As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boardsand looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes overhim in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity ofeating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and thecontrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there arebullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets,policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!)bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at thetinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while thelight-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, thisis VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, thoughvery noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when theycome off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off hischeeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little JackPuddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and hewill be turning over head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition ofthis sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or otherpeople's hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches andamuses him here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbreadstall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and choosesher fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bonewith the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the generalimpression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come homeyou sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind,and apply yourself to your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of "VanityFair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such,with their servants and families: very likely they are right. Butpersons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or asarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and lookat the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadfulcombats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life,and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental,and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriatescenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?--To acknowledgethe kindness with which it has been received in all the principal townsof England through which the Show has passed, and where it has beenmost favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the publicPress, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that hisPuppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in thisempire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to beuncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the AmeliaDoll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet beencarved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the DobbinFigure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing andnatural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by some; andplease to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, onwhich no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away atthe end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager retires,and the curtain rises.

LONDON, June 28, 1848