don holiday, nay, a city holiday, in which the population west of Templebar takes as little concern, as it does in the celebration of the virtues of Lady Godiva at Coventry. For my own part, I never could look upon it as a holiday, or a day of rejoicing, even in the city. There is, to be sure, the ringing of bells, and the firing of the river fencibles; and there are processions and feastings; but these are all expedients invented with a view to conceal the real sadness and melancholy inherent in the occasion-an intention which, after all, is but very imperfectly executed. Take what is commonly considered as the gayest and most important point of the ceremonies of the day, the dinner -(I address myself to those who are capable of digesting not merely turtle, but ideas)-there are few things intrinsically so afflicting. Rejoicing supposes gladness; and there can be but little gladness at a feast at which many an aching heart is seated, where we can even number the bosoms in which they throb. One of the most prominent ornaments of the table, the late Lord Mayor, or, as he is vulgarly termed, the old Lord Mayoras one would speak of a cast-aside, a worn-out utensil-is a discontented, å repining, an unhappy man. Human nature forbids it to be otherwise; and what must be the feelings of the guests when they ruminate on his! There he sits, a living sermon on the vanity, the frailty, and the brevity of terrestrial grandeur; a bitter, yet salutary sermon preached distinctly at and to the new Lord Mayor. But he heeds it not; he is too full of his infant honours. See! he rises he gazes at his predecessor-there is condescension, pity, nay, somewhat of protection in his aspect-he pledges him-the old one accepts the cupthere is gall and wormwood in ithe casts a mournful glance at the glittering insignia which but yesterday were his-he smiles, but his heart is sinking within him! "But yes * terday," he thinks, "was I the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor! What am I now? neither one thing nor t'other! Alas! what shall I be tomorrow? Mister, plain Mister!" Then the numerous dependants and sub-officers who surround him, and who lose their dignities at the moment he is shorn of his! And, most pitiable of all, the old Lady Mayoress, "tittering to squench her tears," as a certain Deputy's Lady, celebrated rather for the force than the elegance of her phrases, once expressed it. But to contemplate the last expiring gasp of the civic honours of a Lady Mayoress is too painful an effort the heart bleeds at it. Can gaiety and gladness exist where we find in such abundance the elements of suffering and of woe? Spite of the human vessels, into whose capacious recesses Guildhall discharges the savoury burthens of her table,-spite of their bellies which think the ninth of November a day of rejoicing, and would gainsay me, Lord Mayor's Day can never become a holiday. No, the first day of the new year is decidedly the day of all others, and it is much to be lamented that in England it is so little distinguished. In London, indeed, the Bank is closed, and the quays are deserted; but the shops are open, people walk about in their every-day clothes, and the day looks like any other; and, except a dinner of ceremony, or of good fellowship, nothing is done to mark it, and confer on it the pre-eminence it merits. We drink the Old Year out(a melancholy funereal ceremony, the interring of one who has been our companion through storm and sunshine for a whole twelvemonth)— and we drink the New Year in : but this short welcome over, we inhospitably leave the stranger to make its way as it can. But New Year's Day in Paris! Le Jour de l'An, as the French emphatically call it-the day of the year -the day of all others-is a holi * A certain worthy new Lord Mayor seems to have entertained the same ideas on the subject as the author. At the Guildhall dinner he rose to propose the health of his predecessor. This was his speech; "My worthy ancestor, I rise to drink your health, and may you enjoy on the occasion of your extinguishment out of the dignity which I am elevated up into" Here, perceiving that the gloom deepened on the countenance of his worthy ancestor, he added, in a tone of extreme kindness, Come, come, damn it, never mind; it aint my fault, you know; gulp down your wine, old boy." day indeed. The Parisians pay no honours to the old year; it has performed its office, resigned its place; it is past, gone, dead, defunct; all the harm or the good it could do is done, and there is an end of it. But what a merry welcome is given to its successor! Perhaps this is somewhat owing to national character: the French soon forget an old acquaintance, and speedily become familiar with a new one. The very appearance of New Year's Day is sufficient to distinguish it; and any one acquainted with Parisian manners, dropping from the clouds down upon the Boulevards, would at once exclaim, "Parbleu! c'est le Jour de l'An!" It is unlike the Carnival, which is distinguished by its maskings and its buffooneries; at every turn you meet a tall lanky punch, or an unwieldy harlequin, with his hands in his breeches-pockets; and coachloads of grotesque disguises rattle through the streets. It is unlike the Saint Louis, which is the holiday of the rabble, when all the scum of Paris is in motion, when bread, and sausages, and wine, are distributed gratis, and all the theatres are thrown open at noon-day. It is unlike the Fête Dieu, which is the holiday of the religious, or the pretenders to religion; when solemn processions move along the streets, and the air is perfumed with incense and sweet herbs. It is unlike Longchamps, the period devoted to the worship of Fashion, the goddess who exercises unbounded sway over all ranks and classes in Paris. It is then she issues her mandates, and dictates the mode in which it is her will to be worshipped for the season to come. It is the holiday of the fop and the petite maitresse; it is the harvest of the taylor and the marchande des modes: from the prince to the porter, from the duchess down to the poissarde, every one who has a reputation to maintain in the fashionable world-and who has not?