292 be Felie 221-1- Ed Library of VET TES TAM EN NOV TVM Dei Sub Numine Viger Princeton University. Parker Lloyd-Smith Memorial Collection Catharine and ff on Smith 55. Thing William Street 7. B. Bright Felix M'Donough. THE HERMIT ABROAD. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE HERMIT IN LONDON, AND HERMIT IN THE COUNTRY. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN AND CO. CONDUIT-STREET, HANOVER-SQUARE. 1823. LONDON: SHACKELL AND ARROWSMITH, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET-STREET 21. PREFACE. FOUR years have now elapsed since the Hermit and his readers first became ac- quainted; a period, which from the interest they have taken in his remarks on mankind and manners, has to him been replete with heartfelt gratification. Often has it been his chance to sit unobserved in some obscure corner of a coffee-room, in a stage-coach, or steam-packet, watching the eye that perused his pages, and hearing his merits and defects examined; and never has his faded cheek had to glow with any blush but that of satis- 3838 .93 .341 V.I 1V PREFACE. faction. He has been a thousand times overpaid for his exertions to please, in wit- nessing the sympathetic change of counte- nance in some lovely woman intent on his graver productions: his heart has bounded within him when he has observed a discern- ing reader doing justice to the purity of his intentions to instruct without pedantry, and reform without severity; to lash the vice whilst he felt for the man; to expose the failing whilst sparing its frail victim. Nor has he derived less pleasure from the broad grin of sleek John Bull, excited by the Drill- Serjeant, or some other of his lighter sketches, written in merry mood. No praise can be more genuine than that which an unknown reader bestows upon an anonymous author, not in copious rhetoric like that in which brother scribes mutually eulogise each other, PREFACE. but in an approving smile, attended with a satisfactory rubbing of the hands, or inad- vertently betrayed in a congratulatory whisper of "Very fair! or That's good!” Nor have these been the only proofs of the Hermit's success. Let his honest pride be excused for mentioning that his London and Country lucubrations have been translated into several languages, and are read in their native idioms by the inhabitants of France, Germany and Italy. Thus encouraged, although his journey of life is down the slope, he will continue to pluck the flowers that grow by the way-side- to enjoy the fruits of experience, and to in- dulge in those delineations of life, and that light and harmless satire on the follies of the vi PREFACE. day, which, it is highly gratifying to him to find, have afforded so much amusement to his readers, in his characters of the Hermit in London and the Hermit in the Country, and which will, he trusts, be found no less interesting in their present continuation. The unities of time and place have no jurisdiction over works of this nature. It must not, therefore, be inferred, when par ticular objects and places are mentioned, that personalities and particular allusions are in- tended. These are but the clothing of general ideas; the forms which appear to the author best adapted to convey the lessons drawn from that experience of life, with which the lapse of years, and ceaseless ob- servation, have endowed THE HERMIT Abroad. CONTENTS. OF THE FIRST VOLUME. The Looking Glasses Arrival Abroad Liberty and Legitimacy The Wounded Hussar The Restaurateur The Palais Royal Broken Images Sunday at Paris The Boulevards The Ruffians The Pauper and his Child French Society Abroad A Day's Ramble in Paris · · 1 Page. 1 11 23 37 45 57 67 79 89 101 111 119 129 viii CONTENTS. Page. The West Indian 143 Dropping Acquaintance 157 A Delicate Application 169 The Reconciliation 187 The Ambassador's Ball 199 The Pocket Book 213 Les Dames du Comptoir 223 The English Abroad, Nº. 1. 233 The English Abroad, No. 2.. 243 The English Abroad, No. 3, 253 The English Abroad, No. 4. 261 THE HERMIT ABROAD. No I. THE LOOKING GLASSES. VOL. I. Venus, take my votive glass, Since I am not what I was; What from this day I shall be, Venus, never let me see. ANACREON. THE LOOKING GLASSES. "O! QUE les miroirs sont changés !”—“how the looking glasses are changed now o' days !" was the common exclamation of a very amiable, and once very lovely French woman of my acquaintance, whenever the unwelcome mirror brought before her eyes the ravages which time had made in her charms: the remark being always accompanied by perfect good- humour, and a smile, half resignation and half gaieté de cœur. I admired her practical philosophy, and took a lesson from her un- disturbed contentment. "It must be so," said I to myself, whilst preparing to shave. "The fumes of the coals which we burn B 2 4 THE LOOKING GLASSES. I spoil the looking glasses of the metropolis; or this one has been wiped with a dirty cloth, or the housemaid has been sparing of her whitening or spirits of wine; applied a silk-handkerchief, but it would not do: at that moment in came the housemaid: I reproached her with laziness; but was in- stantly convinced of my injustice; for, on her passing a cloth over the surface of this severe reflector, nothing came off, and her own blushes, raised partly by wounded pride, and partly by the exertion, were reflected by the mirror, and made her look like a damask rose, fresh, ruddy, and in the prime of youth, whilst my colour was that of the flush of de- parting day, intersected by strong lines, like the march of age, traced upon the country through which the grey-beard had travelled; I poised my razor, and reflected on the flat- tering advertisement at a French barber's door "Ici on rajeunit," (consoling enough.) I thought a little Naples' soap and cold spring water might clear up the gloom, and THE LOOKING GLASSES. 5 bring back the rose; the remedy was but mo- mentary, therefore I concluded the looking glass must be in fault, and I resolved to quit it altogether, as one leaves a dull preaching fellow who offers unbidden and unwelcome advice. "I will go," cried I, "to a purer climate; I will confront the mirrors of France and Italy: change of scene may improve my veins, brighten my prospects, and amend my looks. Travelling is healthful, and health produces comeliness; good spirits light up the countenance: agreed." I now tied my cravat tighter than usual, and I thought that my features were vastly changed for the better, but the pain of the semi-strangulation obliged me to slacken the tie, and I was lite- rally chop fallen. "It wont do," I sighed out in an humble tone, and I asked John, with peculiar civility, to bring me the "Morning Post" and my breakfast. The gentle "Post" cheered my spirits; it contained so much agreeable town chit-chat, some pretty amatory verses, and a pleasant hit or two which made 6 THE LOOKING GLASSES. me laugh; besides an account of a gentleman of sixty, (not that I wished to imitate him) who had eloped with a pretty young girl of sixteen. Then there were so many promising advertisements—"Grey hair changed to any colour! baldness remedied beyond detection! Money advanced on the shortest notice! A bloom à la Ninon, which recalled the fresh- ness and smoothness of life's spring to the wrinkled cheek of antiquity." Gentle "Post!" thou art my delight, thou art so well bred! -how different from the tomahawkers of re- formers, who pull down every thing, not leaving one a hope in promise for the heart to rest upon; amiable paper, thou shalt be constant morning companion. Te (not tea) incipiente die." my I was now almost reconciled to myself, but on continuing to peruse its columns, I found "An elegant town residence to be let, the owner being about to make a tour on the con- tinent." THE LOOKING GLASSES. 7 "A highly finished landau with a pair of beautiful horses to be disposed of, the former being as good as new, the nobleman for whom it was made proposing to reside for abroad." some years "To let, in a most romantic spot, a delight- ful Cottage Orné, the proprietor's health ('pocket' thought I) requiring him to visit a southern climate." This brought back my travelling scheme. John's introducing the tax-gatherer turned the doubtful scale, and I thought that I should feel lighter in lighter scenes. Country, however, felt dear, dear though it be to live in it; and my books were dear to me in both senses of the word, but I resolved to leave honest John to take care of them, and to hire a laquais who gave himself an excellent cha- racter in the front column of the paper still in my hand, to be my travelling domestic. Poor John looked grave, he is no flatterer, -he is of home manufacture, true, lasting and substantial. I take John with me, for THE LOOKING GLASSES. he is like the Davus of Horace (who by the bye shall be my pocket companion, my Vade Mecum to banish care), The friend of his master and of frugality, "Davus ne? Ita, Davus, amicum mancipium Domino et frugi." So much for the classics :-but to return to the looking glasses. On my arrival abroad, I did not find the vast amelioration which I expected in my living portrait, but I soon ex- perienced it in my health: and I now avoid all unpleasant reflections, by making John shave me. I had scarcely been an hour on French ground, when a lady took off ten years from my age at a sweep, observing that she could not have thought me more than Here I must keep my own secret, I am not à confesse, and there is no wiping off of time, all that we can do is to enjoy it as long as we are able, and when age and its attendant wrinkles come on, still to make the best of it, by abridging the useless moments which so many pass before the table, and ad- THE LOOKING GLASSES. ding to study what may be deducted from the vanity of dress; I shall therefore give orders for the two mirrors which are in my library and boudoir to be exchanged for the portraits of Lord Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton, in order that I may be certain of being greeted by wisdom and greatness at home, when I become weary of playing THE HERMIT ABROAD. B 3 No II. ARRIVAL ABROAD. I sit down to write you a line-only think! A letter from France, with French pens and French ink! How delightful! though would you believe it, my dear? I have seen nothing yet very wonderful here ; No adventure, no sentiment, far as we've come, But the corn fields and trees quite as dull as at home. FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS. ARRIVAL ABROAD. WHEN a man quits his native land to tra- vel abroad, there are two things which he ought by all means to take with him, if possi- ble ;-money, and good-humour; both of which purchase a welcome for the stranger, and smooth his way among foreigners. I provided myself with the former of these to the probable extent of my wants, limited by my means of supplying them in the latter, I was determined not to be stinted; so I drew deeply on the bank of humanity, whose firm is composed of Sympathy, Cheerfulness and Co. where I knew that my draft would be honored. : 14 ARRIVAL ABROAD. I will say nothing about sick companions; the miseries connected with our landing; the officiousness of scouts, runners, porters and boat-men, nor of " the insolence of office" in douaniers, spies, and anti-Anglican lookers on; all these are to be expected, and (as they must be borne with) the shortest way is to make provision for them, and to smile when others fret, resist, and vex themselves to no purpose whatever, since this is an unchangeable order of things, and since a moderate sum, which may be replaced by some after-saving, will make all these matters plain and easy. As to myself, I had anticipated calls of this kind upon my purse, and therefore they neither de- ranged the tranquillity of my mind, nor the composure of my countenance; to which, at my time of life, the ruffled expression of an- ger or peevishness is ill-suited. I confess I like to think and to act for my- self, but even this privilege a man must some- times be prepared to surrender. In the first act of landing I was obliged so to do; for a ARRIVAL ABROAD. 15 busy fellow-countryman, full of self, and whose loquacity even now vibrates on my ear, fixed four sisters on me (two linked on each arm) and previously assuring us that his abi- lities were not of the minor cast, since he could ask for every thing in French, briskly undertook to transact anybody's business, and to be the factotum of the whole party. Full of self-satisfaction, he set off to the custom- house, regardless of the train of gazers whose examining glances he interpreted into applause or admiration; ere he left us he promised to make all right for us, which promise he had not calculated was unwelcome to a number of the party, more qualified from their superior knowledge of the language of the country to take charge of their own concerns. This, however, not being felt by our companion (an attorney by profession) off he set, determined to evince the fluency with which he conceived that he could speak French. Returned from what he called " la maison de coutume" (the custom-house), he was 16 ARRIVAL ABROAD. treated as a madman by one half of the French people with whom he had to do, and deserted by the other half in despair at the utter impos- sibility of understanding what he meant ; ne- vertheless, he went on, rejecting and disdain- ing interpreters, and so well satisfied with his performance, that he assured a French gentleman who came over in the same packet with us, that, "Ayant frotté en haut tout son Français (having rubbed up all his French) il avait traversé son emploi aussi vite que la pensée." (He had got through his business as quick as thought.) bic to the Frenchman, who n'entens pas un seul mot de This was Ara- replied, "Je ce que vous me This, however, faites l'honneur de me dire." was of no consequence to our verbose friend, who, turning towards the waiter, continued, "Attendeur (waiter) appelez au Police pour mon passeport, et laissez moi avoir un elegant diner avec excellent rouge vin, car je bois dur." (Call at the Police Office for my passport, and let me have an elegant dinner with some ex- ARRIVAL ABROAD. 17 cellent red wine, for I drink hard.) Here waiters, cooks, company and all, were con- vulsed with laughter, for his accent was just of a piece with his construction of phrase. Our man of business, however, looked com- placently around him, believing that his wit and vivacity had gained every heart; nay he announced to the party that he had made a conquest already, saying, "La chambre pu- celle a tombé en amour avec moi." (The chamber-maid has fallen in love with me.) At table he made a desperate attempt at polite- ness, saying he should be affronted if a lady next him did not permit him to help her to a little turkey (a small piece he meant); which he rendered thus:-" Madame je serai tout affronté si vous ne pas permettez moi de vous aider à un petit dindon." The roar that this master-piece brought forth was excessive, so much so, that he felt piqued, and turning to the lady, genteely observed," Aidez vous donc, si vous venez à cela." (Help yourself then, if you come to that.) The astounded 18 ARRIVAL ABROAD. Frenchwoman answered, "Je n'entens pas l'Anglais." (I do not understand English.) In vain did he try to recover, he saw his defeat too late; and it was a considerable time before the company could adjust their features, which still bore the lines of broad laughter. Furious at this reception, the man of law sharply observed, that it was useless to speak French to natives who hated the English, or before English people who took part against their country, so (calling the waiter un fils d'une chienne, a term which I shall not attempt to translate,) he concluded by, "portez ma voiture à la porte, dites mo combien vous chargez pour moi, et grattez moi hors de votre livre, parceque les comptes courts font des longs amis," (bring my car- riage to the door, tell me what you charge for my share, and scratch me out of your book, for short reckonings make long friends.) Not one word of this-not even the trite proverb was understood; but a waiter who spoke broken English, and who guessed at ARRIVAL ABROAD. 19 what was meant, ordered the carriage, pre- sented the bill, and our self-constituted agent and interpreter departed in disgust. I re- gretted his discomfiture, for I felt that he meant to be active and serviceable, but his conceit had blinded him, and rendered all his intentions fruitless, whilst his immeasureable ambition for taking the lead deprived him of the assistance, nay, even the pity of those who might have rendered his debut in France both easy and agreeable. On the subject of foreign languages, our countrymen are generally in extreme, and either conceal their knowledge thereof from pride grafted on mauvaise honte, or they trust entirely to their small stock of half-learned and ill-pronounced sentences, which they deal out with much flippancy, making it a crime not to compre- hend their jargon, composed most commonly of a literal translation, procured from words looked for in a dictionary, which, when cob- bled up into a phrase, produce the most ridi- culous effect, and seldom fail to be unintel- ligible. For instance, one says, "j'étais 20 ARRIVAL ABROAD. frappé en haut," (I was knocked up): another asks for un petit bœuf, that is to say, a little ox, instead of un peu de bœuf: a third, I remember, bargaining for une boutique de bœuf, (a shop full of beef), which had nearly been sent to him, because the word boutique hit his fancy as sounding like but- tock. I have always observed that the tra- veller who knows nothing of the language of a country, succeeds better than the half- taught self-satisfied personage, whose "little learning" is indeed to him a most dangerous thing, leading to impositions, opening the door to innumerable mistakes, nay, sometimes producing offence, not to mention the ridicule which it draws down upon himself, whilst his self-approval shuts every avenue to as- sistance from others. We consider it a pre- sumptuous thing in a mechanic to under- take a trade which he has not been instructed in, yet we see people daily playing parts which they have never rehearsed: those who travel ought either to be conversant in the ARRIVAL ABROAD. 21 language of the country which they visit, or to trust to some one to act and to interpret for them. A stranger in a foreign land, unacquainted with the language, manners and customs thereof, is like one who, thrown on the trou- bled ocean without understanding the art of swimming, looks round to be upheld and assist- ed: to such a one, every brave heart and warm hand leans with kindness. The appeal of the foreigner, like that of the orphan or widow, is imperative; cold and selfish must he be who would not turn out of his road to direct, instruct, and succour such a one. But how different is the feeling where a mummer appears on the stage of life, caricaturing foreign manners, and nick-naming the creation in a strange tongue! Many amuse themselves at the expense of such a silly trifler, but disgust is the only feeling which he pro- duces in THE HERMIT ABROAD. N° III. "LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY." O! happy state! when souls each other draw, When love is liberty, and nature law: All then is full, possessing and possess'd, No craving void left aching in the breast. Ev'n thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part. And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart. POPE. LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. "QUE m'importe le droit si on regne ?" was the first broken phrase which caught my ear, as I lay sleepless at Beauvais, with a thin partition betwixt my apartment, and that of two Parisian belles, who had held an argu- ment of considerable warmth and duration. “What signifies the right, provided one reigns?" This must be a political discussion, thought I, and I lent all my attention to it. "Les legitimes sont si monotones." The devil they are!—one of these ladies is a little rebel, I presume. Here I lost a few words; but the sentence concluded by giving the pre- VOL. I. C 26 LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. ference to elective tenure, nay even to the right of conquest. "Dangerous dames these seem to be," cried I, as I turned on the other side, and disengaged my right ear from my night-cap. Here one of the ladies laughed, and I lost another half sentence, the rem- nant of which implied a contempt for church and state, contained something about the law of nature, and honored established legitimacy with some term of contempt which escaped me. The other lady replied faintly, and seemed rather to be gained over by her ad- versary, who poured in priest-craft, super- stition, remote times, dark era, absolute power, ancient prejudices, &c. &c. like shot and shell. "What an incendiary! what a complete revolutionist! it will be a wonder," thought I, "if she escape the hands of the police when she arrives at Paris; she must be a living petard." 1 Here my curiosity was all excited to know whether she was handsome or not: her voice was lively and rather affected; her style LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. 27 rapid and flippant: I would have given a Napoleon to have been able to have examined her physiognomy. "Sharp eyes flashing fire!" said I, "I'll be bound, as black as the devil, or as a jewel coal, and as full of fire and," (I was going to say brimstone) but it did not sound correctly, so I changed it for "com- bustion; a very troublesome subject to whom- soever may have to govern her. Would that I could take the measure of her cranium : there's no organ of devotion there; but the organ of fighting, may, perhaps, be not a little prominent. What a wife such a woman would make!" A panegyric on Voltaire now followed; and her dear Jean Jaques came next in turn; a troublesome cough of mine intruded at that moment, and I was quite at a loss to connect the broken thread of her dis- course. * * "Je saurais bien le gouverner," was all that I could seize. A fine legislatrix: no doubt; but with all her rank rebellious prin- c 2 28 LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. ciples, she would be pretty despotic herself. But who, or what was to be governed? My curiosity was now so highly excited, that I could not resist the temptation to gratify it by an expedient which I blush to confess, that of listening. I had observed, before I retired to rest, a door, which though now closed up, had formerly served as a communi- cation between the apartment occupied by the fair conspirators, and mine. The key-hole of this door would, I conceived, facilitate the im- portant discovery I anticipated. In groping my way towards it, in the dark, however, I struck my foot against a chair, and made such a noise, that one of the ladies cried out, "Who's there?" "C'est un rat,” replied the other.—A rat indeed! rather humiliating to me: I paused; silence ensued, I stood in breathless expectation. Not a syllable was uttered. At length finding the ladies had absolutely ceased to talk, I concluded, like a logician, that they must be asleep. I returned to my bed, shivering; having gained nothing LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. 29 I by my indecorous expedition, but a violent cold and a bruised foot. I could not sleep, nor did I wish to do so, lest my rebel neighbours might escape unseen in the morn- ing. Besides, was it safe to sleep with such inflammable matter so very near? was so restless that I awakened these distur- bers of the repose of Europe; and one of them observed, that the Englishman had a bad conscience, and was as troubled, and as agitated, as if he was possessed by an evil spirit. "Il se demene comme un possedé." "Evil spirits pretty near me," thought I; and her mode of pronouncing the word Eng- lishman, proved her to be an enemy to our nation. I was in hopes that she would have resumed the subject of her midnight argu- ment, but I heard her distinctly turn in her bed, which stood, in relation to mine, so near, that she shook my curtains. Thus, thought I, would she shake empires to their founda- tion, if she could I felt very strangely, and a respiration, not unlike a 30 LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. - sigh, again informed these anarchists that I kept vigil near them: they burst into a laugh, and one of them said, in a whisper, "Pauvre Jean Bull, pauvre Godem!" "Too sprightly, this, for the workers of treason," I muttered to myself; "but there is no trusting to woman's smile:" again silence ensued-again I sighed again Mesdames tittered; I never passed a more uncomfort- able night; restlessness produced a feverish heat, and after tossing and tumbling, until three o'clock in the morning, I fell into a profound sleep. It was to be ex- pected that I should dream, and so I did :- the lady next the wall appeared at the foot of my bed, in the shape of Thais, with a lighted torch, but whether to raise a flame in my bosom, or in my curtains, was not decided: she stood in a very elegant attitude: I ex- tended my arms towards her, when she vanished into air. I awoke the sun was already high, and I jumped up; the law- less fair ones had risen, and were in the LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. 