LOUNGING in Hyde Park with the facetious B____, all on a summer's day, just at that period when it was the fashion to rail against the beautiful statue, erected by the ladies of England, in honour of the Great Captain—

“The hero of a hundred fights,”—

“How proudly must he look from the windows of Apsley House,” said I, “upon this tribute to his military achievements.”

“No doubt,” replied B____;” and with all that enthusiasm with which one man of mettle ever regards another! At the same time, how lightly must he hold the estimation of the gallant sons of Britain, when he reflects that he has been compelled to guard his laurelled brow from the random bullets of a democratic mob, by shot-proof blinds to his noble mansion: this was:

'The unkindest cut of all,'

after all his hair-breadth 'scapes, by flood and field, in the service. of his country, to be compelled to fortify his castle against domestic foes.”

“A mere passing cloud, that can leave no lasting impression on his great mind,” said I; “while this statue will for ever remain, a memorial of his great deeds; and yet the complaint is general that the statue is indelicate—as if, forsooth, this was the first statue exhibited in 'puris naturalibus' in England. I really regard it as the senseless cavilling of envious minds.”

“True,” said B____, laughing; “there is a great deal of railing about the figure, but we can all see through it!” at the same time thrusting his walking-stick through the iron-fence that surrounds the pedestal. As for delicacy, it is a word that is used so indiscriminately, and has so many significations, according to the mode, that few people rightly understand its true meaning. We say, for instance, a delicate child; and pork-butchers recommend a delicate pig! Delicacy and indelicacy depend on the mind of the recipient, and is not so much in the object as the observer, rely on't. Some men have a natural aptitude in discovering the indelicate, both in words and figures they appear, in a manner, to seek for it. I assure you that. I (you may laugh if you will) have often been put to the blush by the repetition of some harmless phrase, dropped innocently from my lips, and warped by one of these 'delicate' gentlemen to a meaning the very reverse of what I intended to convey. Like men with green spectacles, they look upon every object through an artificial medium, and give it a colour that has no existence in itself!

It was only last week, I was loitering about this very spot, when I observed, among the crowd of gazers, a dustman dressed in his best, and his plump doxy, extravagantly bedizened in her holiday clothes, hanging on his arm.

As they turned away, the lady elevated the hem of her rather short garments a shade too high (as the delicate dustman imagined) above her ancle. He turned towards her, and, in an audible whisper, said, 'Delicacy, my love—'delicacy!'—'Lawks, Fred!' replied the damsel, with a loud guffaw,'—'it's not fashionable!—besides, vot's the good o' having a fine leg, if one must'nt show it?'

So much for opinions on delicacy!