have met with the greatest attention, and it is more common for the explorers of Asia, Africa, or the South Seas, to give a picture of manners, customs, and characters, than for those who visit the countries of Europe, to bestow upon them the labour and investigation to which so high a degree of culture has entitled them.

One of the causes which very much diminishes the value of travels in general, is the rapidity with which their authors (though they may be very sensible men, and very conversant with mankind at home) judge of habits and manners that are new to them. The effect of novelty upon the mind is always to produce emotion, to raise it out of the tranquil condition, in which alone sound judgment can be exercised, and to place it in a state of excitement, approaching to enthusiasm. Whether this enthusiasm tends to raise or depreciate in our estimation the object which is new to us, depends upon a variety of circumstances; but upon none so much as its relation to our own habits and dispositions; to those causes which have produced our prejudices. To form a just estimate how far the descriptions of a traveller are exact, we should, in some measure, be acquainted with the state of his mind; in order that we may be enabled to supply the deficiencies, and to lop off the redundancies of his praise or censure.

We meant, at first, to treat somewhat fully on this point; and indeed its importance, at a period when the mania of travelling is epidemic among us, and the country is annually drained of nearly eight millions sterling by British absentees, would justify our enlarging upon the subject-but opportunities will occur for returning to it with advantage. We shall therefore content ourselves with adding here, that we shall neither regret this extraordinary emigration; nor think these eight millions sterling during a few years, unhappily expended, if our countrymen return home loaded with the spoils of wholesome travel, and enriched with the kindly fruit of observation and enlarged virtue.

The press, in every part of Europe, has teemed of late with publications upon England and France. But the art of observing nations and their characters has been so long suspended, that it is, in some measure, lost. They who travel now are the children of those who travelled before the interruption. Every thing is new to them, except their own fire-sides. Other ideas too have filled the chasm which the sword had opened in European civilization. Other passions have agitated the minds of men. No two nations exist, who have not waged war with each other ; who have not mixed their banners in fight, alternately friends and foes. To the want of peaceful communication, have been joined the habit of suspicion and the instability of every social

tie.

tie. For these reasons it is more necessary than ever, that the enlightened of all nations should be brought into contact with each other; and that every man who has become acquainted with any of the countries which compose the most civilized portion of our globe, should contribute his mite to make them better known to each other; in the hope of repairing the breach which the fourth part of a century, spent in war and devastation, has made in mutual courtesy.

Beside the impediments which prevent men in general from soundly judging of nations not their own, particular causes may interfere to prevent the natives of some countries more especially from forming just ideas upon others. Without stopping to consider every case of this kind that might be found in Europe, we shall confine ourselves to what is suggested by the two volumes before us, as the most interesting to Englishmen, and to the history of the times in which we have lived; and speak of two countries, one of which has caused all the trouble and turmoil of our younger years, and the other has constantly sought to quell them; of France, the most attached of nations to physical refinement and luxury, and by whom the happiness of mankind was most bitterly warred against; and of England, the foremost in moral and intellectual civilization, by whom it has been still more successfully defended and secured.

In perusing the accounts which Frenchmen have given of England, upon a short acquaintance with it, we have often had occasion to remark how much more unfavourable and virulent they are, than the pictures which Englishmen, under similar circumstances, have drawn of France; and we have frequently been tempted to inquire into the causes which occasion such a disparity of mutual toleration. Before we enter upon the merits of Mr. Rubichon, then, we shall examine this question: Whether the opinions which Frenchmen pronounce upon England, or those which Englishmen pronounce upon France, are most likely to be just and competent; and state some of the causes which may contribute to warp the judgment of either with regard to the opposite party.

All

And here we must beg pardon of our readers for indulging in such homely topics as the first we must discuss; but we cannot help it. For many reasons we cannot avoid speaking of the physical inconveniences which English and French must feel on visiting each other's country, so different from their own. men are, in some measure, governed by their physical perceptions; and we agree with an adage of our neighbours, which says, that a parterre assis juge avec plus d'indulgence qu'un parterre debout. But of all the unplumed bipeds who pretend to reason,

none

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none is so much the slave of his sensations as the Frenchman'; and it would be presenting a mutilated account of his mode of judging, if we did not duly allow for their influence upon his

mind.

A Frenchman, then, upon arriving in England, is assailed by the want of many enjoyments to which he is familiarized by the more agreeable climate of his own country; and his first impressions are received, while his physical feelings are in a state of indisposition to all that surrounds him. Our cloudy sky makes him fretful. The damp and variations of our atmosphere, unchanging only in perpetual fogs, are uncongenial with his vivacity; and every thing he sees at first, depresses his constitutional buoyancy. The first inn he enters presents him with a coal fire, which is neither so lively nor so sparkling as the wood one which he left at Calais; though the hearth be somewhat cleaner. He sits down generally without silver forks, or napkins, so common in every filthy inn in France, to a dinner of the simplest fare, without ragouts, or entremets or desserts; and the only substitute which he can obtain for the wines of Burgundy is some execrable black or yellow brandy, sold under the insidious names of Port and Sherry. The same misery pursues him throughout every scene of the eventful day and night after his landing. For this bad fare and hard lodging too, he is the next morning presented with a bill of costs, the amount of which would have maintained him at home, on soups and consommé and Champagne, for several days. All that his sensations can perceive are unpleasing to him; and as to moral reflections, he is not inclined to pursue any such.