31 act of dressing,-I held my breath for fear of disturbing them, and listened attentively: they re-commenced the theme of the preced- ing night. How different from what I had imagined! "" "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, vir- tues, powers," never entered either of their brains: alike to them, all forms of govern- ment, all political views, the rise or fall of empires, the growth or declension of states,- the kingdom of the heart, the conquest of affection, the absolute reign over the will and passions, were their aim; and their dispute arose from an argument on the rights of the wife, and those of mistress, on the hold which each has on our sex, on the power and fascinations of each. A short time afterwards, in passing the apartment in which they breakfasted, I had a good view of them. Never did I behold two prettier creatures: the one a beauté piquante, as brown as a berry, with sun-bright eyes, and with raven tresses hanging about a well- 32 LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. turned form: her hair was of considerable length, and elegantly braided. Could this be the incendiary dame? surely not. The other was a belle blonde, whose eyes were founts of love, and whose light brown glassy locks curled gracefully on her alabaster forehead, and round her comely neck. There was no- thing regicidal or revolutionary about her appearance; on the contrary, she looked like a queen of hearts-born to enslave mankind. But on hearing them speak, I was enabled to recognise the part which each had borne in the dialogue I had overheard. The belle blonde sighed for the married state, its tranquil enjoyment and soft secu- rity, the claims which the married dame has on her wedded lord, the legitimate right over his love and protection, and the here- ditary established respect due to the ma- tron, derived from remotest time, and handed down to posterity by the universal consent of all nations. The bewitching brunette laughed at the fetters of Hymen, and pre- LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. 33 " tended that the mistress was the greatest sorceress over hearts. "What signifies the right," said she, "if one does but reign ?" Her right, she pretended, was that of con- quest-her tenure, that of her attractions: "the legitimate possessors of the heart, were," she scornfully remarked, "si monotones! there was such tame tepidity, such sober sameness, such jog-trot uniformity in the marriage state, that it was enough to make both parties live in a kind of somnambulism together." "Lucky that I am single," thought I;" still luckier not to be tacked to such a spouse." "The monarchy of the mistress," she continued, " is elective; but when once her throne is attained, the usur- pation is sure to last; the chère amie re- mains perpetual dictatrix in the republic of love, (Oh! the wicked little devil!) and the lover becomes the more enslaved, because he thinks himself free." She concluded by exposing the tyranny of husbands, and the convenience of being able to slip the lover's c 3 34 LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. knot when it became uneasy; whereas, the noose of matrimony could not so conve- niently be disentangled ! ! Here the driving up of a carriage and four horses broke the thread of my mono- logue: two dashing officers leaped out of the equipage, and were not long kept in sus- pense: they handed my lawless beauties in, and drove off as if Cupid had been the coach- man, guiding the chariot of the sun. An overturn was what I anticipated; but cer- tainly no serious accident took place, for I met the partie carrée soon afterwards at Paris, in high good looks and elevated spi- rits. The ladies laughed on meeting Jean Bull, Godem, and the rat, all in one person; for they had the advantage of me, by hav- ing seen me prior to the nocturnal conver- sation which deprived me of my rest. The unnecessary trouble and anxiety which I had experienced, made me hate all listeners at key-holes, and impressed me with one use- ful maxim, namely, never to trust to, or to LIBERTY AND LEGITIMACY. 35 repeat half sentences, broken conversations, or speeches overheard. That we are never too old to learn, is a trite remark, and trite are many useful home-spun sayings: I have had repeated proofs, however, of their truth; and none more convincing than this last lesson to THE HERMIT ABROAD. No IV. THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. -A thousand welcomes And more a friend than e'er an enemy; Yet, Marcius, that was much. SHAKSPEARE. THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. TRAVELLING betwixt Senlis and Meaux, in the short peace, preceding the hundred days reign of Napoleon, I perceived a French hussar, journeying on foot and extremely lame. His face was of the manliest cast, yet uncommonly mild and interesting. He ap- peared fatigued and weak; his features be- spoke disappointment; and his eyes seemed to say, "I have now no Etat,- -I have the world to begin over again, a long wearisome journey before me, very little money and no friends." "A handkerchief held all the treasure he had, "Which over his shoulder he threw." 40 THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. Such a man, thought I to myself, cannot be mine enemy; his face shows that poverty will not drive him to the commission of crime; and who knows but he may sink on the road and never reach his home, if home he have. "Would it not be a generous act, a work of charity to give him a lift ?" said I to myself. "But a soldier of Napoleon!" whispered pre- judice in my ear. "If he were a soldier of our army indeed," cried my nationality and selfishness," if he were even my country- man." "Aye, but," suggested humanity, "is he not a man and a brother? Well, I will ask him to take a cast." "Soldier," said I to him, in French, “ you are weary and lame, accept a place in my caleche if you are travelling my road.” “I fear I am intruding," answered he, with the urbanity of a drawing-room. I had only my own man with me, who looked sulkily at him. "Not at all," answered I, sit here by my side, and put your bundle under the seat. "Helas!" exclaimed he, with a look of THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. 41 humility which I shall never forget, “mon paquet ne vaut pas grande chose." The weather was very cold; I alighted at the first post house; and, lighting my segar, I gave the hussar one, and insisted on paying for some refreshment for him and my servant. He accepted both offers without servility, yet with diffidence. On our road he informed me that he was only two-and-twenty, that he had been brought up to no trade, and that he had been forced away from his aged parents, at sixteen, by the conscription, which almost broke their hearts. I asked him if he liked the army. He answered, "Not at first certainly; but, forced as I was to serve, I thought that the name of deserter sounded like that of coward, and though I entered the service reluctantly, I could not but do my duty." This was said with manliness and resignation. His lameness proceeded from a wound; and he had a journey of three hundred miles before him, with the uncertainty of finding his 42 THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. parents alive, having been absent from them for six years, and not having heard from them for a considerable time. The night came on. It rained and was excessively dark. I asked him if there were robbers on the road. He answered that he knew not; but, turning to me and laying his hand on his breast, he said in a voice softened by gratitude, "I am a Frenchman, Sir; but I would lay down my life in your defence, on account of your kindness towards a poor stranger." I shook him by the hand involun- tarily and most heartily, on which he raised his cap from his head, as if to acknowledge what he thought condescension. We arrived at the auberge where we were to pass the night. I was weary, and only took a glass of brandy and water; but I ordered supper and a bottle of wine for the hussar and my domestic, who by this time had got into better humour. The aubergiste eyed the former with scorn; but I informed him (to his astonishment) that this soldier was one of THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. 43 my party; and this procured him all proper attention. In the morning we were to part. The hus- sar presented himself before me to make his last bow. I felt a weakness which I cannot explain. I hate thanks, and wished that he had not seen me go. Yet it would humiliate the poor fellow to part without bidding him farewell, and without wishing him a good journey. I held out my hand to him. He uncovered himself, and received it respect- fully. I offered him a little money, which, drawing back gracefully, he refused, saying "that I had already done more for him than he could expect." Then trying to speak, he burst into tears, and scarcely could articulate "adieu, mon commandant." "Adieu, mon pauvre comarade!" said I. Then jumping into the carriage, I told the post-boy to drive like the devil. These were my foolish words, for I caught my eyes betraying me into womanish emotions. I looked around and saw the hus- sar's eyes still fixed upon the carriage. He 41 THE WOUNDED HUSSAR. again took off his cap, and we were soon out of sight of each other, perhaps for ever. Perish the hand which when the battle- strife is over, will not succour a fellow man in distress. I have a hundred times thought with satis- faction of poor Pierre Berguin, the hussar, transported myself to the humble roof of his parents, felt my pulse encrease as I wondered whether he would rush into the embraces of his aged father and mother-exclaim with the same jewel which trembled in his eye at part- ing with me, mes chers parens, voila votre fils," and whether, sharing their humble fare, he would tell the story of our meeting, and devote a glass and a kind wish to the health and prosperity of his fellow man, journeying on the eventful road of life, who gave him a lift bet wixt Senlis and Meaux. 66 N° V. THE RESTAURATEUR. "Que vous semble, a-t-il dit, du gout de cette soupe ? Sentez vous le citron dont a mis le jus, Avec des jaunes d'œuf melés dans du verjus? Ma foi vive Mignot, et tout ce qu'il apprête." Les cheveux cependant me dressaient à la tête : Car Mignot, c'est, tout dire, et dans le monde entier, Jamais empoisonneur ne sut mieux son mêtier. BOILEAU. THE RESTAURATEUR. } "POOR N'entend pas! the sport of fortune, the jest of foreign flippancy, the dupe of many, but the prop of thousands, and the pride of the free world." These were my reflections as I entered a Restaurateur's at Paris, and be- held a number of my honest, comely, respec- table, and worthy countrymen sitting at dif- ferent tables, covered with every variety of French provisions and cookery, which last article (be it said without prejudice) always brought back to my mind Ovid's Metamor- phoses, and his― "In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Corpora," &c. 66 48 THE RESTAURATEUR. The whole of the assemblage had the ap- pearance of liberty, opulence, and independ- ence. Some of them had a pondering, observ- ing walk, which shewed that though the Muses might have a share in their society, the Graces were certainly not of the party. A few, placed at a distance from each other, with a certain air of mistrust (as much as to say, "I will take care not to get acquainted with foreign adventurers, or with uncertain migrated coun- trymen,") 66 Sat, like contempt, alone;" but the parties mostly herded together, for John Bull is a gregarious animal, and his habits are still stronger on the continent than at home; which is the reason he so often returns to his native land without any know- ledge of the language, manners, or customs, of the countries through which he has passed, and which he not unfrequently despises, be- cause he is thus wholly uninformed about them. THE RESTAURATEUR. 49 The next remark which I made was, that all the English exceeded, in expence, the har- lequin variety of natives, and of strangers, who filled the room, and there were various causes for this fact: habit, pride, appetite, cu- riosity, or extravagance. The rich natives were moderate amidst abundance; the many indigent ones were ravenous; some strangers appeared cautious and uncertain, not being at home, either as to country, or taste: others were more than difficult to please, and were continually examining the masqueraded viand with dainty satiety, through a glass, or were analyzing and scrutinizing the component parts of some well arranged made dish, held up in detail on the end of a fork, and doubt- ingly introduced within the suspicious and con- temptuous lips. The proud man was a mere taster: the extravagant one a destroyer, elate amidst expense, and a waster of the poor man's due; his mind creating fanciful wants, which his arrogance paid dearly for. Whilst I was thus indulging my habits of VOL. I. D 50 THE RESTAURATEUR. 66 reading men, "A bottle of your very best rosy champagne, no flimsy sham-Abraham," roared out an athletic, young, well-proportioned Hi- bernian, with a voice like a stentor. "Oui, mi Lord," replied one of the waiters, without looking round, because he was satisfied that the commanding tone came from a native of the British empire, with pocket artillery to back the order. On the supple attendant's producing the bottle in question, he asked, with a complai- sant smirk, for which of the gentlemen it was. The Irishman claimed it, offered a glass to a stranger next him, pledged him with kindness, and the seven francs worth was out of sight in a few seconds; and here the old proverb of "Out of sight, out of mind,” seemed fully to apply, for (with the devil may care-ism of the Emerald Isle) this son of Bacchus very soon ordered ditto repeated, and then rang the changes (assisted by his new- made acquaintance) on six other qualities of wine, all of the most expensive kinds. THE RESTAURATEUR. 51 Whilst these fantasies were proceeding in their course, I had an opportunity of viewing and considering the groups of English placed around me. Here was a man in loose gaiters, with a white hat and a single-breasted sports- man-like coat of bottle green: the purple juice of the grape shone in his complexion; his face was short and chubby, terminated by a double chin, and he was accompanied by a bull-dog. "Quel air de famille!" whispered an inso- lent French buraliste to his companion, as they took the measure of this piece of British pro- duce and his trusty follower. Well it was, too, for the Frenchman that he spoke so low, for he might otherwise have found John and his bull-dog rather "ugly customers,” (to use the phrase of the fancy) had his remark been overheard.-Near this pair sat a thin hypo- chondriac, with as meagre a greyhound at his feet: they could not have been better matched in point of appearance and of hunger, for they actually devoured all that was put within their reach: the man's clothes were so long and so D 2 52 THE RESTAURATEUR. loose that he appeared slipping through them; his boney head was surmounted by a brown beaver, and he had dirty brown top-boots, from which his dwindled shanks seemed to be running away. "Quelle figure d'emigré," grumbled a demietasse,-as the half-pay offi- cers are styled at the coffee-houses and restau- rateurs,-casting an ill-natured look at him. Next came a country 'squire, with his neck- cloth tied in the true coachman-like style, and with a flat broad-brimmed hat, of the size of a lady's parasol. "So fat he appeared he was just like a tun, Or like two single gentlemen roll'd into one." His companions were a brace of terriers, and the whole three were simultaneously employed in the important act of mastication. “ Gros pa- tapoufe!" expressed the motion of the dis- dainful lips of a militaire en non-activité, with envy and dislike visible in every line of his face. The fact is, that the profuseness of our countrymen to the waiters, which en- THE RESTAURATEUR. 53 3333 grossed their almost exclusive respect and at- tention, added to the air of opulence and the bonne chere before them, drew forth anger, hatred, and all uncharitableness from the hasty and disappointed Gaul. I now lent an ear to the general buzz, in- terrupted as it was by noisy waiters calling for different dishes, which produced a very strange effect, like that of cross-readings and certain qui pro quos, of a most amusing tendency: amongst the number, the following struck me the most. Enter two fat Dutch- men; the garçon roaring to the cook, "Deux têtes de veaux!"-an Englishman now mo- tioned to another waiter to bring his dinner -"un bœuf au naturel," was vociferated by the waiter to the cook. Here a French exqui- site lisped out his orders with an affected ac- centing of the letter r, in garçon, which is mightily the mode in Paris, and which makes the word Paris sound like Payis, in the mouth of the insect train. "Une omelette souffleé," was now the cry: a deputy, who had been 54 THE RESTAURATEUR. holding forth to a circle around him, and who was not a little verbose, frothy, and a com- plete moulin à paroles, now gave the organs of speech a little rest, ending, by commanding his dish. "Une crême fouettée," resounded in a moment from a corner of the saloon: lastly, an Italian singer made his appearance, when "un chapon" was the order borne by a simpering fellow to the chef (head cook), who eyed the gentle signor with a mixture of contempt and complaisance. I had nearly forgotten a long-limbed, silly-looking booby, whose vacuity of countenance, disjointed deportment, and almost unconnected limbs, made him look like a scaramouch, and whose entrance was accompanied by "un abbatis d'oie." Observe, gentle reader, I do not vouch for there being either art, contrivance, or design, in these appropriate combinations: I attribute. them to mere chance, and I give them just as I heard them, without addition or alteration. My dinner and observations being ended, I 1 THE RESTAURATEUR. 55 now called for la carte payante; and, as a hint to my countrymen, I beg leave to ob- serve, that "Il ne faut jamais oublier la carte." I satisfied the waiter, and bowed to the dame du comptoir, a person of no small importance at restaurateurs and at coffee- houses, and whose eminence will hereafter claim an exclusive article, from THE HERMIT ABROAD. N° VI. THE PALAIS ROYAL. D 3 And much he pitied those Whom falsely smiling fate has cursed with means To dissipate their days in quest of joy. ARMSTRONG. THE PALAIS ROYAL. THE prince who first let the confines of his palace for a bazaar, was well aware of the profits likely to arise from such a speculation: he duly appreciated the attractions which would fill his coffers, and blushed not at the unprincely scenes and sordid transactions which were to take place at the threshold of his apartments. Interest and ambition often walk hand in hand, as impure desire and the swellings of pride are too frequently covered by the same ermined robe: the mutual sacrifices which they must make, seem to me as incalculable as irreconcileable; but, in es- 60 THE PALAIS ROYAL. teem for the present occupier of the remnant of a royal residence, set round with pseudo ornaments, and begirt with shops, I will say no more on this part of the subject: the princely apartments, the large glass doors, the orange-trees and the Swiss, are all that announce the habitation of a remote branch of the lily and a descendant of the Bourbons; all the rest might be the Exeter 'Change, or Burlington Arcade of London, or any other general mart for an extensive variety of wares. To be well acquainted with the Palais Royal, not only requires habit, but compa- rative views: like the camera obscura it entirely depends upon the light in which it is per- ceived; to me it appeared a complete ka- leidoscope, exhibiting tinsel and gaudy trash, indebted for its effect to the variety of its changes, and to the infinity of improved no- things, producing amazement; but the more fairly to exhibit the panorama, I will take it in two distinct points of view. Every article of dress, jewellery, &c. is to THE PALAIS ROYAL. 61 be procured here, so that a novice may be rigged out à la Francaise, or in any other manner, from head to foot, in a few minutes; he may dine, drink the choicest wine, go to a public place, and return to his lodgings without wetting his feet; and he may, in the shortest space imaginable, be completely un- feathered and ruined into the bargain. The votaries of Bacchus and of Venus are equally at home in this circle; and a minor light-footed divinity, well known as a winged messenger in the Pantheon, is also in constant attend- ance, namely, the " facundus nepos Atlantis!" On the entire stranger, emerged from narrow and dirty streets; elbowed in the pressing throng, seeking shelter from a heavy shower of rain, or delivered from a fiacre, which holds the last place amidst the hackney coaches of Europe, tired of being shaken therein, and of the frequently repeated whip and abuse of the cocher applied to his 62 THE PALAIS ROYAL. horses, libertine, - the boy, the boor, or the the galleries, shops, and ex- trinsic ornaments; the garden, the foun- tains, the host of idlers, and the light troops of females, must have a very great effect. The contrast and heterogeneous assem- blage of a cabinet litteraire, and a gaming table, the supposed dwelling of learning and politics, and the real temple of idleness and ruin; the choice wines and viands of the taverns, with all possible sorts of incentives, provocatives and stimuli for all sorts of tastes and appetites, confuse alike the eye and the mind, bewilder the senses, and lead juvenile feelings astray. At night the effect is in- creased by the lustres and mirrors of the cof- fee-houses; by the splendid trappings of the lowest victims of self-degradation; by the brilliant gas and other lights in the surround- ing exposition-rooms for jewellery, dresses, flowers, fruits, ices, prints, pictures, &c. &c.; by the buzz of the gaming-houses, and a great variety of minor amusements well fitted for a vacant brain. THE PALAIS ROYAL. 63 The hungry, the thirsty, the weak and weary; the gambler, the lounger, the drunkard, and the debauchee have here nothing to wish for: he who complains of the tædium vitæ, may ring the changes on Folly's and Fancy's bells to deceive his imagi- nation; the spendthrift may lessen his coffers ad libitum, and all this without quitting the arcades or piazza of the Palais Royal; nay, the poor man, on whom friends and fortune have long frowned, may sit in the morning inhaling the odours of the choicest flowers, or frequent in the evening the coffee-house. or reading-room, at a very small expence, unperceived (save only by the eye of the police) for whole hours together. He may make his meal at any time, and at almost any price, and thus cheat the heavy hand of care, and dispense with the necessity for society. The keen observer of men and manners, the satirist, the painter, but above all the carica- turist, have here the most ample and diver- sified field; nor is the moralist without a 64 THE PALAIS ROYAL. theme for his talent, since wherever the greatest extremes and excesses exist, the moralist, the commentator, and the monitor, have abundance of labour provided for their hands. On foreigners, and in particular on such as are subjected to indolent habits, grafted upon a love of pleasure, the Palais Royal has a magnetic influence. I am acquainted with a certain gentle- man, who, after habituating himself to foreign countries, so as to have lost all native cast, has, for these last four years, made this centre of attraction his head-quarters, and is seldom seen in any other part of the town; from the bath to the breakfast-table, thence to the reading-room, thence to the garden or the arcade, (according to the weather) — from lounging exercise to the restaurateur's, thence to the coffee-house, the evening lounge of the arcade, or garden again; and lastly to the rope-dancing and the gaming table:-thus do his hours pass; nor is he by any means more expensive than his moderate fortune allows - THE PALAIS ROYAL. 