text:  We are not invited to a main of small talk with the cock of his own dung-hill; we are never told as a great favour that Mr Alexander Scaldhead the phrenologist is to be there and that we can have our "bumps" felt for nothing; or that the Chevalier Doembrownski (a London pickpocket in disguise) is expected to recite a Polish ode accompanying himself on the Jew's harp; we are not bored with the misconduct of the librarian who _never_ has the first volume of the last new novel or invited to determine whether Louisa Fitzsmythe or Angelina Stubbsville deserves to be considered the heroine; we are not required to be in raptures because Mrs Alfred Shaw or Clara Novello are expected or to break our hearts with disappointment because they didn't come: the arrival performances and departure of Ducrow's horses or Wombwell's wild beasts affect us with no extraordinary emotion; even Assizes time concerns most of us nothing