, which do not interfere with his own.”

“It is very true; there is never any very great merit, at least in a new author, when you don’t hear the abuse louder than the admiration.  And now, Asmodeus, with your leave, I will prepare for breakfast, and our morning’s walk.”

“Oh, dear, dear London, dear even in October!  Regent-street, I salute you!—­Bond-street, my good fellow, how are you?  And you, O beloved Oxford-street! whom the ‘Opium Eater’ called ‘stony-hearted,’ and whom I, eating no opium, and speaking as I find, shall ever consider the most kindly and maternal of all streets—­the street of the middle classes—­busy without uproar, wealthy without ostentation.  Ah, the 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 L1. 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,