22. At Eaglesham, Hugh Montgomery, Esq. of Bogton, aged 87 years.

23. At Forfar, Mr John Mann, writer there.

25. At Oreston, near Plymouth, in his 80th year. Lieutenant John Burrows, of the Royal Navy, in which he served 64 years, 56 of which were as a Lieutenant. Excepting three in Greenwich Hospital, he was the oldest in the Lieutenants' list, and preferred continuing so, though twice offered the rank of a Master and Commander. At Edinburgh, Mr John Johnstone,

writer.

At Edinburgh, Lieut. Allan Maclean, 79th regiment, eldest son of Mr D. Maclean, W.S.

26. At Rosehill, near Manchester, Adam Murray, Esq. in his 52d year.

At Roxburgh manse, Mrs Bell, wife of the Rev. Andrew Bell, aged 63 years. -At Cumbernauld, the Rev. George Hill, in the 68th year of his age, and 37th of his ministry.

28. At Stoke Newington, Mr James Grahame, youngest daughter of the late John Robley, Esq. and wife of James Grahame, Esq. of Edinburgh.

29. At Birgham Cottage, aged 90 years, Mrs Christian Bell, relict of the late Rev. Adam Murray of Eccles.

At Lynn Regis, Norfolk, in the 42d year of his age, Gavin Mitchell, son of the deceased Dr Gavin Mitchell, minister of Kinellar.

- At Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, in the 77th year of his age, Sir George Osborne, Bart. a General in the Army, and Colonel of the 40th regiment of foot.

July 1. At Greenock, Thomas Bisset, Esq. Deputy Assistant Commissary General. 2. William Mraken, Esq. of Lochvale, writer in Dumfries.

3. At Sand-lodge, Shetland, Mrs Bruce of Sumburgh, mother of Mrs Admiral Fraser.

4. At Wardhouse, near Montrose, Mr David Jolly, in his 80th year.

At his house, Hampton Court Green, Francis Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry.

6. At Edinburgh, Mrs Elizabeth Bruce, eldest daughter of the late David Bruce of Kinnaird, Esq.

At Cobham Park, Surry, Harvey Christian Combe, Esq. many years Alderman and Representative of the city of London in Parliament.

At London, the Right Hon. Lady Elizabeth Richardson, wife of Francis Richardson, Esq. of the Madras Civil Service, and youngest daughter of the late Earl Winterton.

At Curreath, Ayrshire, Miss Mary Campbell of Curreath.

At Sunning-hill, Berks, Lady Lindsay, widow of General Sir David Lindsay,

Bart.

At Preston Grange, the Countess of Hyndford.

Thomas Brown, Esq. of Johnstonburn, East Lothian, aged 82. 8. At Linlithgow, Alexander Learmonth, Esq. of Crossflatts.

At Falkirk, Mrs Marion Meek, relict of the late Dr Corbett, physician there.

At Ferrybridge, Yorkshire, Lieutenant-General William Simson of Pitcorthy. 9. In London, Mrs Drummond, relict of George Drummond, Esq.

10. At Springhill, Thomas Nesbit, Esq. of Mersington.

At Coolmine, Alexander Kirkpatrick, Esq. Alderman of the city of Dublin.

II. At Stewartfield, Caroline Cornelia, eldest daughter of James Elliot, Esq. younger of Woollie.

12. At Edinburgh, Mrs Mary Mansfield, wife of William Mackenzie, Esq. writer to the signet.

At Glasgow, Mr Hamilton Macfar lane, merchant.

At London, in consequence of bursting a blood-vessel, Mr John Leddingham, son of the late Mr George Leddingham, merchant, Leith.

14. At Leith, Alexander Shirreff, Esq. merchant there, aged 68.

16. At Edinburgh, Mrs Elizabeth Constable, wife of Robert Cadell, Esq. bookseller.

17. At Lisburn, Ireland, Edward MGivern, aged 114. He was sensible and accurate the day before he died; his wife is still living and healthy, in Lisburn, aged 109; she is his first wife, and he was her first husband.

FASHION is an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies and antipathies. It exists only by its being participated among a certain number of persons, and its essence is destroyed by being communicated to a greater number. It is a continual strug gle between "the great vulgar and the small," to get the start of or keep up with each other in the race of appearances, by an adoption on the part of the one of such external and fantastic symbols as strike the attention and excite the envy or admiration of the beholder, which are no sooner made known and exposed to public view for this purpose, than they are successfully copied by the multitude, the slavish herd of imitators, who do not wish to be behind-hand with their betters in outward show and pretensions, and which then sink, without any farther notice, into disrepute and contempt. Thus fashion lives only in a perpetual round of giddy innovation and restless vanity. To be old fashioned is the greatest crime a coat or a hat can be guilty of. To look like nobody else is a sufficiently mortifying reflection; to be in danger of