When an Englishman arrives upon the continent, the first wound he receives is in his comforts; and the chiefest of these is cleanliness. A long time elapses before he can overcome his disgust, but habit at length dulls the edge of his perception. He is courted too by a livelier climate, and amused by the contortions of a populace grinning in misery. He meets with many things to charm away his ennui; and he discovers, that, with a hempen harness in lieu of a leathern one, and horses quite unlike all he had ever seen before, he can travel at the rate of nearly five English miles, or one French post per hour. He is accosted with more apparent civility, more specious varnishings of complacency on the countenances of men; and he jogs on, tickled into a mingled smile of pity, and contempt, and ridicule, and dislike, and curiosity, and gratification, and conscious superiority,—the sum total of which however is most assuredly good humour; and the pleasurable impression prevails over the unsocial.

No sooner has the English traveller reached Paris, than the gratification of his long-expectant curiosity spreads a day of

cheerfulness

cheerfulness around him. There is in his mind a stimulus, which to a Frenchman is not so powerful-the desire of acquiring knowledge, of seeing with his own eyes what other nations are; of learning by his own experience what good or evil exists in foreign countries; and of collecting materials for future thought and meditation. The sight of unknown objects is a satisfaction to him; and his intellect is soothed by the admission of any new truth. The gaudy capital of France has collected within its walls, whatever can excite and gratify the sensual tastes of men; and the very motleyness of the scenes, so new to all who are accustomed to regularity, excites a curiosity which is indescribable. Every thing which can please-except upon reflection—is united there; and even the abundant filth is not without its interest, when opposed to the splendour it contains. The loftiness of the houses contrasted with the narrowness of the streets, which gives them the appearance of lanes cut in quarries of freestone, where some sprite or demon has alternately hewn out a palace and a pigstye; the magnificent residence of the Bourbons, the work of many monarchs, extending along the meagre banks of the Seine, till at length it is lost in the crowds of stalls, and booths, and slop-shops, and shoeblacks' stands which bound the prospect towards the Place de Grève,-that scene of many massacres, both old and new,-create an emotion in the mind of an Englishman, which he would in vain attempt to repay in kind, by any sight which London can afford a foreigner. The great characteristic of England is uniformity, with but few striking exceptions, few contrasts, few wretched hovels interspersed among the few palaces she possesses; few beggars imploring alms, and acting as a foil to luxury at the side of gaudy equipages. Paris is replete with lively contrasts, and wretched extremes; and London with tranquil monotony and happy order. We once heard a Frenchman, who certainly did not intend to pay a compliment to the country, say, that 'l'Angleterre étoit uniformement et ennuyeusement belle.'

It is a speculation among the French, both in finances and vanity, to make their capital the abode and the admiration of strangers; and when any thing offers, which promises a harvest for either, they do the honours of it with peculiar effect, except, indeed, when they have been out-gloried into a fit of ill humour. The whole country becomes a theatre, in which foreigners are the audience; and Frenchmen laugh, dance, and tumble, to put them in good spirits. It is a part of this system, that all public establishments, and all the institutions of the arts and sciences are of such easy access; that all their learned men are so eager to show politeness to those whose opinion they hope to captivate, either for themselves or their nation. An Englishman has an elevation

of

of mind which makes him reluctant to attract, by petty artifices, the passing plaudits of a mob of persons with whom he is unacquainted; and London is perhaps the capital of Europe in which a short residence is the least likely to captivate. The least engaging moments which strangers spend in the society of the English, are the first; for we require time to feel, and great occasion to show an attachment. We have no petty interests or passions which induce us to pay court to a stranger. We seek not the money he spends to increase our national prosperity. To speculate upon vanity we do not condescend. We scorn to caress any person whom we do not esteem; we cannot esteem any whom we do not know; and, when we do esteem, we think it beneath us to flatter. The first impressions then which Paris produces upon an Englishman are, upon the whole, more pleasing than those produced by London upon a Frenchman.

The account we have given of English travellers in France does not, we know, suit the whole nation; while the picture of Frenchmen in England is of more general application. The inhabitants of France, both in their minds and manners, compose a very homogeneous mass; and there is hardly any distinction but that of rank. Whoever has seen one militaire, or one robin of the ancient régime, has seen them all. The different epochs of the revolution, indeed, have introduced some shades of education, and persons who have paid attention to them, can distinguish a pupil of the Robespierrian from one of the Directorial, or Buonapartean school of ruffians. But we now speak of France not at any particular moment, but in the long era of her historical existence; and we assert that the contrasts she contains are not dependant upon a diversity of thoughts and opinions, but upon the extremes of want and luxury, with but little that is intermediate, and the impervious barrier which separates nobility from plebeians. England on the contrary, more uniform in some respects, presents a very varied picture of thoughts and opinions; and, to give a description of the nation at large would be impossible, except by saying it is infinitely varied. The most numerous class of English travellers, however, is, we fear, that which we have described. As to the pure John Bull, who is discontented with every thing abroad, he is very much changed both as to the intensity and the quality of his feelings; and we see but too many of our grumbling countrymen softened down, by the epicurean luxuries and elegant frivolities of France, into her very devoted humble servants and admirers. Bullism is a worthy honest sentiment; one which we would not see effaced, It is a prejudice of the heart, and honours him who owns it; and, since international relations among imperfect beings promise eternal

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