-must sport something new on the occasion. A carriage, a pelisse, a new set of harness, liveries, a gown, a hat, a ribband, each according to their station. It is the period of universal pretension. Not a little daughter of a little bourgeois, whose severe eco nomies throughout the preceding gown with six ruches! Every one admitted that Madame St., Victor's conduct was de la dernière infamie. The infamy of Madame St. Victor's conduct is, perhaps, somewhat redeemed by the circumstance of her dear friend's having secretly ordered five ruches to her gown, of which fact Madame St. Victor was fortunately informed in time to advance upon the encroaches of her treacherous amie. In former times, Queens did not disdain to mingle in this combat of vanity and display. The unfortunate Marie Antoinette once ordered a mistress of the Comte d'Artois to be turned out of the Champs Elysées, for presuming to appear in an equipage which eclipsed the splendour of her own. Now the struggle is abandoned to opera girls, fourth-rate actresses, kept mistresses, and the petite bourgeoisie. The real fashion either goes on foot to behold the scene, or in a carriage sans pretension. But the Jour de l'An is every body's holiday, the holiday of all ages, ranks, and conditions. Relations, friends, acquaintance, visit each other, kiss, and exchange sugar-plums. For weeks previous to it, all the makers and venders of fancy articles, from diamond necklaces and tiaras, down to sweetmeat boxes, are busily employed in the preparation of Etrennes New Year's presents. But the staple commodity of French commerce, at this period, is sugar-plums. At all times of the year are the shops of the marchands de bon-bons, in this modern Athens (as the Parisians call Paris), amply stocked, and constant is the demand for their luscious contents; but now the superb magazins in the Rue Vivienne, the splendid boutiques on the Boulevards, the magnificent dépôts in the Palais Royal, are rich in sweets beyond even that sugary conception, a child's paradise, and they are literally crowded from morning till night by persons of all ages, men, women, and children. Vast and various is the invention of the fabricants of this important necessary of life; and sugar is formed into tasteful imitations of carrots, cupids, ends of candle, roses, sausages, soap, bead-necklaces-all that is nice or nasty in nature and art. Ounce weights are thrown aside, and nothing under dozens of pounds is to be seen on the groaning counters; the wearied venders forget to number by units, and fly to scores, hundreds, and thousands. But brilliant as are the exhibitions of sugar-work in this gay quarter of the town, they must yield for quantity to the astounding masses of the Rue des Lombards. That is the place resorted to by great purchasers, by such as require, not pounds, but hundred weights for distribution. There reside all the mighty compounders, the venders at first hand; and sugar-plum makers are as numerous in the Parisian Lombard-street, as are the traffickers in douceurs of a more substantial character in its namesake in London. The day has scarcely dawned, and all is life, bustle, and movement. The visiting lists are prepared, the presents arranged, the cards are placed in due order of delivery. Vehicles of all descriptions are already crossing and jostling in every quarter of the city. Fortunate are they who, unblest with a calèche or a cabriolet of their own, have succeeded in engaging one for the day at six times its ordinary cost. Happy is he whose eloquence has prevailed with the driver of a fiacre or a cabriolet, to engage by the hour for three or four times the usual fare, or his purse would become lighter by thirty sous at each visit he made, though but the width of a street interposed between them. These servants of the public, the hackneycoachmen, are rather a more decent set of people than the same class in London, and the cabriolet drivers are again superior to them. The superiority of the latter may in some measure be accounted for, from their constant opportunities of conversation with their fures; while the coachmen, like ours, are either left by themselves on their seats, or to associate one with the other,—each alternative leaving them in tolerably bad company. Abandoning this important point to the consideration of any young aspirant in moral philosophy who may be in want of a thesis, I shall merely suggest, as a probable reason why both are as civil and well-conducted as such gentry can be, that a very benevolent institution, called the police, watches over them with the most constant and affectionate solicitude. "Coachman," said I to a London jarvey, "why really you are a decent sort of man!" "'Vy, master, I'm about as good as the rest on us; but, on the ole, ve 'ackney-coachmen should be the greatest blackguards in all Lunnun, if them 'ere vatermen didn't 'inder us." "And how do they so?" "'Vy, because they somehow contrive to be even greater blackguards than ve. On New Year's Day the Paris fraternity are allowed the enjoyment of what seems to be their birth-rightrudeness and extortion; or rather their exercise of it is tolerated. There, on yonder deserted stand, are collected