65 him to be. One day economy is his plan, and he dines at a cheap eating-house, with frugal wine and water; the next, he indulges his foreign taste with made dishes, fruits, ices, and a moderate quantity of wine: one even- ing he wins a crown at billiards, another he gains or loses a trifle at the little-go; a terne in the lottery is his speculation this week ; a silver martingale the next; to-day he courts solitude; to-morrow he makes a new ac- quaintance, and dines at a table d'hôte. In fine, he has no wants unsatisfied within this narrow circle, and what is most extraordinary, he complains of no sameness, of no vacuum, of none of the fatigues of super-satiety, (if I may be allowed the term) which the constant repetition of idle pleasures is calculated to produce; nor does his health, either of body or mind, appear to suffer for the want of more exercise, or of a more active life. When I say that it is precisely this sort of character which the Palais Royal is calcu- lated to form, and to which the Palais Royal 66 THE PALAIS ROYAL. offers an epitome of every thing that is de- lightful, I say all that is to be said in favour. of the place, which, with its armed attendants by day, and its pacing sentinels by night, opposing all the terrors of an arbitrary govern- ment to all the frivolities of the national cha- racter which can submit to such a yoke, had never any attraction beyond the momentary one of novelty, for THE HERMIT ABROAD. No VII. BROKEN IMAGES. Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat. BUTLER. BROKEN IMAGES. FATIGUED with reading, and finding a dimness come over my eyes, I laid down my spectacles, thinking, alas! how often my views had changed since first I entered into life: this reflection was not calculated to en- liven me, nor to clear up and brighten my prospects had I continued this train of thought, I should soon have become melan- choly; all would have been misty, dense, gloomy and uncomfortable; so I called for my hat and gloves, and walked out," where to go?" "The Champs Elysées; the name is so romantic." This elysium, however, had 70 BROKEN IMAGES. better suited my younger days, "l'aurore de la vie," when umbrageous alleys, amatory haunts, wood-nymphs and fair spirits are quite in season. "Tis delightful to repose the wearied eye on a green field, or a shady grove, bearing the promise of the year; to contemplate the velvet slope, and inhale the odour of fresh and expanding flowers; such a relaxation, when the mind and sight are both exhausted, flings a freshness over the feelings, and is amongst the best gifts which flow from the all beneficent hand. Relieved from noisy streets and the din of carriages, not forgetting the danger and dirt which they bring with them, I arrived in one of the alleys, when I beheld a crowd assembled round a poor Italian boy, an itine- rant vender of plaister figures, whose board, crowded with images, had by some mishap, a false step perchance, fallen on the ground, and now exhibited the fractured wreck and ruin of his fallen fortunes prostrate at his feet. BROKEN IMAGES. 71 Shakspeare pulverized to atoms, Milton without a nose, Plato without a head, the Duke of Wellington and Bonaparte—were mingled in the dust; next came the Pope with half a crown, and the King of Spain co- vered with dirt, along with the head of Fox and the limbs of Pitt. It would be endless to recount the confusion of persons, and of things; broken bosoms and fallen crests, horses' tails and ladies' legs, shields, spears and sceptres, wreaths and diadems, monks' cowls and shepherds' crooks, all, all were lost for ever, and SO for a few moments seemed all the hopes of the luckless Italian : there he stood, in an attitude expressive of much resignation, his right leg advanced, his shoulders inclining forward, his jet-black curling hair pendant in disorder from his neck, his face dejected and his hands clasped in each other-he uttered not a word; but the by-standers were not strangers to sympathy, for many seemed to pity, and some were inclined to relieve him. 72 BROKEN IMAGES. A pretty Grisette passed by and heaved a gentle sigh occasioned by the faux pas which had caused this fatal accident, a re- miniscent blush seemed to come across her face as she eyed the Venus de Medicis with her hands and arms knocked off, and a muti- lated Eve lying in a ditch, hard by a broken Etruscan vase; she felt in her pocket, but some previous impulse had robbed it of its contents; nevertheless she looked her kind commiseration, and gave to misery all she had. A veteran picked up the fragment of a war horse, but cast it down again, it was unfit for service: the old man paused, remembrance seemed to be at work with him also; he shrug- ged up his shoulders, looked grave, gave the boy something, and made an orderly retreat. A priest was the next in succession: he had a huge breviary peeping out of his pocket; "le pauvre garçon!" cried he, in a gentle tone, and passed quietly on. A rich BROKEN IMAGES. 73 banker now stopped his carriage, and en- quired into the cause of this mishap: the poor boy shook his head, he could not speak French, and his silence had even more effect than if the accents of his affliction could have made the passer by exclaim, in the language of Hamlet, "What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis?" The gros financier ques- tioned in vain, but the Italian pantomimed the fall of his fortune, by a tragical movement of both hands towards the earth, and the cast of his melancholy eye on the broken images. The man of money deliberately took off his glove, and introduced his gouty hand into the profundity of his bulky pocket, whence he drew a leathern bag, fastened so tight that the close knots seemed indivisible: he now turned over a quantity of gold and silver, (an anxious moment for the boy) and, after having fingered for some seconds each dis- tinct and individual piece, fearful lest a friendly adhesion might take place betwixt VOL. I. E 74 BROKEN IMAGES. any two neighbouring coins, he dropped a solitary five sous piece (i: e. two-pence half- penny) into the boy's hat, and after eyeing it thrice he reluctantly parted with it, casting a lingering look behind as he drove off from the spot. Was it regret for the small bit of silver, or pity for the boy?-the case is very doubtful. "What a two-penny half-penny heart that fellow has," cried an English half-pay lieute- nant in the navy, as he carelessly threw a five franc piece at the boy. A French colo- nel would not be outdone, and gave a simi- lar sum, proudly, but with gracefulness and good will: a charming French lady added her crown; never did loveliness look more lovely: I had almost said to her "the hand that hath made you fair hath made you good." A drunken drummer next threw down a ten sous piece. In fine, silver show- ered in until the boy was thrice over paid, and walked off in high spirits, carelessly trampling under foot sages and warriors, god- BROKEN IMAGES. 75 desses and monks, princes and cattle, columns, crowns, diadems and sceptres. An old man followed at a distance: he had been observing the boy all the while, but never took part in either pitying or relieving him; on the contrary he looked disgusted and dissatisfied, and ever and anon he shrug- ged up his shoulders and shook his head. I was puzzled at this circumstance, and curi- ous to learn the cause. Was it envy at another's gain? any personal grudge? a wish to share the spoil? or something unknown respecting the object who had been so suc- cessful in his mute appeal to public bene- volence? I was determined to find out the secret. "Perhaps," said I to myself," this man, although decently dressed, is himself a pauvre honteux, and merits as much com- miseration as the Italian boy. At length I addressed him; and judge my surprise at being informed, that the itinerant image- vender made a common practice of stumbling and breaking his ware to excite compassion, E 2 76 BROKEN IMAGES. and that this was the second time, within a week, that he had been detected by this in- dividual, who had witnessed the great success of this trick. The adventure disgusted me; not on ac- count of the mite which I had thrown into the general contribution, nor the shame of being duped; but because it added another instance of fraud and hypocrisy to the records of my experience. Nor was this the worst; the circumstance brought to my mind the painful and unwelcome remembrance of a fair de ceiver, who had, very early in life, wrung my heart's inmost recess, and fixed my every sympathy; her unprotected state inspired me with a holy respect, and the wrongs which she related fired me with indignation. What I did for her, without idea of any return, it becomes me not to tell; but I discovered afterwards that others had compassionated her in a far different way: to many confi- dants was her sad story told; her practised sigh and studied tear rose and fell to dif- BROKEN IMAGES. 77 ferent pitying swains. I would, however, have given worlds not to have been unde- ceived in this too interesting creature. I would have preferred being cheated ten times to being thus taught distrust by sad expe- rience: but so it was; she, like the sly Italian, played off an imposture on the credu- lous eye and unguarded heart. The stories of the broken vows and broken images are of one cast. A few days afterwards I met the little impostor, and my honest indignation inclined me to cane him. I contented myself, how- ever, with reproaching him in his own lan- guage, but the urchin affected neither to remember, nor to understand; and, laughing in my face, replied, "Non mi ricordo." A second flush of indignation visited my cheek, but I dismissed it as unbecoming THE HERMIT ABROAD. Nº VIII. SUNDAY AT PARIS. The seventh day this; the jubilee of man; London! right well thou know'st the day of pray'r. Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artizan, And snug apprentice gulp their weekly air; The coach of hackney, whiskey, one horse chair, And humble gig, through sundry suburbs whirl, To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair, "Till the tir'd jade the wheel forgets to hurl, Provoking envious jibe from each pedestrian churl. LORD BYRON, SUNDAY AT PARIS. How different the scene abroad! What a distinct race of beings the Paris Sunday folks from those of London! Relaxation from labour is the end of each. But how little similitude is there in their manner of obtain- ing it; the features of the French coun- tenance, as well as of their pleasures, differ immeasureably from those of neighbour Bull. Rest, piety, or pleasure, of a tranquil kind, fill up the Englishman's Sunday; now the Gaul is a mercurial body, and naturally ever in motion; a quiescent state suits not his habits; with him all is activity on the seventh E 3 82 SUNDAY AT PARIS. day, and those who mingle not in the din of mirth, follow, careless of all religious creeds, (and in spite of orders to the contrary) their usual labours, performing their daily tasks, in dirty working-clothes, within doors, and unseen by the gay throng. At the close of day, however, they come out, not to pray, but to play :-if you ask them why they work on Sunday, they will answer you, in a tone of ill-temper, "if we don't work we cannot eat;" but after the temperate meal, they exhibit the most intemperate love for pleasure, not in drinking or revel- ling in a pot-house, but in dancing, in fre- quenting the minor places of theatrical amusement, in attending the rope-dancing, the puppet-shows, the jugglers' and mounte- banks' exhibitions, with which the French, metropolis abounds, or in playing at cards, dominos, or billiards, for the bottle of fixed. air called beer, or the demie tasse de café and the glass of brandy. Nor is the segar omitted, which, however, does not keep the SUNDAY AT PARIS. 83 Frenchman from his mistress, nor immure him in an ale-house with a male party, but serves as the incense, which he burns under the very nose of his idol, to shew the warmth of his affection, and often to give un air de service; for the sempstress and laundry-woman, and all the classes who furnish the amatory couples and couplets of the Sunday, lean towards the militaire. Hired horses, carriages, and carts are not so frequent in Paris, as in London. The infantry make the chief display of the middle and lower classes; but the exercise which equitation might afford, is amply supplied by the airy dance, and the distance, perchance, at which it is held; for the day must be filled up, and those who do not work a part of it, think nothing of being on foot from early morn to five in the evening, and dancing from then until ten or eleven at night, when they seek their upper stories, or return to some gloomy ground floor, in an intricate court, in the narrowest parts of 84 SUNDAY AT PARIS. the town, full of love and tobacco, which serve as preservatives against the confine- ment and bad air which they have afterwards to encounter. In winter, the range of these amusements is much narrowed; but love, levity, scenic performance, intrigue, gaming on a small plan, and mirth uncontrolled, are to be found in sky-parlours, or buried under ground, at the caveau, at subterraneous coffee-rooms, at the estaminets and tabagies, i. e. blind ale-houses and smoking rooms; whilst, at night, the fauxbourgs ring with the return of labourers, singing love and glory, with their mistresses linked on their arms, and with their last penny rattling in the pocket's profundity. All the public places too are filled with different ranks of society, and the bird of Paradise,* is the * The frequenters of the upper galleries are, in Lon- don, called the gods; in Paris, the upper region is SUNDAY AT PARIS. 85 loudest and most satisfied there. Such is the Paris Sunday, and it is much the same in other countries abroad; but still the gaieté Française bears the belle-amongst the nations of the continent, no where is love and dancing more the order of the day. A wet Sunday "derange diablement leurs projets," as they say themselves, for les instru- mens à tout vent (those wind instruments per- formed upon in the open air), seem a key too low, and the harper and fiddler's chord sounds flat, the lights burn blue, and a damp is thrown even upon Cupidon, who acts his part every where, from the garret to the cellar, and from the quarter of l'Estrapade to the refined Champs Elysées; besides the thin robes of virgin white become mere boue de Paris, and the dancing pump is like a sheet of brown called le Paradis, therefore, I trust, that the name of bird of Paradise will not offend these rara aves, perched up aloft. 86 SUNDAY AT PARIS. paper, ere it be brought into activity, in the mazes of the waltz, or draw attention in an attempt at le pas de Zephyr in a quadrille; then the rain creates expense, and confines love and glory (generally prone to take the field together) within a hot and crowded apart- ment, thus cramping the confidential conver- sation usual on these occasions. I have a proud friend who likes to see a wet Sunday, both abroad and at home, hating to behold the swinish multitude in droves in every quarter of the town; and a moral one, who asserts that a rainy Sabbath may drive them into church, and at all events serves to keep them out of mischief. I feel my own opinion situated betwixt the two, and am neither inclined to approve of the loose amusements of foreigners on a day hal- lowed by religion and holy custom, nor averse to the general pause from labour and the enjoyment of the hours of recreation which the hard-working classes expect on the return of Sunday. Between masquerades and promis- SUNDAY AT PARIS. 87 cuous dancing, a Café de la Paix, a licensed gaming table, a rendezvous of intrigue, and the excursion to Hampstead, the walk in Kensington Gardens, the improved dinner, and the improved dress of the Sunday Cock- ney, the distance is great. Besides, I am in- Iclined to think that those who wait for rain to go to church, will only make a lounge of what ought to be a duty, and that if keen- felt disappointment confine the artizan at home, it will not be fair weather all day with his family. Ill-temper may create divers jars, nay a neighbouring tavern or dram shop may inflame those resentments which fresh air and mild ale might have mellowed and softened into good-nature and uxorious complaisance; but I must return to my Boulevards, and having described the Sunday's amusements, I will say a very few words of the dramatis persona, and particularly of the badaud ap- prentice, or labourer with his chère amie, and give him as he appeared to THE HERMIT ABROAD. N° IX. THE BOULEVARDS. Let us see-in my last I was-where did I stop? Oh! I know-at the Boulevards, as motley a road as Man ever would wish a day's lounging upon; With its cafés and gardens, hotels and pagodas, Its founts and old Counts sipping beer in the sun; With its houses of all architectures you please, From the Grecian and Gothic, Dick, down by degrees To the pure Hottentot, or the Brighton Chinese; Where in temples antique you may breakfast or dinner it, Lunch at a mosque, and see Punch from a minaret. FUDGE FAMILY IN PARIS. THE BOULEVARDS. HAVING said so much on the Sunday's amusements, the scenes of which are the Bou- levards, the Palais Royal, the public gar- dens, and the guinguettes in the outskirts of Paris, we must next contemplate the various figures of the magic lantern of the Boule- vards: for no where can be seen a more motley assemblage; the jacket of harlequin is a blank to it. At Venice, at Florence, at Rome, and at Vienna, the masked popula- tion is only to be met with in the Carnival time; but the Boulevards represent a gene- ral masquerade of disguised faces, figures, 92 THE BOULEVARDS. minds, resources and occupations. Loves and graces, Venuses of all sizes and ages! wood- nymphs and water-nymphs, emerging from the Champs Elysées, the bains Chinois, and from all the other baths, gardens and groves of the metropolis, float along in all directions; whilst fauns and satyrs and the followers of Mars are not wanting to make up the group. Here a faded or over-blown Flora reclines in a barouche; there a Pomona expects the fruits of her desir de plaire, the amatory of- fer, or the meed of admiration, to requite her for displaying so many attractions to the daz- zled eye. On one side the fly-catching pea- sant grins delight; on another the staring stranger excites the smile of the old stager, playing off some borrowed character for his own benefit; and all this under living masks, speaking features, and familiar habits. In London a prevalence of grave faces, and an air of business mingle strongly even with the idle, or pleasurable crowd; but here all seems like the scenic representation of· THE BOULEVARDS. 93 an eventful drama, filled with incident, in- trigue, and agreeable surprise. Then how delightful the fancy dresses are-how promo- ted are all charms-how improved all allure- ments, how disguised all defects-how few dull dominos, lawyers, priests, grave senators, and the like. If such pass, they are unob- served, and speedily quit the gay haunt. How many, in the true spirit of masque- rade, assume the characters foreign to their own. A young female peasant, in the habit of the pays de Cau, gazes around with an air of timid wonder, and the look of rosy health, who never quitted her native Paris, and whose face is as well known to the hack nied libertine, as the sun-dial of the Palais Royal, round which so many idlers gather when the meridian ray is powerful enough to let off the little cannon. A disconsolate widow creates a deep interest by the story of 'her hus- band's death au champ d'honneur, in the heart of a neighbouring youth, seated near Tortoni's, on the hired chair, though, in rea- 94 THE BOULEVARDS. lity, she never was married, and knows as little of honor's path, as of the never-existing general of her imagination. A flirting Ga- latea dashes along with her equipage and servants; the latter, with black cockades in their hats, explanatory of her being under the protection of an English military man of high rank. Here is a modest looking tradeswoman, who unblushingly trades in the errors of her sex: there, an industrious- looking housemaid, who rises at twelve at noon, and goes to her couch at two in the morning; whose works whose works are works of darkness-whose wages are the price of trans- gression. In the other sex, there are as many artifi- cial characters and parts:-high-dressed gen- tlemen, who live on simples; boys escaped from the counter, with the contents of the till in their pockets, wearing Mameluke or Tartar trousers, fixed spurs, and moveable moustachios, and who play the militaire, and talk of campaigns to women and children, and THE BOULEVARDS. 95 strippling foreigners; but cautiously steer clear of the half-pay of various garb, and of the numerous spies of the police. These youths are habited, sometimes in the morn- ing, as if dressed for dinner; sometimes in an imitation of English undress, and some- times even decorated by a ribband, which never had a cross pendant to it. The jargon and acting of these per- formers are as various as their exterior. Affected French, broken English, silvery soft- ness, persuasive tone, the adventurer's tale of marvel, and the many quacks, and mounte- banks' farrago of high-sounding nonsense, may, in turn, be observed. One fellow, I remember, in a most florid discourse, an- nounced, from a car, drawn by two milk white steeds, that he sold tea, dry goods, and medi- cines; whilst his two comrades played on the French horn. But the highest attempt, was a vagabond, in an old scarlet and gold mili- tary uniform, whose talents were innumerable; he could cut cards and corns with equal dex- 96 THE BOULEVARDS. terity; tell fortunes, draw teeth, take stains out of silk, shave, dress hair, and play the violin, and as to his medicines, their number and properties were infinite; and he sold them at the lowest possible rate, merely from his humanity to mankind: he had a variety of devices to set off his drugs, but the most appropriate, would have been the old Latin one, "Hic venditur emeticum, catharticum, narcoticum, et omne quod exit inum, præter remedium." Lastly, we may observe, the badaud attempt at elegance of diction, the ce n'est pazamoi, all stirred into the same crowd ce n'est patelle; le jeune homme qui a reçuzez un education co- venable ta sa naisance; the manzelle voila tunc chaise qui vous tende les bras, and simi- lar phrases, offer a protean variety of ridi- culous colourings, both to language and to things; for it must be observed, that the cockney dialect is not more ridicu- lous than the Paris vernacular; nor than THE BOULEVARDS. 97 the would-be-wit of the lower orders, and the real broad humour and slang of the fish-wo- men. But we have been long enough upon the Boulevards, and I shall only mention one more character, an elderly man, who brought to my mind very serious reflections, which may, at a future period, come in their turn. In the circle of the Palais Royal, and on the Boulevard de Montmartre, I frequently observed a man in the vale of years, bent and hanging on a cane, with a sickly account of his youthful transactions engraven on his face; he had, however, a spring wig of a very glossy light brown shade, fancifully poodled, his head was in the chancery of a stiff cravat which refused it free action; a shawl-waist- coat succeeded the highly-starched neck con- cern, and russia-duck trousers concluded the figure, not to forget an almost milk white tunic, and a Bolivar hat; a rose in his bosom drew the admiring eye, and a very strong announcement of musk struck the olfactory VOL. I. F 98 THE BOULEVARDS. nerves of the passer by. He walked alone, but was ever and anon accosted by cyprians of all casts, presented with bouquets, forced to buy trifles, and sometimes receive letters en passant; he gave sugar-plums and bon- bons to the little wantons who infest the neighbourhood of the Rue St. Honoré; and when he was fatigued with lounging about, he rested himself in the milliner's shop. I enquired who he was, and the answer was, "Il vit de ses rentes," he lives on his fortune. The fact was, that he had a very handsome income, although he had, in his youth, lavished a still greater one on mere sensuality: grown grey in the Champ de Venus, he had outlived all the venal beauties of his early days, and had escaped the pre- mature end of his debauched male compa- nions; he was now closing the scene by the most selfish enjoyments, and by the lowest pastimes; whilst, to be the patron of depra- vity, and the flattered dupe of artful girls, formed his only ambition. He looked as if THE BOULEVARDS. 