being mistaken for one of the rabble is worse. Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity. It is the perpetual setting up and disowning a certain standard of taste, elegance, and refinement, which has no other foundation or authority than that it is the prevailing distinction of the moment, which was yesterday ridiculous from its being new, and tomorrow will be odious from its being and insignificant of all things. It cancommon. It is one of the most slight not be lasting, for it depends on the constant change and shifting of its own harlequin disguises; it cannot be sterling, for, if it were, it could not depend on the breath of caprice; it must be superficial, to produce its immediate effect on the gaping crowd; and frivolous, to admit of its being assumed at pleasure by the numbers of those who affect, by being in the fashion, to be distinguished from the rest of the world. It is not any thing in itself, nor the sign of any thing but the folly and vanity of those who rely upon it as their greatest pride and ornament. It takes the firmest hold of the most flimsy and narrow minds, of those whose emptiness conceives of nothing excellent but what is thought so by others, and whose self-conceit makes them willing to confine the opinion of all excellence to themselves and those like them. That which is true or beautifulin itself, is not the less so for standing alone. That which is good for any thing, is the better for being more widely dif fused. But fashion is the abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism: it is haughty, trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean, and

ambitious, precise and fantastical, all in a breath-tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every whim of the minute. "The fashion of an hour old mocks the wearer." It is a sublimated essence of levity, caprice, vanity, extravagance, idleness, and selfishness. It thinks of nothing but not being contaminated by vulgar use, and winds and doubles like a hare, and betakes itself to the most paltry shifts to avoid being overtaken by the common hunt that are always in full chase after it. It contrives to keep up its fastidious pretensione, not by the difficulty of the attainment, but by the rapidity and evanescent nature of the changes. It is a sort of conventional badge, or understood passport into select circles, which must still be varying (like the watermark in bank-notes) not to be counterfeited by those without the pale of fashionable society; for to make the test of admission to all the privileges of that refined and volatile atmosphere depend on any real merit or extraordinary accomplishment, would exclude too many of the pert, the dull, the ignorant, too many shallow, upstart, and self-admiring pretenders, to enable the few that passed muster to keep one another in any tolerable countenance. If it were the fashion, for instance, to be distinguished for virtue, it would be difficult to set or follow the example; but then this would confine the pretension to a small number, (not the most fashionable part of the community,) and would carry a very singular air with it. Or if excellence in any art or science were made the standard of fashion, this would also effectually prevent vulgar imitation, but then it would equally prevent fashionable impertinence. There would be an obscure circle of virtù as well as virtue, drawn within the established circle of fashion, a little province of a mighty empire;-the example of honesty would spread slowly, and learning would still have to boast a respectable minority, But of what use would such uncourtly and out-of-the-way accomplishments be to the great and noble, the rich and the fair, without any of the eclat, the noise and nonsense which belong to that which is followed and admired by all the world alike? The real and solid will never do for the current coin, the common wear and

tear of foppery and fashion. It must be the meretricious, the showy, the outwardly fine, and intrinsically worthless-that which lies within the reach of the most indolent affectation, that which can be put on or off at the sug gestion of the most wilful caprice, and for which, through all its fluctua tions, no mortal reason can be given, but that it is the newest absurdity in vogue! The shape of a head-dress, whether flat or piled (curl on curl) several stories high by the help of pins and pomatum, the size of a pair of paste buckles, the quantity of goldlace on an embroidered waistcoat, the mode of taking a pinch of snuff or of pulling out a pocket handkerchief, the lisping and affected pronunciation of certain words, the saying Me'm for Madam, Lord Foppington's Tam and Paun honour, with a regular set of visiting phrases and insipid sentiments ready sorted for the day, were what formerly distinguished the mob of fine gentlemen and ladies from the mob of their inferiors. These marks and appendages of gentility had their day, and were then discarded for others equally peremptory and unequi vocal. But in all this chopping and changing, it is generally one folly that drives out another; one trifle that by its specific levity acquires a momentary and surprising ascendancy over the last. There is no striking deformity of appearance or behaviour that has not been made "the sign of an inward and invisible grace.' cidental imperfections are laid hold of to hide real defects. Paint, patches, and powder, were at one time synonymous with health, cleanliness, and beauty. Obscenity, irreligion, small oaths, tippling, gaming, effeminacy in the one sex and Amazon airs in the other, any thing is the fashion, while it lasts. In the reign of Charles II. the profession and practice of every species of extravagance and debauchery were looked upon as the indispensable marks of an accomplished cavalier. Since that period the court has reformed, and has had rather a rustic air. Our belles formerly overloaded themselves with dress: of late years, they have affected to go almost naked,"and are, when unadorned, adorned the most.' The women having left off stays, the men have taken to wear them, if we are to believe the authentic Memoirs of the Fudge Family.

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