eighteen or twenty people who have been waiting, the greater part of the morning, the possibility of the arrival of an unhired vehicle. At length-for wonders never cease-a cabriolet approaches. It is sur rounded, besieged, assaulted, stormed. It is literally put up to auction to be let to the highest bidder. That poor servant of the public, its driver, now finds that the public is his, and his very humble and beseeching servant too. "Eh, bieň, voyons, combien me donnerez vous? "I'll give you," says one taking out his watch. "Au diable, l'imbecile! he wants a cabriolet à l'heure on New Year's Day-to drive him to Pontoise, perhaps." (A place celebrated for its calves.) "And you there, grand nigaud, with your watch in your hand! A has les montres, or I'll listen to none of you. A la course, à la course! And you, ma petite demoiselle, what is it you offer? How! three francs! Elle est gentille, la petite, avec les trois francs! Allons! tout ça m'ennuie. I' go take a drive in the Bois de Boulogne for my own pleasure." At length he consents to take a little squat négociant at five times the usual fare, exclaiming, as he drives off," Ma foi, j'ai trop bon cœur-je me laisse attendrir.” But all this time I have my own pockets full of sugar-plums, a cumbrous load! There I have got through my few visits, and now-but hold, I must not forget Monsieur Valcour. I believe we do not like each other, but I find his Soirées very agreeable; he has sometimes need of my counsels in the management of his horses and dogs; and, this being sufficient for the establishment of a very decent friendship, we cordially embrace and exchange sugar-plums every New Year's Day. The family is assembled in madame's bed-chamber. They surround a large marble table which is covered with baskets, silken-bags, paper vases, pasteboard cornucopias, and other vessels of a similar_description, all full of bonbons, dragées, sugar-candy, sugaralmonds, sugar-plums-sugar in all forms, and of all colours. They are in ecstasies at some sugar ends of candle, with chocolate wicks, just presented by a visitor, and agree that not only they are delicious, but made à ravir!-divinement! M. Valcour, who expects a seat in the next Chamber of Deputies, and is now engaged in the composition of a work on political economy, takes me aside, and, with a very profound contraction of the brow, says, Setting aside all national prejudices, you cannot but acknowledge that we have perfectioned these things in France." I approach madame, kiss each of her cheeks, and add my mite to the mountain of sweets. Madame's mother is present,-a good snuff-taking lady of sixty-seven-but the ceremony is de rigueur, and must be performed. In this world there is a pretty equal balance of good and ill; and, in my own case, but half an hour before, I made my New Year's visit to a sprightly little grandmother just turned of four-and-thirty, who, on my entrance, was singing a waltz tune, and dancing round a chair. Young grandmothers are not uncommon in France; and a man of a certain age might even marry a great grandmother without incurring the ridicule such a step would draw down upon him in England. But to return to M. Valcour. Having paid the usual respects to the mamma and the grandmamma, I present a small packet of peppermint drops to papa-I might kiss him too-who instantly swallows a handful, and praises them in terms of exaggeration suitable to the occasion. Then come masters Alexis, Achille, Hector, and Télémaque, and the daughters Cléopatre, Euphrosyne, and Flore-names very common in French fa milies and these relieve me of the remainder of my burthen. I with draw; but not till madame has shown me an instance of Monsieur's aimabilité. He had that morning presented her with a corbeille (an ornamented satin box), which, in the simplicity of her heart, she imagined contained nothing but sugar-plums; but what was her astonishment when, on removing them, she discovered a Cachemire magnifique! Her astonishment, however, seemed rather affected; for had M. Valcour presented her with a set of diamonds, he must, in honour of the day, have smothered them in bon-bons. And now, being at leisure, this corner window at Tortoni's is a convenient spot for observing a variety of passers. There is, however, a little accident which is rather unfavourable to observation. It is a thick, dense, heavy, dirty-brown, ill-flavoured vapour, which prevents one's seeing distinctly twenty yards before one; a phenomenon such as in London we term a fog, but which I am positively assured by a Frenchman at my side is not a fog, merely a kind of exhalation; fogs being peculiar to England, and utterly unknown in this beau climat d'ailleurs c'est connu de tout le monde ça." As this is known to all the world, at least to all Paris, which, according to French notions, means precisely the same thing, and fogs moreover being the curse of England, prevailing alike in July and November, obscuring the sun, and intercepting his power of ripening even an apple-very current opinions all over the said world-it is useless to dispute the point. In yonder carriage is the Minister for the Department. He is going to the Palace, to pay to its august inhabitant his annual tribute of homage, or, to express it more accurately (since Ministries et cetera are liable to change), to render the tribute of homage due from the Department to the Palace. There will he see assembled all his honourable colleagues, together with the corps diplomatique, a crowd of civil dignitaries, Marshals, Generals, Presidents, Bishops, Abbés, Professors, Academicians, Governors of Public institutions, Deputations from Chief Towns, and Representatives of a variety of |