99 he thought himself an object of envy, at least to those of his own standing; but assuredly there was one among them in whom he excited only contempt and pity, and he is here set down as a proper object for those feelings, by THE HERMIT ABROAD. F 2 No X. THE RUFFIANS. Ah sure a pair was never seen So justly form'd to meet by nature. THE DUENNA. THE RUFFIANS. LOOKING up at the eminence of that column (“ære perennius") which stands in stern and imposing majesty in the centre of the Place de Vendome, and speaks volumes to the patriot and soldier, my attention was drawn aside by sudden exclamations of surprise from two young Englishmen of the ruffian class, with all the costume and four-in-hand style of the box and fancy richly blended. "Is that Jack Rapid, or his ghost ?" "His ghost, to be sure,” answered the other, in a genuine slang style; "for I am dead in all the London papers. But am I sleeping, drunk, or hazy? or do I 104 THE RUFFIANS. see Sam Stafford, the luckiest dog on the turf, the best gentleman blackguard on the town, and the primest miller, for an amateur, that ever drew the first cork of his antago- nist ?" "A truce to compliments," said Sam, "but what brought you here ?" "Four as fine tits as you ever sat behind, a nice light mail, and my own hard driving, with my duns in full cry. Was stagged into Long's by a rascally tailor-brought to by Richard Roe-floored him in turning a corner -ran full speed, neck or nothing, to a stand of coaches-bolted in-tipped Jarvy the wink, and showed him a sovereign; took the road to Brighton in a night coach-found four annuitants had got scent of me-stepped out on changing horses-posted it to Cambridge, and raised five hundred amongst the only people I ever paid in the world—namely, my Cantabrigien tradesmen; levied as much more on old school-fellows and college chums there -wrote to my intriguing servant to meet me in the city with my cavalry and carriages, which THE RUFFIANS. 105 were stowed away for fear of being taken in execution, and then brushed down to Dover at night; sat boldly on my box, dressed so like my groom, and with a black patch on my eye, that the devil himself could not tell mas- ter from man; got safe over, and here I am. But the best of it was, that by the advice of the old swell, Harry Hardup has put my demise in all the papers, as having broken my neck in taking a six-barred gate, for a wager, in Leicestershire. My blood hounds must be at a fault indeed. Doubleface, my attor- ney, told me that I had eleven writs and four executions out against me; one from the Jew jeweller; four from horse-dealers; tailors to the number of six, and the rest tavern and livery-stable keepers :-as to Long, it will be a long farewell to all his hopes, and with my d-d tailor, measure for measure;' for Hoby, I have a fellow feeling, because I stand in his shoes;' besides, he is the best tick in Europe, so I'll make my executors pay him; but the other ragamuffins may go and F 3 106 THE RUFFIANS. hang themselves, or when I'm tired of living on the Continent, I will get some broth of a boy to negociate for me, and to pay them eighteen-pence in the pound, out of re- spect to my memory. In the meantime, Sam, remember that I am Mr. Thomas,-my tra- velling name." "But how do you carry on ?” 66 Why the last winter's run was a hard one indeed; but I did not break cover until spring, I tried every thing. To be penitent to my old hard-hearted uncle wouldn't do; pretended to Lady Deborah, my detestable aunt, to have a call, and went with her thrice to the Ebenezer; got but ten guineas; voted her religion all hypocrisy, and discovered that she drank hard in her closet. Got a quack medicine for uncle's steward; he would only lend a hundred on my note of hand, and like a rascally ci-devant lick-plate, he passed, it off to my lord's coal-merchant. I hit the waiter at the club pretty hard, but I got so drunk with Lord Charles, that I know not whether THE RUFFIANS. 107 he and his friends brought me to market after supper, or whether I was robbed on my way home: it is one for the other, rouge perde la couleur,' i. e. the blush of shame to my friends if sold in their circle, or a little deeper dye if done amongst pickpockets and shoe- blacks in the street: but live and let live, Jack, is a liberal toast. Well, all failed, and I was hemmed in on every side. Horses pounded at Tattersal's, carriages in quod at the hotel, plate and jewels spouted, credit gone at the family bankers, and no tick in the east, west, northern, or southern district. At length I determined on making love to Mary Fuller, whom you remember lady's maid in our family, and who has been set up in business not a hundred miles from Cheapside. Early impressions and the respectability of our house have a strong influence on Mary, and I have prevailed on her to migrate with the last flourishing branch thereof. (A pretty flourish of yours, observed the friend.) She has sold the sticks for eight hundred pounds, 108 THE RUFFIANS. which are weighty arguments for constancy to Mary for a time. In return for all this, I have given Mary a post obit, to be cancelled in the event of my marrying her." Here his comrade gave a long whistle. "Then, you know, the chapter of accidents is full of event- ful changes: she may die-I may die; but I hope his lordship, my uncle, may die first; and when I come to my title, honour and privileges, I will condescend to treat my fol- lowers to a sight of my coronet, as a receipt in full of all demands to them and to all inquiring friends. But pray how stand your rents?" "Sixteen astonishing horses to be sold at enormous prices, the produce of which to be laid out in cheap, well chosen Normans; these Normans, by mutation, to represent the Saxons and Anglo-Saxons, and to go for a frightful sum; thus combining the Saxon and Norman conquests, a few may be disfigured into Danes, and still further follow the history of England; then we have dogs which can THE RUFFIANS. 109 do every thing, every one worth fifty pounds: finally, with a vigilant eye to look out, and a firm hand to act, always awake and never to be taken napping, I can do enough to wait for two lives, and a Trojan (they say) has as many lives as a cat. You see, therefore, that I am not at my last shift; we can still carry on, my boy, and live as comfortably and as fairly as many of the western twinklers, who owe to their title, prerogative, or to the two powerful letters M.P. or to some other for- tuitous circumstance, their rank and elevation in society." Each seemed delighted with the other's wit. "D-n me what is the world? a scram- ble-a lottery-a handicap-a sweepstakes—a game of either chance or address." Now they turned a corner so sharply, that I lost the rest, which I did not much regret; for there is, betwixt a pick-pocket's grappling a purse, ducking under a hackney coach, and chang- ing his appearance and quarters, and a once gentleman's turning Greek, sharper and run- 110 THE RUFFIANS. away, something so similar, that the very idea horrifies one. I met the duo the next day at a coffee-house, Sam was very anxious to get acquainted with me, but I declined the honor, for they had unwittingly commu- nicated the consequences of any intercourse with them, too freely, to THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XI. THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee, 'That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care, So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree, Se from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare. BURNS. THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. HAVING Occasion one day to traverse the Rue Vivienne, my attention was arrested by the peculiar appearance of a pauper and his little daughter; the former sat in a chair, with his feet covered by a blanket, and with his hands in a make-shift for a muff; he was meanly, but not raggedly dressed, and had the ap- pearance of a reduced tradesman; he did not beg, nor did the pretty little child; but she followed the passers by, offering gilt tooth- picks for sale, which she kept in a small osier basket. There was nothing obtrusive in her address, on the contrary, her manner was play- 114 THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. ful, artless, and engaging; she dropped her little curtsy with infantine grace, had a winning dimple in her rosy cheek, and nothing of mendicity in her person or behaviour; she seldom even spoke at all, but tendered the contents of her basket with becoming inde- pendence: when they purchased she looked grateful, left the price to the buyers, and thanked them by a warm smile of rejoicing, which was worth ten times what could be given on such an occasion: if it was a piece of silver, her features brightened with joy, and she ran with it to the poor old man: if she was refused, she still made her curtsy, which bespoke the contentment of the heart, and the religion of resignation: if brushed past by un- feelingness, or refused with ill-nature, a passing cloud covered her features, but she paced back to the old man's chair, and plied her accustomed office without a frown:-her dis- appointment was not for herself, but for one who seemed dear to her. The poor man also possessed an admirable THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. 115 composure and great decency of deportment, and he literally sat, 66 like patience on a monument Smiling at grief.” The frequency of my visits to the Rue Vivienne, from that time, begot a kind of ac- quaintance between these interesting objects and myself. Pleased as I had been with witnessing the conduct of the man and his child towards strangers, I was yet more anxious to observe their deportment towards each other, when unperceived by the crowd. I accordingly con- trived, more than once, to be an unseen spectator of their endearments, whenever there was a momentary cessation of passers and repassers. The child would prattle kindly and cheerfully to her father. Sometimes she rubbed his hands, benumbed by the cold, and sometimes danced and frisked round his chair with all the innocent playfulness of her age. 116 THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. Occasionally she would make a little garden at his feet, with rose leaves and sprigs, picked up in the street, as they were scattered from the costly bouquet of some fashionable belle. Often would the parent smile a blessing on his child, whose dear little face thanked him in the plainest language of sympathy: once I observed a tear drop from the poor man's eye, it was one of reminiscence and affection kindly commingling. Did the image of the infant's mother strike his mind? or did a mortal prayer beg a blessing on the prop of his old age? Was it thanks to the All Good, for these sweets mingled in his bitter cup? or sorrow at the inevitable approach of that awful period of separation, which would tear two hearts asunder, and make an orphan of his child? True it is that Providence kindly tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, fits the burthen to the back, and metes our portion of afflic- THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. 117 tion with an equal hand. What had been this pauper's lot but for his dear companion in distress? Life would have been an insupporta- ble load, his days all bitterness, this world a desart, a dreary wilderness. But here the weary heart of the man had a resting place; here the mind recoiled not upon itself, nor fed upon its afflictions: it had an easier oc- cupation; the parent had some one to live for ; and whilst his little partner in adversity, contributed by the eloquence of innocent looks to canvass the vote of charity for her father, he, in his turn, by his helpless state, laid a legitimate claim to that assistance, of which his offspring had her portion. There are many of the great who sleep not so soundly on their downy pillows as the poor man and his child repose on their hard and humble couch; nay, from all that I could collect, they never felt absolute want of food, raiment, or a sheltering roof: the eye of Pro- vidence is on the virtuous poor; their reward is certain, however it may be delayed. And 118 THE PAUPER AND HIS CHILD. it was this reflection which made the contem- plation of the pair, I have described, one of the most interesting spectacles that was ever offered to the notice of THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XII. FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. Ce tourbillon qu'on appelle le monde Est si frivole, en tant d'erreurs abonde, Qu'il n'est permis d'en aimer le fracas Qu'a l'etourdi qui ne le connaît pas. VOLTAIRE. FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. IF constant restlessness and a love of change; if feverishness in fashion and in po- litics, be proof of an insane state, as contrasted with the quietude, the coolness and stability of wisdom and sanity, the assertion of Boileau holds good in the first Paris circles :- "Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgre tous leurs soins, Ne different entr'eux que du plus ou du moins." Let us, however, enter the drawing-room in the Chaussè d'Antin, look round us at a blaze of light, of lustres, of looking glasses, and of toilette, or breakfast companion belles ; VOL. I. G 122 FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. see warm pictures from the Italian School,- quantities of porcelain, as beautiful and as fragile as the subjects of these attractive pic- tures,-view marble tables, candelabra, a few ornamental books, and a clock of inimitable workmanship, supported on one side by old father Time, and on the other by Henri IV., le père du peuple, both in every man and woman's mouth from the prince to the pea- sant, but neither seriously thought of by any. Madame la Comtesse de Bellemont sits in an imposing attitude, like imperious beauty holding her gaudy court: nymphs of quality, formed for the offices of love and of conversa- tion, are attituded about her, each star set as it were in surrounding satellites of admirers; an Italian greyhound couches at his mistress's feet; (Ah! qu'il est heureux! exclaim a group of elegants) and the Marquis de Millecœurs is holding forth before the fire, which no one can see, and which Messieurs les Anglois view with jealous eye. He has a gazette in his hand, with which he was, a moment ago, FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. 123 screening his complexion; but the obverse of this favourite medal is to the ladies, the reverse to the igneous matter. "Enfin, Mesdames, c'est ainsi," cries he, giving a sort of a sigh.—The English look attentively, for they are young inexperienced men: they hear that the Marquis is un esprit fort, and they consider Madame Bellemont's to be a meeting of the very cream of fashion and talent-we were going to say la crême de la France, but legitimates and the Buonapar- teans both claim this distinction. They are equally proud. But I must not again get into reasoning: my own opinion is that the truth is betwixt them. The Marquis, whose device is l'amour et la gloire, seemed to balance betwixt the degree of admiration which was to be inspired by the fine proportions of his person, and by his intellectual qualities; and if one were to judge by the approving smiles given by self to self in the looking-glass, the scale prepon- derated in favour of the former, even in his G 2 124 FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. own opinion. He was incessantly erecting his head, protruding his chest, turning out his toes, and as Paddy calls it, “making a leg.” When he spoke he advanced one arm scien- tifically, whilst the other was imposed with the palm outwards on the hip, or was carelessly suspended by his left side, mais néanmoins on l'ecoutait. He was the favourite of the circle, and it seemed the fashion to listen to him. The Marquis was a little man, but he made the most of his stature. He was in a sort of undress, half French half English, but of peculiar richness. As to his politics, he was accused of vacillation and time-serving; but he professed himself a moderé, who had trempé dans la revolution, but who was above all prejudice. Near him, on a Turkish couch, sat a French dandy. He was at the shoulder of a woman whose beauty was d'un grand eclat. To her he murmured and lisped. I once heard him say, "ma foi je n'entens pas la politique," to which he added, in a whisper, FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. 125 that he had been bred to love and war. The belles smiled assent. We had one emigré, a man of admirable, information on English subjects, which the Marquis held cheap, and was tolerably ignorant of; while Monsieur le Comte avoided les affaires de France, either because he was really not in the secret of them, or because he knew; them too well. The emigrant seemed more tolerated than sought for; but it was the ton of the house to unite all parties. Whenever war was spoken of, the gay mili- tary sprigs, with legion of honour decorations and iron crowns hanging at their button holes, sighed, and looked at the ladies, as much as to say, "How we have fought for you! How gay we used to be in those days of military parade!" And one exquisite hummed in the ear of his bergére "Allons ma belle, payez á ton tour D'un peu d'amour le Troubadour." There also appeared to be more inamorati 126 FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. than the couple alluded to, and from all that I could collect, les interets du cœur were not less attended to than the interests of the state. A peculiar freedom, rather let me call it ease, attended this conversazione. Beaux and belles came in and went out, sans façon. The entré was always directed to the beauty in cathedra; the sortie was literally French leave. To an Englishman, there was something coffee-house like in the movements of the party, but no doubt they were convenient. Affectation was the order of the night; but the lady of the house certainly received her company with nothing short of a bewitching grace. 1 The result of my observations, as to public opinion, was, that no party was satisfied; that the ultras fancied they were neglected; and that the Buonaparte noblesse thought them- selves not sufficiently considered and em- ployed. But the great matter is, that the majority of the fashionables do not know what they want. There is too much church- going la haut; there is a triste morale, a som- FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. 127 bre sedateness at court, which neither pleases the merveilleux nor the merveilleuses. Now and then a coup de canon for a victory, al though victims and bleeding thousands were to pay for the amusement, would be a plea- sant change to the etourdissomething bustling, something new. They will tell you, tout en badinant, qu'on est si bon, si bon qu'on en est bête. Had they a worse king, things might be better. War or intrigue, battles or amours, plus de folie, that is the great matter: it has been remarked that l'aimable folie is of French growth. We are so uncultivated as to know nothing of amiable folly at home; the word is not at all understood. Then the têtes à peruque, or the old- fashioned powdered iron greys, with the ailes de pigeon, cannot go down with the Parisian belles, who have had all tête de Brutus, moustache, spur, sabre, rattle and dash, with the bouquet of beard on the chin, à l'antique, and all kinds of crinose conceits. The transplanted sprigs of piety have a very 128 FRENCH SOCIETY ABROAD. hard cold soil to take growth in. La violette, with its equivocal motto, suits the young taste, Something new, something to catch the eye, -masks, balls, tilts, tournaments are wanted even to amuse the badaud de Paris; and be the novelty good, bad, or indifferent, its be- ing new would go a great way, according to the judgment of THE HERMIT ABROAD. N° XIII. A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. G 3 Shall I be left forgotten in the dust, When fate relenting lets the flower revive? Shall Nature's voice to man alone unjust, Bid him, though doom'd to perish, hope to live? It is for this fair virtue oft must strive, With disappointment, penury and pain? No: Heav'n's immortal spring shall yet arrive; And man's majestic beauty bloom again, Bright through th' eternal year of love's triumphant reign. BEATTIE. A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. J EVERY day, to an active mind, is a little life: nay, it has the features of man's brief existence from its very division of time. The morning we may compare to youth: the short meridian and sun-shine even of a Mid- summer's day, carries a fleeting resemblance of man's few gilded hours; the cool breeze tells us that the day-star and life's sun are going down together; that the evening is come on dusky pinions, with night treading on his steps; finally, the dark monitor arrives, and all is obscure, cold, and dreary. The blazing taper may cheat the passing hour, 132 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. but the leaden hand of sleep presses on the weary eye-lid, heaviness steals upon our frame, and we must sink into the form and shadow of death. Sleep is its resemblance, and the day's existence is no more, its trans- actions are like a dream, its scene is closed. But I must stear clear of homilies: I began my day by peeping into a church, and col- lected my scattered ideas by reposing my sight on a painted window under the influ- ence of the sun's ray, which gave light to, and embodied, as it were, the records of Holy Writ. Such external objects becalm the passions, concentrate the powers of thought, and give a peaceful occupation to the mind, abstracting it from a cold, un- grateful, uncertain and interested world, and freeing it (for the time being) from all its cares and vicissitudes. From this momentary self-possession, from this intellectual quietude, my feelings were more forcibly called into action, and my sympathies more powerfully excited by the swelling organ breathing har- A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. 133 mony around me, and then dying in soft cadence on my regretful ear; but the rush of a crowd of people soon broke the charm. Amid this assemblage of persons there pre- vailed for the most part, a levity better fitted for a coffee-house than for the holy roof of religion; but while I was studying the fea- tures of the motley multitude, I was struck by the performance of three very different ceremonies in the same temple and at the same time; namely, a baptism, a wedding, and the requiem of the dead. What a short but impressive sketch of life! From the cradle to the grave behold its whole amount! Matrimony seemed like a central object con- nected with, and placed between the infant prologue and the dropping of life's curtain, a prudent and necessary preface to the cere- mony on my right, but not precluded from the sad prospect on my left, which severs the links of love and disunites the bonds of friendship. "Yet hope," said I to myself, 134 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. "pious hope may re-unite them in happier realms." Now the crowd pressed on me to a most inconvenient degree, and bore me with it to the altar of matrimony. I cast a look on the innocent, whose baptism seemed to interest but very few, namely, two or three relations, who, among half-a-dozen assistants, were all that paid common attention to the rites which were performing. Yet there was ample food for cogitation; what a world was before this stranger amongst men-how innocent at pre- sent-how little did the light of reason either illumine or afflict it; for what was this babe destined? But I think I now feel the elbows of the rabble, and see the tittering pretty girls mixed like flowers on a bed of weeds, and perceive the arch leer of a few militaires and half well-dressed people, who were at- tracted to the scene by curiosity, idleness, a passing shower of rain, or by cards of invita- tion to the nuptial solemnities; on I must A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. 135 therefore go, and my reader with me, and scarcely have we time to throw a glance on the splendid pall and sable group which paid the last tribute to him on whom life's curtain had dropped for ever. I remarked, however, that deep affliction was not there, and that even silence, that decent mute mourner, did not reign without interruption-the snuff-box circulated freely, but I perceived no hand- kerchief applied to the dewy cheek. All eyes were upon the hymeneal party, or rather upon the blooming bride. Here again I sought and sought in vain, for traits of sen- sibility in a father, mother, grandsire or grandam. Where was the uplifted prayer of the parent, for the prosperity of her who was entering on so uncertain an element ? where the dubious, solicitous, yet fond look of brother or sister, hoping, yet fearful, lest her lot might prove a blank in life's most serious lottery, and lest love and beauty, tenderness and truth, should be sacrificed to gross de- sire, to paltry avarice, or to conjugal tyranny. 