the funds.’  But the man of fashion, who had spent his all with very little to show for it, had at least acquired some knowledge of his fellow-creatures.  ’I am deeply obliged to you,’ he said, ’but were I to accept your offer I should only lose your money.  There are but a very few people in the world who know a good dinner when it is set before them; and a very large class (including all the ladies, who are only solicitous about its looking good) do not care whether it is good or bad.  In private life if a dinner consists of many courses, is given at a fine house, and is presumably expensive, nineteen-twentieths of those who sit down to it are satisfied.  The twentieth alone says to himself, ’How much better I should have dined at home!’ I have been at scores and scores of great dinner-parties where the very plates were cold and nobody but myself has observed it.’

I have no doubt the gentleman of fashion was right; delicate cooking would be entirely thrown away upon the general palate.  The fair sex, the young, the hungry, the easy-going, the ignorant—­how large a majority of the ‘frequenters’ of hotels do these classes embrace!  And it must also be remarked that to cook food (except whitebait) delicately in large quantities is a very difficult operation indeed.

Upon the whole, I think, our large hotels, ’arranged on the Continental system,’ are well adapted for those who frequent them, and they show a readiness to adopt improvements.  An immense number of well-to-do people go to Brighton, to Scarborough, and scores of other places to get a change and fresh air, but also to find the same amusements to which they have been accustomed in London; and, on the whole, they get what they want without paying very much too much for it.  But what drives many quiet folks abroad is their disinclination to meet with all this gaiety and public life; they do not mind it so much when it is mixed with the foreign element, and they are also under the impression that picturesque scenery is a peculiarity of the Continent.  I believe that more English people have visited Switzerland than have seen the Lake District and the Channel Islands, and very many more than have travelled in North Devon and Cornwall.  The chief reason of their abstinence in this respect is, however, their dread of the want of ‘accommodation.’  To the last two counties, with the exception of some towns, such as Ilfracombe, approachable by sea, or a direct railway route, folks never go in crowds, and never will go.  It is true there are no mammoth hotels to be found there; but for picturesque situation and a certain homely comfort, that takes one not only into another world, but another generation, there is nothing equal to certain little inns in these out-of-the-way places.  In Wales also, and even in the Isle of Wight, there are perfect bowers of bliss of this description, still undesecrated by the excursionist.  Not ten years ago, in a part of North Devon which shall be nameless,