his estimation, eclipsed the Venus, Apollo, and Laocoon; and triumphantly referred to David's pictures in the Luxembourg, as the ne plus ultra of the art. O! said I to myself, if this man is to be taken as a sample of his nation, I see clearly enough why their spirit has never been imbued with one single emanation from the fountains of ancient light enveloped in a cloud of national vanity through which nothing can penetrate, they talk perpetually of the fine age of Louis the Fourteenth ; and though their whole literature and art be but a succession of imitations from the models of that period, each balder and more vapid than the last, they imagine that they are advancing upon all the world, when in fact they are even receding from themselves. Instead of crossing and invigorating the race by an admission from any classical or foreigh stock, they have been breeding in and in, as the farmers say, and the consequences are the same in the world of art as in that of nature-exhaustion, deterioration, and decay.

Mistaking my silence for acquiescence, my loquacious friend continued, with a nod of still greater satisfaction-"In fact, you must admit that all the recent discoveries, whether useful or ornamen tal, all that contributes to the instruction, health, comfort, or civilization of mankind, has originated in France." This was somewhat too swingeing a mouthful to be gulped down. "We, too," said I,

may claim some little merit of this sort in the last few years; and though I cannot, thus suddenly, recollect a tithe of the benefits we have conferred upon the world, I do remember that, during a war of unexampled extent and severity, we translated the scriptures, at an immense expense, into almost all the languages of the earth, distributing annually many millions of copies (some thousands of which were bestowed upon France herself,) as the most effectual means of promoting human happiness and

civilization." Hereupon my auditor arched up his eye-brows until his forehead became thickly engrav ed with consecutive wrinkles, raised the corners of his nose in bitter scorn, gave a loud tap upon his snuff-box, and delivered himself of a most contemptuous "Bah!"

"Perhaps I should have previously mentioned," continued I, "that by the system of our country. men, Bell and Lancaster, for the explanation and adoption of which we dispersed emissaries throughout Europe, the blessings of education have been almost universally diffused; and we may flatter ourselves to have done more, by this single discovery, towards the melioration of human destiny, than' has been hitherto achieved by all the philanthropists that ever existed."

66

Ah, oui, sans doute ! C'est l'enseignement mutuel; mais nous autres, nous avons cela aussi; vous en verrez des écoles partout."

"Very likely, but you borrowed them all from us. Then, without minutely adverting to our innumerable discoveries and improvements in mechanics, particularly in the steam-engine, by which the painful employment of human and animal muscles, as a means of power, promises to be almost superseded, and by whose superior economy the comforts and even luxuries of life are placed within the reach and enjoyment of the humblest classes, I would submit that the highest combinations of science were never blended with more practical and beneficial results, than by Sir Humphrey Davy in the invention of the safety-lamp."

"A la bonne heure! Parbleu!" exclaimed my companion; "if we had had as many mines and as much bad air as you, we should have invented this long ago."

"Having noticed," said I, one or two of the benefits we have conferred upon European society, let me not omit to mention, that whatever may have

been the motives for extending our empire in Asia, its result has brought sixty millions of natives under a mild and equitable system of government, that forms a striking contrast to the barbarous and ferocious dynasties of its predecessors, and is rapidly advancing the civilization of its subjects: while in Africa we have, as far as our power extended, blessed, pacified, and humanized the whole country by the suppression of the slave-trade-a voluntary sacrifice which can only be duly appreciated by recollecting that we were the greatest colonial power in the world. Nay, we even purchased or negotiated its abolition by other governments; though I have understood, sir, that your countrymen have not yet entirely relinquished the traffic.' "The emperor, on his return from Elba, pledged himself to its suppression; but as to these”. here my companion again looked suspiciously round, and observed a marchand de coco at a little distance, he shrugged up his shoulders, gave me a significant look, and took a pinch of snuff.