136 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. All were gay and thoughtless around the principal actress in this eventful drama. She was beautiful, more than beautiful, more than attractive, she was superlatively inter- esting; a suffusion of crimson furnished by nature, true to feeling, and adorned by femi- nine delicacy, served to add warmth to her glowing complexion, whilst sun-bright eyes, curtained by long silky eye-lashes, like a transparent drapery, shot their radiance from amidst a set of regular and speaking features: I have seen finer women, but none more en- chanting; I have been struck with triumphant and commanding beauty, but here my ap- proving admiration was fixed on one who, like our primitive parent, came forward "Nor bashful, nor obtrusive." Her figure was elegant, and in the act of giving her hand to her lord and master elect, had a grace that came from, and went direct to, the heart, it was an appeal to the very soul of sensibility, and spoke volumes; but the bride- A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. 137 groom, who appeared as if made by "Nature's journeyman," took it like a block-head: what a man-machine! I was quite disgusted with him, and I con- fess, that had I been in the halcyon days of life, with riches, comeliness and a thousand things which I have not, I should have liked vastly to have been in his place. As the couple descended the steps of the altar, I made a votive offering for the young lady's happiness, and her fair image stole again upon my mind at the moment when I was about to press my cold and solitary pillow. Before I left the church I enquired of some of the spectators into the particulars of the sacrifice, (for such, alas! it too evidently was) and they informed me that the young person, lovely and well born, with disparity of age thrown into the scale against her, was exchanged for a fortune on the husband's side; a fortune made by war contracts, and probably by no small degree of fraud: I took a second look at the man and saw not a trait 138 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. of humanity in his whole countenance, he ap- peared like a petty despot wholly unworthy to reign over such a subject-"Dear girl !” said I to myself.- Here a fellow trod on my toes; this was not calculated to put me on a better footing with the world: I now became discontented and irritable, when, to increase my ill-temper, a man covered with orders very nearly drove over me. He was dressed for court, yet was pent up in a noddy, drawn by one lean horse; he was bare-headed, because a mon- strous military hat with an enormous feather would not admit of his being covered; a brat of about sixteen, all over gold lace, and with a gross of buttons on a tawdry livery, stood up, the apology for a footman, behind this excuse for a carriage, and yet did the proprietor plume himself on his wretched ve- hicle, and thus run down one of his Britannic Majesty's liege subjects. This could not be borne; the cabriolet, however, was soon out of sight; and, to make matters worse, I was A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. 139 covered with mud, laughed at by the natives composing the profanum vulgus on the spot, and called John Bull, Jack Roast Beef, and I know not what. Thus cir- cumstanced, it is no wonder that I drew a comparison betwixt Paris and London, by which the former lost greatly in my esteem: there the poor foot passenger feels a painful inferiority when driven at the risk of his life before the often upstart chariot of one knows not who; whereas in London the prince and the peasant equally enjoy ease and safety, and are undistinguished on the foot path of freedom: "England! for ever," exclaimed I. Look again at the yellow Seine, behold its muddy banks, how unlike old father Thames ! "Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, "Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." The Seine, in its passage through the great French metropolis, carries a few rafts of timber and a small number of vessels laden with char- coal, with here and there an awkward boat; 140 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. whilst we behold a forest of masts in the very 'centre of our city, and view with delight the riches of the world, proudly borne in mer- cantile triumph on the surface of our noble river, whose banks are decked with rich lawns and plantations. I now took a turn in the Palais Royal; but I traversed it in such haste and displea- sure, that I could find nothing but gewgaws and extrinsic finery, tinsel, coffee-houses, gaming-shops, pigeon-holes and traps, frail women and cheating men, in its trumpery garden and surrounding piazza: I own my views were discoloured, I saw tout en noir. The matrimonial sacrifice of a lovely woman, the dirtiness of the streets, and the elbowing and danger which I encountered, made all things assume an unpleasing aspect. At that moment, two men hastily brushed by me, bearing the remains of a pauper, inclosed in a deal coffin without any covering, and placed upon a kind of chairman's horse: they stepped in quick time, as if in a hurry to get rid of A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS. 141 their load, and to rid the world of a forlorn being in whom no one took interest; not another soul accompanied the remains of wretchedness; scarcely an eye turned to mark the passage of a fellow-creature from a bed of agony to a couch of clay. "Ashes to ashes! and dust to dust!” No friend, or follower, but one poor mute mourner, one firm adherent, one faithful attendant of the brute creation-the poor man's dog: that trusty animal, which had probably for many years shared his fate, participated in his men- dicity, and added to the picture of misery which the master presented to an unfeeling world. Repeatedly did this poor beast look up at the miserable bier as though it would "he is gone whose sole companion I was, deserted as he stood amongst his fellow men. I welcomed his approach, watched over his broken slumbers, stood sentinel for his safety, and licked his lean hands when on the bed of death." I am ashamed when I think of the womanish weakness which came say, 142 A DAY'S RAMBLE IN PARIS over me at the moment that this humble, but impressive scene, passed before my eyes: the lesson of the grave's equality sunk deep in my mind, and I shall never forget how much the dog, the coffin, and the indifference of the bearers, affected THE HERMIT À BROAD. No XIV. THE WEST INDIAN. Ah me! in sooth he was a shameless wight, Sore giv'n to revel and ungodly glee ; Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. BYRON. THE WEST INDIAN. - "Look, look, Sir," cried one of the waiters of the hotel to me, drawing me at the same time to the window, " Voici quelque prince qui va arriver à l'hôtel, (some prince is coming to the hotel,)—ma foi c'est un An- glais." "An English prince !" replied I, "im- possible:" but nevertheless I went down into the court yard in order to satisfy my curi- osity; for, in spite of my retired habits, I should have felt inclined to be the first to testify my respect and attachment for one of our blood royal; it was, however, as I foresaw, no British prince, but as vain a com- moner as ever I beheld. VOL. I. H 146 THE WEST INDIAN. A thin, sallow-looking young man alighted from the first carriage, drawn by four French post-horses in chains, shackles and cords, like so many convicts. He had a most unmilitary look, yet was habited in a blue cavalry great coat, (a volunteer doubtless, and probably the only man of his corps) with a huge brown beaver hat, and coachman-like cravat; he had gilt spurs in the form of an eagle, of fan- tastic workmanship, loose white trousers, and he carried a favourite spaniel under his arm. "I say, you jockey, do you parler Anglais ?" exclaimed he, in a vulgar tone, to the head waiter. "Yez, milord," was the answer, in broken English. Why then let me have the best apartments you have in your house, d-n the expense, and let them be clean; cleanliness being the soul of an Englishman." "Oui, milord." "And let me have two bed- rooms for myself and this gentleman," point- ing to a well-dressed man, his companion, "and seven more beds for my retinue." "Seven bed! oui, milord." "Yes, seven beds; -66 THE WEST INDIAN. 147 you seem astonished; why, man, I have seven- and-twenty servants at home, (not counting "the fieldnegroes;" in a low tone to his friend,) "and put up my three carriages (a travelling post-chaise, open barouche, and a dog cart,) and let me know when my osses come up, six in number, with the rest of my fellows." "Oui, milord." "And give my compa- nion and me some iced Champagne and quails for our lunch, and let my fellows eat. and drink until they are drunk, or dead, if they like." "Oui, mon prince." "And, I say, take particular care of my four brace of dogs." "Qui, mon prince." (Here one of them bit the ostler, who drew back.) "Here's a crown for you," exclaimed the new arrival. "You old figure of fun, don't be afraid, nor don't go to use the dog ill, he's a bit out of his latitude; never saw France before. (Here he looked for a laugh from his friend, and obtained it). I say, don't use the dog ill, I will pay handsomely for it if he hurts any of you, and you may charge me what H 2 148 THE WEST INDIAN. you like for the board of the whole lot of 'em. D-n the expense. Don't come to France every day.” Here five white and two black servants issued from the two carriages, with a due proportion of canine attendants. "There, there, vanish you slaves, get yourselves put to rights and refreshed, and come up all clean and in your new liveries at dinner time." (Aside to the friend)-" I'll astonish Moun- seer, I think, by and bye.” (To the waiter) "I say, what am I to pay for my lodgings?" "Forty Napoleons per month, or twelve per week." "As cheap as dirt!" "Yez, mi- lord." "Give the post-boys ten francs each." (The friend in a whisper),-" Five is very handsome." "Oh no, d-n the expense; besides, you know I abused the thieves so on the road that I shall get a bad name; we must tip them the second crown for hush money. There," (throwing a Napoleon at the two first. Here all hats were off.) "Adieu milord, serviteur, &c." resounded from THE WEST INDIAN. 149 66 all quarters. "I say, waiter, pour me out a glass of Champagne in the court, I have a pound of dust in my throat." "Oui, mon prince." "What do you charge for this stuff?" "Seven francs, milord." Why, it's as ropy as be d-d; give us the first quality; I'd sooner pay a Napoleon for your prime stuff, than a crown for this rot-gut. I must have a glass of brandy, old one, to keep down that flimsy gentleman." His friend looked disconcerted and ashamed of him, but on he rattled. "Milord shall be obeyed in all vat he honor me vid his com- mand." The brandy arrived, with more Cham- pagne; and the two travellers went up to their apartments. Silence ensued for a few minutes, when the door was thrown open, and I heard the proprietor of the hotel thus accost the great man. "A thousand pardons, milord, but I have to request your name and quality, your christian name also, and the place of your abode."—" Very well, Mounseer, 150 THE WEST INDIAN. (this was by way of wit) my name is Jack Dashall, of Blue Mountain Hermitage, Cocoa Tree Hall, and Lime Valley, Esq. of St. Thomas's in the West, and the River Side Plantation, and New Grove Estate, &c. &c. in the Island of Jamaica." (" What a great man!" was written in the countenance of mine host.) "I have no profession, and I am upon my travels like an independent gentleman:" the master of the hotel bowed almost to prostration. "And dat gentel-man ?" continued the hotel-keeper. "He, Sir, is my taster;" (aside to his friend who looked angry) "ask your pardon, Tom, only in fun." "He, Sir, is my director, finds out all that's good, and takes care of me because I'm such a rattle- brained fellow that I can't take care of myself." Here he shook hands with his companion. "Now, Mounseer, (in continuation to the hotel-keeper) my seven servants are-my body servant, my head groom, my first and second coachman, two black footmen, and a Tom fool of a white one; the grooms, helpers, THE WEST INDIAN. 151 and a French valet, that I took at Calais, are a-coming with the cattle to-morrow, and now I hope that you are satisfied; d-n the expense. But by the bye, here's my passport, which I was very near lighting my gold pipe with last night, wasn't I, Tom?" The hotel-keeper retired; (enter waiter) "I say," (the West Indian again)" I say, my osses aʼn't arrived, so you must hire us a stylish coach for the day, don't stand for price, I pay like a prince, bleed like a (pig he was going to say) new one,-let the thing be genteel, and let us go to the pally roy-all; but fust send for some elegant gold snuff- boxes, and some with funny pictures on 'em, the very tip top, d-n the expense, and this gentleman and I will take one a piece. (Aside.) Tom, I'll make you a present of one: d-n me, don't call me out for saying that my taster, all in fun, you know my way; and I hope, Tom, you know my regard for you too: but I say, waiter, the boxes, and the coach and dinner at a guinea a head, if that's you were 152 THE WEST INDIAN. enough,-nothing mean,-wine not included, and ready rhino to be paid daily for all." "Oui, mon prince!" A gaudy equipage, which few Englishmen would have liked to have been seen in, speedily came to the door. "Drive like hell," were the West Indian's orders. Whither they went I know not; but they returned in about two hours, with the car- riage filled with trinkets and trifles. In tak- ing them out, the servant (hired for the day) smiled to a companion, as much as to say, "this is pretty well, and I have had a tole- rable share in the profits." All hands and eyes met the occidental heir on his arrival. "Order milord's dinner," bawled out one: "Let his people be called,” cried another: -"Open the door pour Monsieur le Prince," vociferated one of the lowest of the establish- ment, whom we call boots. He entered proudly. A dingy domestic, bent half double, ac- costed him with "Wa, wa, Massa, what you'm want?"-" Homer," (what a profana- ་ THE WEST INDIAN. 153 tion of the name) "tell Terence to call white Alexander, and order him to tell Joseph to take my boots off." The blacks and whites being all mustered, he sat down to dinner- got drunk-broke a mountain of crystal and glass, and paid double for all. The next morning a Scotch Peer drove up to the door, with a cabriolet, three horses, and one servant; but the western luminary had so eclipsed him, that he was refused admittance. The ostler assured him that a mi lord d'Ame- rique (the Peer stared at this new creation) occupied and engrossed the attention of all the house and on Lord Auldbrechen's retiring, "He a lord!" said boots, "c'est un impos- teur !" The noise and riot, however, of this western grandee was such, that, with the exception of myself, and a poor man confined with the gout, he cleared the house in three weeks. Such fencing, dancing, drinking, singing, and ringing, it was impossible that the thing should last; but if he cleared the house, the H 3 154 THE WEST INDIAN. landlord, and other confederates, cleared his pockets so completely, that when he left Pa ris, his horses and carriages were sold, and nothing but the dogs and domestics remained to go by the diligence; whilst he, and his mild friend, retired in an humble cabriolet de poste:-his habits and expense, nevertheless, went on to the end; and he paid ready money, and double price, for every thing, until the hour of his modest exit: crying, to the last, "Go it, my boys, d-n the expense." Far be it from me to give this living and real picture in portraiture of the West In- dian character in general. This man was young, just come to his estate-and the ex- pensive son of an industrious, saving parent; the ordinary follower, in the common course of things, of scrapings, rakings and savings; the community is injured by the extremes and excesses of such. Mr. Dashall did as much mischief as time and ability would ad- mit; for it is to such as him that our country- men owe the enormous impositions which they THE WEST INDIAN. 155 meet with abroad. 66 Charge him high," says one foreign shark. "C'est un milord;-put on a London price," whispers another, "he knows no better:"-" Faites payer John Bull," adds a third, "c'est autant de pris sur l'enne- mi;" whilst the purse-proud simpleton, per- haps, courts expense; delighted at being thought richer than all the world beside, and careless of the injurious effects which his folly produces on the interests of the economist, the prudent man, the honest individual of retired habits, and among the rest, to THE HERMIT ABROAD. DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. Few years have pass'd since thou and I Were firmest friends, at least in name, And childhood's gay sincerity Preserved our feelings long the same. But now, like me, too well thou know'st What trifles oft the heart recall ; And those who once have lov'd the most Forget they ever lov'd at all. - BYRON. DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. Ir we owe to accident the acquisition of many of our most agreeable acquaintance, chance and caprice deprive us of as great a number. Making one of a group of English- men in the Tuilleries, I was accosted by Spenser Sondes: Lord was by my side, and I was surprised to observe a cold half acknowledgment pass between them. This astonished me the more, when I looked back to their great intimacy at college, and to the many kindnesses which the Peer, pre- viously to his coming to his title, received from Sondes' worthy father. My intimacy 160 DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. with both warranted my inquiry into the causes of this strange alteration, more par- ticularly, as I was determined to endeavour to remove any misunderstanding, and to cement any breach which might exist between them. 66 My good Lord," said I to the Peer, the next time I saw him, 66 surely you must have been in one of your absent moods; you must have mistaken Spenser Sondes for some other person of your numerous acquaintance. From the style of your recognition just now, it seemed as if you had scarcely ever seen him before; or as if you had perceived him for the first time, and rather inclined your head out of respect to my friend, than out of regard for your old college companion.' "Not at all," replied Lord "the "" fellow is a good fellow enough, a sound head, and, I believe, a good heart.” “That," interrupted I with some warmth, "you know, and have tried." 66 Very true," re- joined he, fetching a self-accusing cough; DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. 161 "but I don't know how it is: I lost sight of Spenser at quitting college, and never met with him for years, until he was one day coming in to listen to a debate in the Upper House, when I passed him inadvertently, which offended him; but I took him by the hand five years afterwards at an election.” "When," observed I, "perhaps he could serve you." "I forget," replied my Lord; "it might be so: but then again, he says that I left him off at Brighton, and he never made any violent advances towards me since, so that sometimes we do bow, and sometimes we do not. There are no acquaintances that we lose so soon as school-fellows and college inti- mates: these cronies, without whom we could scarcely live in our youthful days, are no more to us afterwards in our course through life than a table neighbour at a Lord Mayor's feast, whom one always cuts, for fear that he should keep a shop. Now it is otherwise in the army and navy." 162 DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. "A good reason why," said I, with an upbraiding glance, "because these noble pro- fessions bear no slights, and never give or take offensive swellings of pride; each indi- vidual has his sword by his side, to teach him a practical lesson of propriety; but my Lord," (taking out my watch) " I have tar- ried too long in your company :" (this I meant in a double sense of the word)" and I must quit you for another engagement." Here I broke off from the confused cox- comb, and went home to my study. At a whist party the same evening, I found two next-door neighbours in London, who seem intimates there, but here they had quite cut each other. The member for Rot- tentown, who owes his elevation in life to his second cousin, the counsellor, met him at the same party, and just put out one finger at him, with "How do?" To this the barrister indignantly replied, "How are you, Sir?" -and afterwards informed me that the M.P. DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. 163 would not have acknowledged him at all had he not been most highly esteemed at the house where they met. Not less than a dozen instances of this fall- ing out of acquaintance presented themselves to me in the space of a few weeks: such are worldly men. As to myself, I so far differ from the Peer, that whenever I meet with a school or college intimate, my blood assumes the warm glow of youth, I live over again the days of my earliest enjoyments, and my very heart leaps in my bosom. But to the breast tenanted by the colder passions, there is no refreshing spring wafted on the wings of memory, no increased flow impelled by the warm current of philanthropy; chillness and stagnation reign there uninterruptedly. "Plague take the paltry Peer," said I to myself, "whilst taking my third pinch of snuff, after a solitary dinner; yet I could not help reverting to my meditations on the causes of this non-intercourse between former ac- quaintance. These causes I found to be pride, 164 DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. envy, ambition, a mean consciousness of former obscurity, now exchanged for unexpected, and, most likely, unmerited prosperity. One man had dropped his early friend, because the latter had been an eye-witness to the vices of his youth, and he now wished, from interested motives, to pass for a moral man; thus exchanging the vice of intemperance for that of hypocrisy. A second sickened at the sight of a benefactor in altered circum- stances, because he could not bear the re- membrance of his own former poverty, and of obligations under which he still lay. A cer- tain city knight shook off his old and worthy neighbour, because, from habit, he called him Joseph, and my lady could neither bear the name nor the familiarity; besides, neighbour Bridges was no ornament to the new circle in which Sir Joseph was ambitious to shine. Lady Castlemount disdained her school acquaintance, because she felt no con- fidence in herself, on her sudden elevation, nor considered herself sufficiently safe from DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. 165 the eye of scrutiny: and because none of her present associates knew that she was the daughter of a village apothecary. Mrs. Slur has sacrificed hosts of her friends, because she calumniated them, just as Mrs. Overblow shuts her doors on the most valuable of her female visitors, the moment that they are considered to be handsome, or better dressed than herself. I have known a well made coat breed an alienation between two school- fellows-I need not add of weak minds; and I heard a joke of no ill-intent, which laid the foundation of dislike and perpetual dis- These circumstances can never occur but where a despicable jealousy obscures the dim ray of reason, and where grovelling in- tellects are choked up with the weeds of igno- rance and self-sufficiency. tance. The last and most innocent cause for fall- ing out of acquaintance, is the too hasty falling in; the parties may not be formed for gene- rous and lasting attachments. The soil of every heart is not rich enough to produce the 166 DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. pure flowers of friendship; the acquaintance built upon self-interest, necessity, or idleness, is too often mistaken for the leaning of one honest and feeling bosom towards another of the same texture; whereas solitude, vacuity, or mere accident is often the real cause of the connexion. In these events the man of talent and ancedote, the social companion, the instruc- tive fellow-traveller, or the benefactor of his fellow-man, gives fairly and honestly his part in the barter of services and sympathies; but the empty animal that feeds upon his exertions and instructions, or is charmed by the witchery of his society, detaches himself the moment that interest or seeming advan- tage attracts his narrow, miserable, calculating soul. If indebted to the hand of generosity, he flies from it when in affluence, lest a similar act of the nobility of the mind should be ex- pected from the cold clay of the reptile; so that of all the dangerous, although contemptible members of society, with whom we meet in life's brief career, the acquaintance dropper DROPPING ACQUAINTANCE. 