As to eating, _quoad comedendum constipandumque_, we keep up the Boeotic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions; and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks--and that's a fact, too; but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper times, there, _selon nous_, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may happen to use it--from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at Naples,) or as clear as--clear can be, that John Bull does not know how to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room--a real comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have done so once--we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about rooms and houses.
It is set down as a national axiom at the present day, that we are at the very head of the world in arts, arms, manufactures, laws, constitution, Church and State, literature, science--(any thing else?--there must be something more; to be sure there is)--money and railroads! and he's no true Englishman, Sir, he's not one of the British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every day--it must be true; we've read as much in the _Times_, _Herald_, _Chronicle_, _Post_, &c.--for the last twenty years, and what all the world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your Boeotic patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you bravely through all the thicks and thins of life--"sed audi alteram partem"--do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that railroads are so plenty and cheap--do go abroad a little--just go and look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the country, ay, and into the constitution?--are we not going to have corn and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other things alone--we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the light of reason and common sense.