"It may be doubted," I resumed, "whether we have done more for the minds or bodies, for the intellectual or physical health of our contemporaries; for, while we have been widely diffusing moral improvement, we have, by the introduction of vaccination, laid a basis for speedily extirpating the greatest foe to beauty and life with which humanity was ever afflicted. This discovery, too, with an indefatigable philanthropy, we gratuitously disseminated through the world, without distinction of friend or foe; and the striking diminution of mortality among children, wherever it has been practised, is the best proof of its importance."

"Pour moi, Monsieur, je vous avouerai franchement que je préfère l'inoculation. Que diable! qu'avons-nous à faire avec les vaches ?"

"These," continued I, without noticing his philosophical question, "are such of the benefits be

stowed upon mankind of late years as more imme-. diately occur to me. I might mention our literature, which, by its unexampled fertility and excellence, supplies sources of gratification to all Europe, and to France in even a greater proportion than her native founts: but your country has doubtless many claims of the kind I have been enumerating, and as they have really escaped my notice, I shall feel sincerely obliged by your enabling me to recall them."

"Parbleu! Monsieur," replied my confabulist, buttoning up his coat with an air of ruffled majesty, "Ce n'est pas la peine, car vous conviendrez,' (here I expected a bouncer)-"you will admit that in the greatest of all arts, that of war, we have conquered all Europe."-" Even if this were quite accurate," said I," so far from its affording any proof of the benefits you have conferred, I should rather adduce it as a striking evidence of the contrary; but, unless we have been grievously deceived, you were somewhat discomfited in Russia.".

"Ah! oui-c'est clair: mais c'étoit le froid, le climat; on ne fait pas la guerre aux élémens.”. "And if any faith is to be given to public documents," I pursued, "you do not reckon among your victories many triumphs over the British arms. By sea you do not, probably, claim any; and I believe the result was not very dissimilar upon terra firma, from St. Jean d'Acre to Maida, and Egypt, and all through the peninsular war down to Waterloo."

"Eh, Dieu! que voulez-vous? perhaps we are not invincible; but whenever we have been beaten, it has been by superior numbers or treachery.' "It would be but fair to grant the same excuse to the adversaries of France," said I; "in which case her triumphs would reduce themselves to numerical superiority, or more extensive seduction."

Allez, Monsieur, je vous convaincrai en deux mots que la France- -mais voyez-vous, il va tom

⚫ber de l'eau-excusez-j'ai l'honneur de vous saluer." So saying, he raised his venerable hat perpendicularly from his head, replaced it, made me a bow and shuffled away at a dog-trot. The rain in fact beginning to fall, I removed to the corner of the Passage Feydeau, beside the marchand de coco aforementioned, at whose back was suspended a tin cylinder, decorated so as to resemble a little tower, from the three divisions of which respective tubes, brought round to his front, and furnished with syphons, enabled him to draw off into a polished cup, beer, lemonade, or liquorice-water, according to the taste, or rather the want of it, in his customers. This figure, who was in conversation with a shoeblack in a cocked hat and monstrous plaited pigtail, on the subject of the new bronze figure lately set up in the Place des Victoires, occasionally broke off to bawl out, "Qu'est-ce qui désire à boire à boire-à boire ?" and then earnestly resumed his discussion upon the work of art, which was shortly interrupted by the approach of a small party, apparently not long imported from the banks of the Thames. It consisted of three persons; a lady, who, besides the evidence of a fair and flushed face, presented a legitimate specimen of what the French term "la tournure Hollandaise des Anglaises ?" her husband, dressed in a frock-coat, and and those two rare articles in Paris-a pair of clean yellow gloves, and a smooth well brushed hat, seemingly very unhappy lest he should lose a spaniel that was following them; and a little girl of twelve or thirteen, who was devouring, with laudable diligence, a huge brioche which she had just bought. The second of these personages, addressing himself to the shoeblack and coco-merchant, exclaimed, "I say-quel est le cheming à Vivienne street?" In answer to which they severally interjected "Comment ?" and "Plait-il, Monsieur ?" looking up to him with a vacant astonishment, when