167 is the most to be avoided, and the most to be despised; and sooner than hold even occa- sional intercourse with such an one, I would rather be for the remainder of my days, a solitary HERMIT ABROAD. No XVI. A DELICATE APPLICATION. VOL. I. Alas!-how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love; Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied ; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When heav'n was all tranquillity! A something light as air-a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken- Oh! love that tempest never shook, A breath, a touch like this hath shaken. T. MOORE. A DELICATE APPLICATION. Ar an early hour in the morning, a gentle tap at my chamber-door called my attention from the foreign journals, and a very pretty femme de chambre entered the room, laid a letter on my breakfast table, and informed me that she would call for an answer in two hours. I scarcely dared to look at the smart little brunette, dreading some trick or hoax unbecoming of my gravity, or calculated to play upon my feelings. I was just going to observe, that I thought the letter must be designed for some younger person than my- self, if I might judge by the appearance of the attractive envoy, when the folding 1 2 172 A DELICATE APPLICATION. doors closed, and the emissary disappeared. At this moment an impertinent obtrusive waiter popped in his head with a significant smile, and asked if I wanted any thing? I could have knocked him down for the evil construction which I perceived he had put on the visit I had just received, but I did not wish to discompose myself, and therefore told him drily, that when I wanted him I would ring for him. I now twisted and turned the billet, the superscription was in a female hand, the seal bore the impression of a bird flying out of its cage, and the motto was- "Qui me neglige me perd." What could all this mean? I had no tie which warranted this device, I felt reluctant to open the note, for I thought- -, but at length I ventured to examine the signature, and found it was that of a person whom I knew, a very amia- able young woman married but a few months, (another love match!) and who had travelled in company with a party which I joined for some days on my road, and which circum- - A DELICATE APPLICATION. 173 stance occasioned my visiting the young cou- ple in Paris. The lady is a native of France, just returned from seeing England, where she went immediately after what is called the honey-moon. The billet began by complimenting me on my knowledge of the world, and of the human heart, and proceeded to state the implicit re- liance which the writer had on my honour and secrecy. I did not like the phrase; it was however accounted for, by her adding that this confidence induced her most earnestly to request my advice in a matter of the highest moment, and which deeply affected her hap- piness; I was therefore to let her know when and where I could see her, to consult on the delicate subject in question. At this moment the femme de chambre returned, and I wrote a few lines to say that I would call on her mistress in the evening, about eight o'clock. Mademoi- selle Josephine, however, not content with my written reply, informed me that she knew that Madame wanted to speak to me, and that 174 A DELICATE APPLICATION. Monsieur was going to the theatre Feydeau, and that her mistress would be alone all the evening. This vexed me again: how absurd in women to make confidants of their servants; and how strange it must appear to Mademoi- selle Josephine that her mistress should send for me in her husband's absence !-was she in the habit of committing this kind of indiscre- tion? There certainly could be no fond pre- ference for me; and, indeed, I wished her too well not to hope that her affections had never been alienated from her husband: I contented myself with informing the femme de chambre that my answer was contained in my note, and bowed her out of my room, putting an end by so doing to many smiles and graces which she was habitually wont to play off. "A bad business this," said I to myself; 66 plague on the women, how unfit am I for all these perplexities and intricacies; I will answer for it that she has got into some scrape, and wants me to extricate her: well, provided there is no intrigue in it unworthy of the A DELICATE APPLICATION. 175 agency of a decent elderly man, I cannot object to serving her: I have it now," con- cluded I," she wants money; it might be worse, I believe her to be well principled, and we will see what's to be done." Thus satisfied, I set off for the Tuileries, resolving to walk there in an hour, then to dine at Beauvillier's, and to be with the fair lady at eight; the time seemed wondrous long; it was doubtless anxiety for her good that made it appear so. I had no ap- petite, but a great desire for wine, which however I had prudence enough to restrain : a pretty adviser I should have been, with a flushed complexion and a heated brain! No, no, patience and a cup of coffee, and the hour will arrive in due time. Half-past seven! the longest half hour of my life—one quar- ter to eight, I could walk it out, calmly and deliberately, as was befitting my years and experience; for, as Friar Lawrence says, "Wisely and slow, he stumbles that runs fast." 176 A DELICATE APPLICATION. I was now at her gate, and I rang gently- Madame was chez elle; however I had the de- ceitful caution to inquire for Monsieur first, and to say that I was sorry that he was not at home, as I wanted to speak to him, but I would pay my respects to his lady. I was an old fool too for so doing, for it only left me in another scrape, and led me into another false- hood; for now I had some stratagem to in- vent in order to bear me out in this state- ment, which the footman would naturally repeat to his master. It occurred to me, on the staircase, that I would invite them both to dinner. Bravo! old gentleman; but what trouble at thy time of life!-Then again, Ma- dame might have pretended to her husband that she was going out, or that she was sick and inclined to rest upon her couch, and then I must not say that I had seen her. I was now at the drawing-room door, with the lock in my hand, which shook from agita- tion, Mademoiselle Josephine came to meet me, I assumed a grave and almost stern A DELICATE APPLICATION. 177 look; why did I dissemble? Je n'en sais rien; the accomplished waiting-woman put on an air of mystery, and conducted me into an inner apartment, where she informed me her lady would see me in a few minutes: I hum- med a tune. Seven minutes and a half, by a beautiful chimney clock bearing an emblem of Old Time with Cupid on his back. "Well," cried I, "le tems emporte l'amour; but ere the words were off my lips, my beautiful ac- quaintance appeared, like a beam of light,—I never saw her half so enchanting-she smiled, I looked collected, but was seized with a thick and uneasy respiration. "You don't seem well," said the enchantress, and taking me gently by the hand, seated me on a sofa and placed herself by me, with a warm cheek, half opened lip, and a broad enquiring eye. "I am a little giddy," (a burning shame at my time of life,) replied I, "but let me have a glass of water and all will be well again:" the request was complied with, and I speedily recovered, my usual pulse returned, 13 178 A DELICATE APPLICATION. I cleared my voice, asked pardon for making her thus uneasy, said, "it was nothing, I was often so," (some years since, I ought to have added,) "I had walked too fast," a palpable I wont say what; I then adjusted my cravat, got a lucky glimpse of my pilgrim- head, and intreated her to inform me in what I could serve her, or what advice my age, knowledge of the world, respect and esteem for her could enable me to offer? "Tout doucement," answered this rainbow of lovely tints, improved by a number of lustres which burned around her, "what I have to say is confidential, and, to me, most important; my future lot, perhaps, depends upon it;" I again felt agitated. "I know no one but yourself to whom I could apply." (money by Juno!) "And," replied I, “ you may command me to the extent of my power." "That I know," added she: "I have so high an opinion of your nation,"-I bowed,—" my countrymen are so volatile,"— I bowed again; "they would misinterpret my conduct,”—I A DELICATE APPLICATION. 179 looked grave: "they would abuse a confidence of this kind: they might cease to respect me." I could make no answer. man I could not 99 99 "To a younger She did not finish the sentence; I was more and more perplexed; my age sat very awkward upon me at that moment; some men would have wished to have been twenty at the time, I could have desired to have been eighty!" I am all in a flutter," said she, "I must take breath, the subject agitates me so much!" "Et moi aussi !" thought I. • Seven minutes and a half more, and the Tyrolien struck upon the chimes,—a powerful relief; for during this period of time, Iris had her eyes fixed upon the floor, and I sat with my hands clasped together on the head of my cane, upon which I reclined my cheek in the attitude of attention; how long I might have remained so, but for the Tyrolien, I know not; I felt that, being on terms of in- timacy with Monsieur perhaps, I ought not to be there; then again, if he were 180 A DELICATE APPLICATION. 66 to return precipitately, I might be the inno- cent cause of domestic infelicity. Pride, I believe, suggested this idea, but a wrinkle, reflected in the mirror, mocked and chid her for it; I looked up and Iris spoke. "My husband," said she with a sigh, “ makes me very unhappy." "Is he jealous?" "No; I wish he were." She paused again, and a gem dropped from her eye-lid. "How weak I am," observed she, with a smile of anguish. "Pardon me," said I, "exquisite sensibility has no alliance with weakness; but I hope that you mistake." "I should wish to think so too: but alas! it is too evident,"-here she wept again. "My husband does not love "Impossible!" cried I. "But too true, my good friend;" (taking me by the hand)" the rosy hours of novelty are faded away; the dream of happiness is over; he is now in a large and pleasurable metropolis, and his indifference towards me becomes daily more visible." me." 99 "I hope -"Here she interrupted me. A DELICATE APPLICATION. 181 "Let us lose no time; give me your ad- vice; for this state of things cannot last. I have a mind to try an experiment in or- der to win him back." "Good," observed I," what is it?" "To make him jealous." (Surely she can never mean to pitch upon me for that purpose thought I). "Yes, many a man only loves the object which others seek after and admire," continued she. "Don't think me vain; but men are so selfish, that pride is oftener the motive for their love than real affection, or gratitude for the ten- der attachment bestowed on them." Here she wept again. "I ought not to have mar- ried Charles, he is too general a favourite with our sex; but perhaps a little self-love, or wounded feeling, might restore him to me." I felt deeply interested for the fair sufferer, But I candidly told her that I disapproved of her plan; and reminding her of the difficult part, which at least one of the actors in it would 182 A DELICATE APPLICATION. have to play, I ventured to ask if she had fixed on any particular person as her coad- jutor. "Why," said she, "I thought of my cousin, the captain of lancers; but he is too conceited, and not to be trusted: and then I had a mind to send for a brother of mine whom my husband has not seen-a handsome hussar; but I don't think that Auguste would relish my plan. I next de- termined to dress up Josephine."—" And,” enquired I, "did you communicate your ideas to her ?" “I did.” "My dear lady you did wrong; the secrets, and even the suffer- ings of wedlock, its mysteries and charms should never be touched by foreign agents, nor breathed to the world, nor any where deposited, save only in the bosom of a pa- rent, and that only after long trials, much weighing of the subject, and the most mature examination of all its bearings. "The woman who gives herself to a part- ner, performs the most important act of her A DELICATE APPLICATION. 183 life, all after-balancing is not only immi- nently dangerous, but almost always of a ruinous tendency." Iris blushed." Not that," added I, “there is any moral evil in your stratagem to recall that affection, which I am convinced is only dormant, but that the dignity of your sex prohibits every thing verging on levity, or capable of being misrepresented." She looked grave. I thought the occasion favourable; and, taking her by the hand, I very dis- tantly and delicately hinted in the most mild and indirect way, that even the application to me bordered on something not unlike in- discretion. She felt the remark keenly. "What shall I do, my friend?" said she, "for I tenderly love Charles, in spite of his neglect." "Redouble your many means of attracting him to you,” replied I. Engage him not only by the charms of your per- son, but by those of your mind; by that cheerfulness, which pleases so generally; and by a generous overlooking of his errors. 66 • 184 A DELICATE APPLICATION. Touch your harp when he appears out of spirits, and oppose the soft tones of kindness to any asperity in his manner, or in his language. Let reproach be a stranger to your lips, and banish all frowns from a brow, where candour is imprinted so legibly by Nature's hand. Thus will you conquer whilst you seem to yield; thus will you tri- umph where another might be forced to succumb." tell This encouragement put her in great spi- rits. "I will do all that you wish me; and do you, our mutual, best friend, take an oppor- 6. I tunity of speaking well of me to him." will with all my heart; and you can Charles, when he returns from the play to- night, that I called to invite you to dine with me to-morrow; thus will my visit be ac- counted for, and all suspicion be removed. But, my amiable friend, no more of confiding secrets to your femme de chambre, no dress- ing up Josephine in men's clothes, no asking advice from strangers." She blushed.-" No A DELICATE APPLICATION. 185 trusting letters to any one." "You are right," said she in a tone of humility. " I yield to your better judgment; I have acted indis- creetly; but you have saved me from all evil consequences which might have ensued. A thousand thanks; the lesson will be useful to me during life, and particularly if I regain my husband's heart." "Never fear," said I," the day is your's, your victory is cer- tain." With this assurance I left her with a heart full of hope, and a countenance beam- ing like the early opening of a summer's morn. I now returned to my hotel, feeling as if a weight had been taken off my mind and heart. There was something mighty imper- fect in my day's transactions; " but all is well that ends well." use every effort to awaken the spark of ten- derness in the breast of Iris's husband, which it appeared wonderful to me that so short a time should have diminished or stifled. Wed- lock's first moon must have something more And I was determined to .186 A DELICATE APPLICATION. than commonly fickle and fleeting in it; the causes are best known to wedded pairs, and are above the comprehension of a bachelor like THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XVII. THE RECONCILIATION. And well do vanish'd frowns enhance The charm of every brighten'd glance; And dearer seems each dawning smile, For having lost its light awhile. T. MOORE. THE RECONCILIATION. I WAS uncommonly impatient for the hour of six; I had hurried myself with ordering a dinner half French, half English; cheese from Parma: ices from Tortoni's; tne best fruits and wines which could be procured; all these I had collected, and I was now quite the fidgetty old bachelor, in an agony lest I should be kept waiting, and my dinner be spoiled :-I also dreaded an introductory matrimonial jar, on the arrival of my guests, such as the one laying the blame on the other for coming so late. One quarter past six struck, and I looked grave, but I almost in- 190 THE RECONCILIATION. stantly beheld the yellow vis-à-vis (London built) coming at a round pace up to the hotel. I went down stairs to hand out Iris, who bounded from the carriage like a moun- tain roe; I never saw her more captivating, not even when she kept my fancy and my in- terest on the tenter hooks of anxiety. She had, with admirable judgment, so dressed herself, as to give every advantage to the bounteous gifts of Nature, without a too palpable dis- play. Her husband must be composed of adamant if he did not feel proud of the pos session of such a woman, yet he followed her coldly, and seemed only anxious to prove to me, that my watch was too fast. She very properly committed the peccadillo of support- ing her husband per fas et nefas, and strength- ened his assertion, to which I bowed assent, adding that the time past was nothing to the present, when we had to enjoy the company of those for whom we felt regard, and that I was of opinion that my watch gained every hour, so that they must not trust to THE RECONCILIATION. 191 its information towards the close of the even- ing. Iris gave me her hand for this, the husband observed that he had an engagement at nine. The beauteous Iris's brow was nearly ob- scured by a cloud, but on my looking like a monitor stedfastly at her, she smiled seraph- like, and said to her husband, "Well, my love, don't put us in mind of our misfortunes, but let us enjoy the present good. Our friend will, perhaps, treat us with the sighs of his Eolian harp, there is a breeze which is divin." I told her that she was mistress, and had only to command. "You'll spoil her," observed her husband." Je ne saurais faire l'impossible," replied I:-they both smiled, but her smile was the soft expression of gratitude; his one of vacancy's expletives in society, which ape good breeding, and save the trouble of speech, where nothing is either felt or meant. The opening of the folding doors with an annunciation of the dinner's being served, 192 THE RECONCILIATION. came now very apropos, and I placed my blooming guest on one hand, and her altered husband on the other; the Eolian harp was fixed in the window, and a bouquet was con- cealed in the serviette of my fair guest; its discovery seemed to please her, when her husband said "Mon ami, if you were some years younger, you would be a dangerous rival." "Not a bit," said I; "you stand un- rivalled in the heart of your wife, and the admiration and attentions which she may meet with ought only to confirm you in the pride of having chosen so well." "Bravo!" said Iris, as I poured her out a glass of rosy champagne. "I never was jealous in my life," observed the husband, taking off a bumper at the same time. "That shews a confidence which is the pride of my heart, and I should be a wretch if I ceased to merit it," sweetly observed Iris. Here a flush of the warmest affection passed over her countenance: the husband felt it, and an- swered it by a rose of a deeper dye upon THE RECONCILIATION. 193 his cheek. "But come," said he, "this wont do; it's quite antediluvian, like wife and husband making love in company." Here he turned the subject to theatricals and Made- moiselle Mars. My dinner and dessert went off very well; but just before the moment for coffee, Iris arose and said, "You know, my good friend, that my husband's sejour in England has made him like many customs of that country; he has no objection to sitting half an hour after the ladies withdraw, and I see that you have got the last number of 66 Campbell's Magazine," which will amuse me highly in the drawing-room:" so saying, she left her place, and as I well knew the motive, I replied that whatever she dictated was a law with me. "Let her go," said her hus- band, " and we will have one bottle of claret à l'Anglaise." As soon as she was out of hearing, I commenced my work. "A happy man you must be with such a delightful crea- ture," observed I. "Yes, faith, she's a fine woman, and has a temper and a heart that are VOL, I. K 194 THE RECONCILIATION. most rare; if we were not married, I should be in love with her again; but the dissipa- tion of this town poisons conjugal bliss, and the variety of pleasure leaves an indifference for every thing but novelty, which, after all, is a mere name, or like the bloom upon fruit, or the fine gilded hue of the butterfly's wing, which is lost when touched. It is such very mauvais ton too, to associate with one's wife, that we are in a manner obliged to be strangers to each other." "That must be your fault," interrupted I. "No, faith, it's the fault of one's old college and army com- panions, and of custom. One don't like to be laughed at;-nay, if a man (here he played with the hair on his forehead, and put his whiskers in order)—if a man is at all good-looking, he is torn tỏ pieces by the Parisian gallantes. I assure you, with- out pretending to much attraction,” (here he surveyed himself in a long mirror), “I have a sad time of it: I would not have my wife know all for the world"-" Nor I either," THE RECONCILIATION. 195 added I, "it would break her heart :-I know that she possesses exquisite sensibility; and, to tell you the truth, I do not think that she is quite happy." "The devil you don't; what, did she tell you so? does she complain of me?" Here I thought an untruth a very venial offence, and answered, " Certainly not, but I am a great reader of countenances: when you are with her, she hangs upon your words, lives in your smiles, and has no will but your's-when you are absent, she looks languid and feverish; her expressive eyes ap- ply to the clock for the painful record of soli- tary hours, and she has all the appearance of that state of hopes and fears, inseparable from tender attachment, and the enthusiasm of a feeling mind." : He looked recovered! "Poor thing! I would it were otherwise; but women are so artful entre nous, my dear friend, I have got into an entanglement which vexes me, and keeps me from home,-an officer's widow, handsome as a star!" "Not half so hand- K 2 196 THE RECONCILIATION. some as your wife, I'll bet a Napoleon." 66 Why, she's not so young, but a fine crea- ture; yet, somehow, I wish I could disen- gage myself without acting unhandsomely. She plays me off, by way of keeping my flame alive, with a wish to visit England, and to see a certain man of rank there-but pleads the expense." "Furnish her with the cash," said I. "No; that would be like pay- ing her off." " Well, but," quoth I," that would be better than her paying you off, and breaking the heart of innocence, affection, and truth." "We had a little tiff this morning," re- joined he, “and I am going to see if she is in better humour at nine o'clock." "Then," said I," you had better not go; which will be an useful lesson." "I wish و, he paused, “I wish (with a grave look) that I could get decently out of this business." "If you will leave it to me, I will extricate you with honour only call on me to-morrow, and I will answer for your approving of my plan." : He shook me cordially by the hand, and THE RECONCILIATION. 197 agreed: I now told him that we would take coffee in the next room, and sent him in before me. He looked round, in order to be certain that no one saw him, and saluted his wife most affectionately. A glass door in- formed me of the fact, and my heart leaped with pleasure at so good an omen. On my entering the apartment, he said to Iris, “Love, our good friend has been persuading me to stay here until ten, to take an ice and go home early with thee (avec toi)." "I am glad that he persuaded you," replied Iris, "his kind- ness was disinterested, whereas in me it would not have been so." They now exchanged one of those looks well understood by love, and which speak volumes in silence :-" We are all interested in this arrangement," concluded I," and we terminated the evening in perfect harmony." The next morning the happy husband called upon me, and accepted of the advice which I offered him, to return to his wife and never to let her be acquainted with this affair, 198 THE RECONCILIATION. and to allow me to call on the gallante, and to inform her that the sudden illness of a near relation of Madame's had made it neces- sary for him to quit Paris at a moment's warn- ing in the night, and to travel with the ut- most dispatch, to the south of France. I was to be the bearer of a billet from him cor- roborating this statement; and of one hun- dred and twenty Napoleons to enable her to visit London. I was supposed to know no- thing of his liaison, but merely to add that she would hear from him in due time. Mean- while, the married couple were to set off for Lausanne; and on their return, to pass six months at their chateau in Normandy. To time, to the charms of Iris, to the incon- stancy of the widow, and to the husband's future good conduct, I left the rest, having done all in the power of THE HERMIT ABROAD. N° XVIII. THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. K Thrice happy they, who sleep in humble life "" Beneath the storm ambition blows." YOUNG. THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. "WILL you call our carriage, my dear Sir ?" said Lady Horatia St. Clement to me, at the ambassador's ball. The mild, altered and humble tone in which these words were ut- tered might have softened an obdurate heart ; for my own part, I confess that mine is not formed of adamant, and I was so fascinated by this appeal to it, that had her ladyship, at that moment, required me to risk my life for her, I should have volunteered in her service without the least hesitation. Never- theless, on my way from the suite of splendid apartments thrown open on this occasion, to K 3 202 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. the marble hall crowded by liveried locusts, I reflected on the altered deportment and sub- dued expression of this, so lately, proud beauty, who had so long been the despotic sovereign of hearts, and filled so high a rank in fashion's airy circle. "There must have been something to effect this sudden altera- tion," said I to myself; "some powerful event which has transformed her mandates into entreaties; however, be the cause what it may, a female claims my services, and I obey." I procured her carriage, and, on my re- turn, offered one arm to the Countess, her mother, and the other to Lady Horatia, whose features were now still more disordered, and whose whole demeanour bespoke disap- pointment and vexation. The Countess de- clined my offer, saying, "Be so kind as to take care of my daughter, she is not very well, the heat is too much for her; never mind me, I can take care of myself, and one must accustom one's self to so doing, for the THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 203 age of chivalry is certainly no more, (I must confess that our beaux are not the most atten- tive in the world) but n'importe:" then not wishing to dwell on that subject, she continued (in our progress down the great staircase, crowded by comers and goers) "The ball is magnificent, but never was any thing so ill conducted; (this had escaped my observation) nothing could be more confused, more injudicious,-no order, no discrimi nation." Here I observed fan-flirting, lip- biting, the flush of the cheek, and the in- creased swell of bosom, which denote the mighty combat betwixt female pride and dis- appointment, and the struggle which would conceal wounded feeling, disgust and resent- ment. Lady Horatia was less agitated, but seemed to be more acutely piqued, and she affected a sort of ease and kindliness quite foreign to her usual habits. She leaned fa- miliarly on my arm, turned away from the company on the stair-case, and smiled, "as in scorn," whilst a toss of the head betrayed 204 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 66 the mental storm which was warring in her bosom. But the more she tried to con- ceal her real situation, the more obvious did it appear to me. On taking leave of the Countess and her daughter, I expressed my regret for the indisposition of the latter, and told her that I should call the next day, and hoped to find her quite recovered. "Do, my dear sir," replied the lovely Lady Horatia, (a term of warmth with which I had never before been honoured during five years' ac- quaintance) " pray do call on us, we shall be most happy to see you." Here the carriage moved off, Lady Horatia wished to smile, and to give me a playful nod as she drew up the glass: but not even the display of a fine row of pearls set in coral, the velvet of a ruby lip, nor the grace which accompanied the action, could effect her purpose: there was no laughing eye, no dimpled cheek, no warmth in all this ceremony; she must have felt relieved when the carriage had proceeded some paces, and so did I; for I suffered at THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 205 witnessing the restraint under which pride and beauty were placed at that painful moment. A strong disinclination to return to the gay scene (if gay can be called the seat of vanity, proud preferences, and timid ambi- tion) took possession of me, and I felt happy at the opportunity of escaping, when Captain Milsington passed by me in company with two other young military men. The first accents which I heard must have formed the finale of a broken sentence, the termination was "D-n the ball, the sacrifice of eighty Napoleons is, I think, too high a price for a crowded dance and a formal banquet, neither hot nor cold. Il n'y a pas de fête ou le cœur n'est pas, the money's a trifle, (I did not believe this contempt for the loss) but then one might have passed the time so much more pleasantly elsewhere.” 'Aye," replied one of his companions, "all very true; but then George, (ironically) if you will follow foreign princesses, stale countesses, dowager beauties, 66 206 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 1 excellencies without excellence, and titled professors at ecarté, you must pay for your apprenticeship. For my part, I wish I had not given up a pleasanter thing for this pom- pous let off; I never spent a more uncom- fortable four hours in my life, bound as I was with a deformed partner, because for- sooth she is a right honourable, and attached to the corps diplomatique, and pestered by that new-fangled lord with his immense star, bright in its novelty, and who imposed the weight of his unwieldly corpus upon me in the guise of condescension; made me accom-´ pany his gouty hobble for an hour round the room, and then shuffled me off unceremo- niously for Sir Lionel Languish, whose bo- rough interest he has in view." "Well," thought I to myself, "here are two more dissatisfied persons;" so I called for a chair; threw myself into it and retired. About three o'clock, on the ensuing after- noon, I made my morning call on the Countess I was not many minutes in her THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 207 ladyship's company before I discovered the cause of the foregoing night's disgust. She had been mortified beyond description at finding the tide of admiration diverted into an unusual course, and flowing entirely in fa- vour of a young beauty who had come out for the first time that winter. She was still further chagrined by the circumstance of her rival's being only a commoner's daughter; and, to fill up the measure of her sufferings and humiliations, she had lost two steps of, rank in her place d'honneur, having a German Princess and the fat daughter of a Marquis placed before her, enough doubtless to keep her in a heat the whole of the night: Lord Flutter too, (worst of all!) had deserted her, to pay his homage to a rich banker's daugh- ter, plain in person, and so like a skeleton, that her ladyship, with much humour, nick- named her Banquo's Ghost. Nor did her mise- ries end here: she got a bad partner in the only quadrille she danced, and was not asked to waltz by Sir James Jessamine, the best 208 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. performer in that way in the room, and who, she bitterly complained, was nailed to the ecarté table, "and," (said she, with a certain flounce,) "made no bad thing of it." Her lady mother railed at the unpardonable want of attention of his Excellency and his "sticks of secretaries," (thus she treated the whole legation,) and ended by hinting at the want, not only of talent but of high birth, in that quarter. Just at this interval Lady Lightwood and Sir Peter Precious were announced. The former was extremely displeased with the ball, and grew very figurative in her remarks on the subject. "The company," she said, 66 was mal assorti, ill chosen and ill put to- gether; and there was a certain set, like a packed jury, which did every thing; common civility was not divided, it was difficult to catch a portion of it; the supper was la la, the wine was flat, there were too many people asked, which made a scramble for every dish; - and the renewed dance was a bear-garden; THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 209 the officers of the Guards were top-heavy from drink, whilst the Ambassador was dull from excessive temperance; the Chaplain was too talkative, the ambassadrice (so she called her, to evince her knowledge of languages) was a dumb belle; lastly cards, foreigners, and the young chit just come out, were alone at- tended to, although the latter possessed no merit but that of a new face, and what the French call la beauté du diable." On the word new face she laid great emphasis; the Countess and lovely Horatia smiled approba- tion, but her appeal to Sir Peter was not so successful. The Baronet, who wants to be a wit, a man of gallantry and a sage all at once, and who stands high amongst hireling scrib- blers and eccentric dilettanti, begged leave entirely to differ from the honourable lady who spoke last; as to the crime of having nothing but a "new face," he observed, that youth had irresistible attractions. (Lady Ho- ratia game a hem or short cough, not quite 210 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. relishing the remark.) "It is," continued he, "the "Primauera gioventù dell' anno, bella madre dei fiori "D'erbe novelle e di novelli amori." Lady Lightwood sighed, the Countess knit her brows. If the Baronet did not lose his Latin, he lost his time and the good graces of these three Graces. I began also to think on the loss of my own time, and rose to depart, which was very welcome to the ladies, as it cut the thread of Sir Peter's discourse. I ac- cordingly received, in reward for it, one lily finger of Lady Horatia, in semblance of the refinement of shaking hands. In the course of the day I accidentally met with a number of persons who had been pre- sent at the splendid fête, which had become the general topic of conversation; and, from what I could collect from them, most of them were ill satisfied, either too much was an- nounced, or too much was expected. In fine, THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. 211 a sumptuous entertainment which had cost great expence and trouble, pleasing scarcely any body. seemed to end in Guests who went high in hope and elate in expectation, re- turned like those who bask in court favour or in a wintry sun, cold though shore upon, comfortless, and full of self-reproach. When I reflected on the time and pains bestowed on Lady Horatia's toilette, (not to mention scores of ladies besides, in whom I took less interest, or who were wholly unknown to me,) when I considered the ruinous cost of her laces, jewels and other ornaments and appendages; when I calculated the very many hours passed before a looking-glass, and recollected her anxiety and that of a number of my acquaintance to be asked to this same ball; and, lastly, when I witnessed the discomfiture and resentment of those who were omitted, I could not help contrasting its ill success with the tip-toed hopes which were the fore-runners of its arrival. But this is no uncommon case; such are all the pomps, pa- 212 THE AMBASSADOR'S BALL. rades, promises, and vanities of the world; anticipation over-values them, possession shews their little worth, and reflection seizes them as food for the meditation of characters like THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XIX. THE POCKET-BOOK. "And to thy secret self, with pleasure say, "Rejoice my heart! for all went well to-day." ROWE'S PYTHAGORAS. THE POCKET-BOOK. I WISH I could meet with the young gentle man to whom the pocket-book belonged, which I picked up on the Boulevard de Cob- lentz; I still more earnestly wish that he would read Pythagoras with attention, and apply the foregoing lines to his future diary; for the account entered in his memoranda, chro- nicles only the mis-spending of time. It proves him to be a very young man, and if ever I can return it to him, I should advise him to lock it up for some years, and at the end of that period to use it in evidence against himself, for the purpose of bringing in soli- 216 THE POCKET-BOOK. tude, a blush to his face, for the waste of his youthful days. At the same time I would counsel belles and beaux in general, not to commit to paper, details, which may either serve to criminate them, or to expose their uselessness in society; and I would also coun- sel them to be very careful what they drop in public walks, or in hired carriages. To return to the pocket-book-green mo- rocco and gold was its outside garb; it was meant to contain bank notes, was highly per- fumed, and inclosed a lock of fine black hair, wrapped in paper, and superscribed with a lady's name, (another unpardonable impru- dence); some court plaister, numerous ad- dresses of females of easy virtue, and the following diary:— (Jeudi Matin.) Rose à Midi.-Rang for Auguste, positively the most intelligent valet de chambre in Europe; the fellow always finds out what I want; and speaks of me every where as the pearl of fashion, and as a mil- lionaire. Took my chocolate; d-d insipid; THE POCKET-BOOK. 217 ***** tasted some liqueur, would not go down; Auguste advised a glass of cold water and sugar; with la fleure d'orange and elder flower water in it, as a refrigerant, advantageous to the complexion; thought his advice suited the case, as I do certainly go too hard and am heated;-sent my music master to the devil; cannot learn at all, but the vagabond is a very useful *** (Here I took the liberty of the censeur, and cut out two lines.) Not at home to my tailor, ditto to the mem- ber for our borough, a proser; ditto repeated to two duns. Put on my corset and small chintz pattern robe de chambre, fits me like a glove, as do my straw-coloured slippers; clap- ped on a travelling cap richly ornamented and made in the last taste in the lancer style; had my hair curled, and then combed it with my fingers until I gave it a negligé dishe- velled air; cocked my cap rakishly on the right side, and left my shirt collar open. N. B. French ladies admire this, when a man can sport a fine skin. Looked in the VOL. I. L 218 THE POCKET-BOOK. long mirror, and was really quite the thing -not a bit of John Bull about me; kissed my hand to a dozen beauties; was taken for a Frenchman by one, and for a Polish noble- man by another; made my active rascal run after a certain ***** (here cutting was again necessary) and then proceeded to dress, after two hour's exhibition in my balcony. Sent for the Italian doctor to amuse me, during my toilet, by telling me lies.-Four o'clock. All complete; had my cabriolet at the door, and drove three times up to the Rue de la Paix and down to the bottom of the Boulevard Mont- martre; took good care not to go down the Rue de Richelieu, nor to pass a certain window, remembering to forget my promise of a cach- mere; attracted much attention; went to the Champs Elysées, where my horses were wait- ing for an hour; seven persons asked whose they were; my black horse the handsomest in Paris; devilish unlucky, that my jolter of a groom can't speak French. Rode for an hour, came back to the Boulevard, took an ice THE POCKET-BOOK. 219 at Tortoni's, and sat for another hour on a chair: went home,-wrote to Pauline, a de- lightful creature; and was dressed for dinner in an hour and a half. Dined with le Marquis, a fine agreeable reprobate, up to every thing; looked in at the Français, and at Feydeau after dinner, and made the Salon the finish; took care not to lose above twenty Naps, and got home full of champaign, by three in the morning, all snug. (Vendredi)—A slight head-ache, obliged to rise at eleven in order to write letters; have some thoughts of keeping a Secretary; a d-d bore to write at all; answered mother, a good soul for getting three hundred pounds paid for me unknown to the old gentleman; how tough he is, wish he had warning to quit: looked out of the window-rained torrents→→→→ horses counter-ordered; received a billet from Pauline-smell a rat-she wants to play tricks -wont do, got no money.-A visit from the Marquis, he too wanted a loan; but too deep for both of them. He offered to teach me L 2 220 THE POCKET-BOOK. - some tricks on the cards, could not be troubled; wrote home, sham sick, wont return this year at any rate; England a bore when com- pared to this place-read French like a native; wrote to Virginie, no answer—she be am too much the fashion to care for any of them long; sent an excuse to Lady Louisa; hate" at Homes," am at home every where- mean to cut the English women, they dress so ill-no small talk, nor life. Dined at Harvey Hazards, can't think how the devil he lives, but will stick to him whilst he gives his ambigus (dinners and evening parties of theatrical ladies.) The party delightful; won a trifle; made a conquest; more and more in love with Paris; played cards all night, and lay in bed all next day. (Samedi) took a warm bath at five P. M. and dined tête-à- tête at half-past seven with――(I tore off the name.) Went to the opera and was tired in half an hour." And so, gentle reader, was I of the manu- script, which I put into my writing-desk, in THE POCKET-BOOK. 221 case it should be advertised, or otherwise inquired for," as of no use to any one but the owner:" it may however have the good effect of opening the eyes of those who supply their sons and nephews with money to finish their education on the continent, and with this intention it is given by THE HERMIT ABROAD. Nº XX. LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide ; If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. POPE. LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. AMONG my various delineations of charac- ter, I promised to notice the Dames du Comptoir, and I must now introduce them in due form, soaring above the vulgarity of waiter or bar-maid, separated from the home- spun class of honest hostess, or buxom female publican, as beings of finer texture and highly ornamental appearance. At the houses of restaurateurs, and at the cafés, as many attractions as possible are as- sembled together, to whet the appetite and to catch the eye. Thus is the passer-by attracted, and thus is his preference canvassed by the L 3 226 LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. 4 load-stone of beauty, novelty, or the appear- ance of good cheer: lustres, looking-glasses, and marble tables abound in the coffee-rooms; whilst showy furniture, well proportioned saloons, flowers tastefully arranged on side tables, desserts laid out, a few rarities of the season exhibited to view, and long bills of fare, with the promise of every variety, form the most inviting features of the restaurant, where established reputation, either of a famous cook, or the moderate price on the card do not already draw their different cus tomers. The former is sure to fix the gour- mand, the latter never fails to engross the entire half-pay list of the French and British army present in Paris, to which the rigid economist imported from North Britain, is generally added; but substantiality in food, and excel- lence in wine cannot be looked for there; and any one who expects to get his dinner, with a pint of wine, for forty sols, must resign him- self to eat his meat à la vinaigrette, for the wine is as strong an acid as a chemist could LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. 227 wish to procure, and answers all the pur- poses of taking physic. However, even in these frugal repasts, and at the easily acces- sible and unexpensive café, there is a great offset for any deficiency, amidst the lustres, the looking glasses, the lights, the marble tables and pictures. A Dame du Comptoir rises to view, pre- siding at her semilunar bar, or ornamental table, often called le plus beau meuble du salon; the lustre of her fascinations eclipses all the other lustres; the reflections of the mir- rors only multiply her capabilities to please, and chase every heavier reflection from the dazzled eye and giddy brain; she is lighter than the lights: and as to the marble tables, the polish of her arm shames their rude workmanship, whilst the pictures and statues evince how much they want her animation; even when these presiding spirits have not regular features, fine forms or glowing com- plexions, youth, smiles, high dress, popular manners, an air of liveliness, and an impres- 228 LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. sive wish to please, furnish the sauce piquante of an indifferent dinner, and give a zest to a glass of parfait amour, or huile de rose, either at the restaurateur's or cafés. The ready wit and briskly-served artillery of the eye of a piquante brunette well figures the former, and the love-provoking languor, soft manner, and dulcet tone of a belle blonde, more than conveys the latter. ! In the first scenes of good living and elegance, such attendants improve and lend an illusion to the repast: coffee may be warmed and sweet- ened by love, as wine may be improved and mellowed by friendship and affection. Novelty does a great deal; at one restaurant's, the owner has procured a Patagonian female to astonish his customers; at the Cafe de Mille Colonnes, every one who has visited the metropolis of France, must have seen la Belle Limonadiere (now in her autumn) who reigns on her throne, surrounded like many prin- cesses, by numerous flatterers: there is a cer- tain je ne sais quoi of coffee-house majesty LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. 229 1 about her; no one can deny that she has been handsome-no one would attempt to assert that she did not know it. In the general run of these counter ladies, there is a suavity which our higher females might envy, without making so public a dis- play of it; there is a mild bearing of their faculties, difficult to preserve, whilst the in- cense of flattery is offered at the altar of their agreeableness; a command of feature, like a picture in good keeping, which is not very easily copied. A pretty girl hired at an ice- shop, or at a tavern in England, for the in- terest of the house, is nothing to these; for in France, borrowed importance is attached to every thing-the ice-shop female is a servant, the dame du comptoir plays the lady; the one serves, the other governs, and a foreigner never fails to offer his complimentary tribute, en passant, to the lady at the bar. Honest, plain matter-of-fact John Bull as- tonishes, by his indifference, and sometimes passes her le chapeau sur la tête, a mortal 230 LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. crime in the court of Venus, and in the gal lant circle even of an eating-house, or café; in every other way, however, John pays his dues better than any body, and is frequently made to pay the piper to no small amount; of this the cafés and restaurateurs are well aware, and as well they know how to turn him to the best account; for whilst a hand- some French ex-militaire will amuse himself for a whole evening over a cup of coffee and a glass of brandy, with the accompaniment of the bright-eyed brunette's cheerful conversa- tion and spirited remarks, honest John will spend his pound note, and then yawn and adjourn to some other haunt in quest of pleasure, there to put off more time, and get rid of more money. Seldom does he attempt the amoroso at the bar; occasionally brother Pat essays it, but he is beyond the mark, it becomes the furioso, and fails in its effect, unless he plays Jupiter, and find a Danæ to play second. Le petit mot pour rire, is the foreigner's gift, and these dames du comptoir LES DAMES DU COMPTOIR. 231 have other attachments, so that the inter- change of civilities and amiabilities is all that they expect, and all that may in propriety be looked for from them. As to myself, I had no inclination to throw away time and money, like my prodigal country- men; nor was the half cup of coffee, the dram, the tooth-pick, small talk, and glass of water quite nutritious enough for my constitution. I always made a moderate repast, with a due proportion of the juice of the vine, and bent, on retiring, to the presiding beauty, the lan- guage of whose eyes might have been dan- gerous to youth, but it was only by juvenile reminiscence that their vivid flash warmed for a moment THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XXI. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, N° I. 'The same calm artificial look of state His half-clos'd eyes in self attention wrapt. CUMBERLAND. THE ENGLISH ABROAD. To seem to be what we are not is too gene- ral a passion, not to be easily discovered by a common observer, and no where have I seen more of this practised than amongst my countrymen abroad; people who, at home, glide on unobserved in the crowd, affect to be characters of certain mark upon the conti- nent, and play off, to the stranger, important airs, which would induce the ignorant to ima- gine them the very pillars of the state. This manœuvre is generally practised where it is most likely to be successful, namely, with foreigners; but some people so forget them- 236 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. selves, that they even venture to pass off their counterfeit consequence on their countrymen abroad, taking the chance of non-detection, from long absence, or a probability of their auditors not being acquainted with the real sphere in which these pseudo great people moved at home. Of the number of these Birmingham im- pressions of the stamp above-mentioned, is Peter Dense, and, indeed, the whole of his affected family, who are scarcely known in London, but who occupy, in a small circle in Paris, a degree of consideration usurped by pride, and maintained by false appearances. Mr. Dense is often called milord, and his lady, wife and daughters, caricature all the airs of quality. The solemn coxcomicality of the father is ridiculous to a man of good sense, but passes current with the ignorant. Turning the corner of the Place Vendome, I espied this, my coffee-house acquaintance, lol- ling in a Paris-built barouche, with all the state of an Ottoman emperor. "Cocher," THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 237 cried he, "arretez," and bowing with a con- descending look-" Ah!" he exclaimed, "I cannot be mistaken, it must be you; (mea- suring me through his glass) what, like our- selves, glad to escape from the toils of plea- sure and the busy round of high life." I looked astonished at him. "Upon my soul," continued he," the last winter's campaign (what campaign could he mean?) quite did me up, the dook and I used to set up night after night, until I began to think that I had mortgaged my constitution." What duke he meant I neither know nor care; perhaps Duke Humphrey." And then again, these nocturnal dinners! By-the-bye, royalty is to travel this summer, so that migration will be all the go, and I think myself of making my bow to the crowned heads at Spa, or elsewhere. But will you take a cast in my d- -d machine I've hired whilst my town vis is repairing? I hate a post-chay in the streets.” I declined the lift which he offered me. "You see (he continued, looking uncommonly 238 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. high) that Paris is full of English, but how few of any note; such tag, rag, and bobtail, (a gentlemanlike phrase!) that one is afraid to be identified with them. I am always in hopes of being taken for a Frenchman, for re-al-ly, John Bull quite disgraces himself abroad." This, I informed him, was news to me.. "Oh! yes," resumed he "the St. Pelagie is full of English, and I am sure I have patronized a score of works of poor devils who come abroad; they always get my guinea and my name, which is an inducement to great people, for a subscription paper is like a company, one person of mark draws another." Mark? thought I, unless it be Mark Lane, where his plodding father scraped together a few thousands, on which the son lived in mediocrity at home. "But fare you well; call upon us at our hotel, where my daughter Florinda will tell you all the fashionable small talk of Paris, and all the goings on of the court. will find her What I dare swear you with a levee of a dozen French dukes, counts, THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 239 and marquesses, and with as many curious titled dames about her. She is, I assure you, quite the rage in town, out every night. Three parties ere she can get home. We came here for quiet, but faith, we can just get as thick in dissipation and high life as we were before-(that might very soon be.) Farewell, I must call upon Monsieur le Comte d'Argentcourt and the Marques de Veaumarin, and a bishop, and one of the ministers, and the devil knows who." The last information the truest. Off whirled Peter Dense, Esq. with a chasseur behind his car- riage, as if he had been one of the corps di- plomatique. Now the fact is, that he gives great dinners to young idle Frenchmen of small fortunes, with a coronet stuck upon their cabriolet, who are eating him up, and swallowing his lies, and beau-ing, dancing, and talking away Miss Florinda's character as fast as possible, whilst she bends disdainful looks upon the most respectable commoners of England, and is pendant on the arm of 240 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. decorated dandies who have nothing to re- commend them but a foreign order and foreign foolery, a few distinctions suspended to a button-hole, and the modest assurance of the nation to which they belong. What Peter Dense is to do when he returns to England I know not, but he has persuaded his Paris friends, that to avoid the fatigues of the Coronation procession, was the main ob- ject of his honouring France with his present visit. Nor are these solemn imposters so un- frequent as one might imagine: I met with a lace merchant from Buckinghamshire, at a table d'hôte, who amused his neighbours in exe- crable French with an account of his stud and his carriages, his stud groom and out-riders, his hounds and his chateau in the country; and invited all around him, if ever they came into his county, to enquire for him, as he was well known, and had always a house full of company forgetting that he had one near him (myself) who knew his stud, consisting of one horse and a donkey; his equipage, a THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 241 whiskey of shabby appearance; his hounds, a mongrel that guarded his door; his chateau, a manufactory with a small dwelling-house attached to it; his grooms, one dirty boy, officiating alternately in the stable and in the parlour; and his house full of com- pany, now and then a poor relation, and about forty women and children working at the lace cushion.-Another example of this kind occurred in the person of a chance ac- quaintance I picked up at one of the theatres, and whose after-intercoruse with me never ex- ceeded the exchange of bows. Meeting at Paris, he felt a kind of right to be more fami- liar, and I (as far as country and the ties of fellow man go) met that inclination. For- getting, however, propriety and truth, he ob- served, "here I am, my good Sir, quite in- cog. (what was he when known?)—all on the reform: I have done with all the pomps and vanities of life, and am lodging here like a solitary, with only one servant."-Solitary and with one servant! very good indeed! VOL. I. M 242 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. probably a cook and chamber-maid in one and the same person. I never knew his for- mer habits, but I have no reason to believe that they afforded a higher establishment than his incognito reform. An untruth is always disgraceful; but on no character does it sit so ill as on the native Englishman; foreign counterfeits sometimes amuse, but to John Bull thus perverted and denaturalized, I should say, at every trick attempted to be played off, 66 Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi." Thus observed Horace, and thus thinks THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XXII. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, N° II. и 2 Cest donc ainsi, troupe absurde et frivole, Que nous usons de ce temps qui s'envole! C'est donc ainsi que nous perdons des jours, Longs pour les sots, pour qui pense si courts VOLTAIRE. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, No. II. I HAD been arguing with my friend Gene- ral Manby on the love of trifling, so prevalent in France, when he assured me that he could quote as many instances of triflers imported from Great Britain, as I could find him ex- amples of in Paris amongst the natives. "It is true," said he, "that the bagatelle has great attractions for a Frenchman; that he must have his aimable folie, his round of fiddle faddle and small talk; must brush lightly through life like the butterfly in a gar- den, sipping sweets as he goes on, without attaching himself to any thing; but I assure 246 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. you that I know a score of young English- men, and some old ones, who are playing the fool in this metropolis from morning until night, and whose nugatory pursuits would not a little astonish you. There are Lord Lackland and a certain diplomate who pass their whole mornings in seeking for what is miscalled les bonnes fortunes, and who are laughed at by all the depraved sempstresses and common servant girls in the town. An air of mystery, a ton bourgeois, the cap of the humbler trades- women, a band-box, or some other such blind, is an infallible bait to either of these gud- geons. And then their adventures are so humiliating; the peer was once half stifled under a bed in a garret in one of his high flights of fancy, and the envoy was imprisoned in a kitchen closet for twelve hours in the round of his amatory rambles. Then there is Sir George Gamble, who has a strong box full of billets doux, with which he amuses himself and edifies his young friends on a rainy day. He has eight-and-twenty single THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 247 gloves as trophies borne off from various fe- males; a hundred and sixty-four locks of hair, which he counts weekly, and which serve to recall histories that form the whole of his knowledge and conversation, and which fill up the remnant of time after laborious dressing and divers rendezvous. Another acquaintance of mine, who has just taken orders, passes half his morning in reading immoral French books and the other half in learning to write love letters. Sometimes one of these is ad- dressed to a happy fair one, and comes back revised and corrected the next day. For this, and other kindlinesses, the reverend pays what might satisfy a travelling A.M. of the first ability and respectability. But three little incidents which I met with this morning," concluded he, "made up my mind as to triflers, or rather as to gleaners of bubbles and chroniclers of nothings. "Passing through the church of St. Sul- pice, I found two little boys fighting during the time of service, to determine which of them 248 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. should ring the church bell. This was cer- tainly deplacé and ridiculous enough; but I called on two Oxonian friends immediately after, and found them outbidding each other at an auction for a Dutch toy. I next pro- ceeded to visit a captain of grenadiers, six feet high and forty years old, and I found him en chemise under the drill of a dancing- master, who observed to another scholar, that le gros capitaine was as awkward as a bear and danced like a hackney-coachman. Next I knocked at the door of a British dragoon, whom I discovered in the act of lacing his stays." I was here quite satisfied with the truth of 'the general's assertions; and as for chroniclers of nothings, I can bear testimony of that, having seen the pocket-books of certain young gentlemen, full of remarks, indeed, but re- marks only on subjects that were foolish and vicious. It not unfrequently occurs that our countrymen import with them, on their return home, nothing but the THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 249 vices of each nation which they have visited; they learn to eat à la Française, (preserving the English fashion of drinking) to intrigue à l'Italienne, to smoke, take snuff, and swear à l'allemande, and à la mode Hollandaise; they not unfrequently add to this the pride and the want of cleanliness of the Spaniard, and almost always get a taste of the spirit of infidelity and the immoral philosophy which were introduced at the beginning of the French revolution, and which have since be- come so general throughout Europe. These acquisitions, added to a love of novelty, a restlessness of disposition, and an affected con- tempt for home, makes a pretty accomplished gentleman; whereas a different system of se- lection might have united the useful and agreeable in as great a degree: for instance, the temperance of France; the admirable taste for the fine arts of Italy; the perseverance and mechanical turn of Germany; the high honour and sentiment of Spain as it used to be, preserving at the same time the unsullied na- M 3 250 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. tional character of the old English gentleman as the ground work, to be ornamented with the foreign embroidery of light talents and social amiabilities. I cannot conclude this chapter without pay- ing a deserved compliment to the inviolable word and chaste honour of the old Castilian. A signor of that province being called upon by an acquaintance to lend him a sum of money, he passed his word to assist him; his man of business soon afterwards informed him that the person whom he had engaged to serve was in bad circumstances and unprin- cipled, and that he would certainly never pay him. "I am sorry for it," said the noble Castilian, "for the sum is considerable." "What will you do?" inquired the lawyer. "I will lend him the money," replied the Spaniard, "for my promise is given, and my word is of more value than any sum of money in the world; I must make sacrifices and self- denials in order to recover my loss, but my honour will be entire and my word as sacred THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 251 as ever." 99 That my countrymen may borrow this high sentiment, with all the good qualities to be found on the Continent, and reject the dross, is the sincere wish of THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XXIII. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, N° III. At every word a reputation dies. POPE- THE ENGLISH ABROAD, Nº. III. "How are all our friends at Boulogne ?" said Mr. Chatterly to Lady Blightall, in a morning call, where I happened to make one of a large circle. "Friends at Boulogne !" indignantly replied her ladyship; "I have very little knowledge of any of the coasters, scarcely common acquaintance; for who, with either good taste, money, or a love of elegant society, would ever think of sitting down with the rif-raf of Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk, and such bankrupt colonies. Bou logne, in particular, is a complete Botany Bay. I had rather be met paying visits in 256 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. the rules of the King's Bench, than have my carriage seen in the streets of Boulogne, lest people might think that I was going to live there- a plain proof that I could live no- where else." I observed that I knew a very worthy English family at Boulogne, and that there were good and bad every where. 66 You think so now, my good Sir," said Lady Blightall; "but when I give an outline of the society there, you will change your opi- nion. In the first place: like Margate com- pany, transported by hoys and steam-packets, the class of coasters is inferior to the resident English in Paris, or on their travels, because for half nothing these creatures can get over. There's a steam-packet to Dover, by which the motley crew is smuggled across, like prohibited ware, to the opposite coast. A Boulogne packet always reminds me of the unloading of a waggon, shooting its rubbish on foreign land. Broken merchants, half- gentry, and tarnished characters, with the THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 257 remnant of reputation and the wreck of their former means. I declare if I were the French king, I would make such obnoxious people contraband, and prohibit them altogether; for as for paying duty, I believe they are defi- cient in all the duties of society. One fellow brings over a wife whom he forgot to marry; another has two spare wives besides, and 'how happy could I be with either' wont do at home. Here a female wants to get into company; and there a would-be gentleman has just got out of it. Some silly creatures flatter themselves, that although known and despised at home, they may be respected in- cog. abroad, and that at so short a distance. Then you have the half-pay on the skirmish, and the pigeon on the wing, half-plucked and in hopes of getting into better feather, and the leg who can give but a lame account of himself, even to the police. To these are to be added retired Greeks and folks out of busi- ness, loose fish from the other shore, and vamped up male and female anglers and 258 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. throwers of the matrimonial net, uncertifi- cated bankrupts, nobodies who here try to be somebodies, flashy smugglers, wandering im- posters, and lastly, the miserables who visit Ca- lais, Boulogne, Ostend, Dunkirk, &c. in hopes of getting a bit of bread from their migrated countrymen, and who set up in their respective trades, to the great annoyance of the natives. Thus John Bull on the coast is as much John Bull as when at home, eating and drinking like a barbarian, and not even learning the language of the country; or at most picking up a few ill-pronounced phrases amongst servants and market women. And now, (not forgetting the sickly, ricketty children, who come over to mend their health and manners,) you have a living picture of the coaster crew." Here every one laughed at her ladyship's sa- tirical description, and at the acrimonious hu- mour mingled in the dose "These passage- birds," resumed she, "who light upon the French or Flemish coast, are all light in charac- THE EGNLISH ABROAD. 259 ter and light in pocket, else would they proceed to the interior, instead of giving a Flemish account to their Belgian trades-people, or of taking French leave of the French coast, which they have so lately honoured by visit- ing (a visitation to many). But I pity not the cormorant French who receive and dupe them as long as they have a sixpence, a horse, a carriage, or the appearance of substance. To tempt John Bull the more, also, the Ca- lasian and Boulognese traders, force articles on him, and make a show of giving him cre- dit, whilst they set their landlords and their police to watch him lest he should give them the slip. I can only compare the French coast bourgeois to anglers anxiously bent on hooking their fish, and then as anxiously and fearfully playing with them on the water's edge, lest they should get off the hook, 'And put to sea again.”” She concluded by a spirited account of the broils, backbitings, and quarrels of the 260 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. English coast-residents, each fearful lest a neighbour should preserve a little more charac- ter than himself, and by a description of the falsifying, drugging, and adulterating of wine, of spirits, and all sorts of provisions, as well as of the impositions practised in lace and other articles of wearing apparel. I had now list- ened for one hour, and I availed myself of the first opening in the conversation, to open the door with a low bow, and walk off, leav- ing most probably a new subject of discussion open to her ladyship, in the character and peculiarities of THE HERMIT ABROAD. No XXIV. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, N° IV. Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise. COWLEY. In time forbear, amidst the throng, No more so base a thing be seen: No more so idly pass along, Be something, any thing, but-mean. LORD BYRON. THE ENGLISH ABROAD, Nº. IV. EXAGGERATED as her ladyship's statement was, yet there was un fond de veritè, as the French call it, in her account. The want of reflection, the non-performance of necessary self-denials and economical plans, whilst abroad, is the ruin, not only of the remnant of their means, but of the reputation of our countrymen in France and elsewhere. Not to mention travelling swindlers, Greeks en ambulance, and those driven over by despair, I will merely notice the host of persons pur- sued by debt and difficulty, pinched in their 264 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. resources, and whose pecuniary concerns are in confusion; almost all of these leave home with a resolution of retrenching and of living on little in order to make up their lee way; the difference of the price of provisions on the coasts of France and Flanders, and the cheap rate of passage, are powerful inducements; not to mention the consideration of personal safety. Mat Wildair, a gay navy lieutenant, pre- tends that you may always discover a fresh arrival, either by the joyful countenance of the party, or by his habit of looking round with alarm, and a certain ticklish shrug of the shoulders. Be that as it may, good resolu- tions are always made, but the wisdom of to- day is never adopted. "To-morrow, or next week, at my quarterly payment, or, when I have seen a little of the place," these are the puts-off of imprudence, and these lead to ulti- mate disgrace of the British name, of which the possessor ought to be proud, and fill the prisons of the continent with British debtors; THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 265 whereas, had the self-devoted victims passed a few years in retirement, and under certain privations, they might have returned home respected. Nay, it very frequently occurs, that had the same characters laid the axe to the root of the evil under which they laboured at home, they might have retrieved with more ease, surrounded by friends and countrymen, than by adding to the host of migrated miser- ables. But men fly from themselves, and, when the moment of panic is over, return to the same imprudences which occasioned their flight. Extravagance is ever emulous, and association with the vain and unprincipled abroad is far more dangerous than facing the enemy at home. The herding together, the want of management, the wish to appear what they are not,—namely, easy and independent, frustrate the saving project; nay, have even raised the price of provisions on the French and Flemish coast; but one example of a female would-be fashionable, eclipsed and sunk under the horizon at home, but ever VOL. I. 18 N 266 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. striving to shine abroad, will afford the strongest proof of what I state. "Constance, (the name of her maitre d'hôtel) how many cards of invitation have you issued out?" said Lady Barbara Belair. "Two hundred, my lady." "Well, and how many apologies ?” "Not above a dozen." "Good; pray will my little friend the dis- tressed poet chalk my room ?? evergreens ?" "Yes, my lady." "And have you got the flowers and "No, my lady." "Why not, sir ?" "No money, my lady."" Humph!" a pause. "Constance." "My Lady." My Lady." "Won't the doctor lend a few Naps ?" "No, my lady." "Nor our parson ?" "No, my lady." "Do you think Fauxbrilliant the jeweller would come down for a little usury ?" haps he might ?" Well, we'll have the flowers; but Constance, how stands our wine ?" "Not a drop." "Well, you must get some Champaign, Burgundy, Vin du Rhin and Vin de Grave, of old Cent pour cent the broker.” “He has this moment left your Per- THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 267 ladyship's door with the bitterest threats of arresting you." "He is a beast: then try Monsieur Drogué, and promise him any price: to be sure we shall be half poisoned; but my ball must go off with eclat, if I die for it." "Drogué, my lady, has sent in his bill to-day with a circular to all the English, an- nouncing that for the future he will only deal for ready money." "Ha! but I presume that Friandise, the restaurateur, will furnish the supper." "No, my lady, he abused me like a pickpocket yesterday; called all the English escrocs, and said that we cheated him at our last fancy ball by giving him a bad bill, which he threatens to put into a lawyer's hands; and he says that Mrs. Lackrent has thrown him over by pleading her coverture, and that her husband is obliged to be kept out of the way; so that I am sure he wont trust us for a penny roll." "Well, we must send to the inn." 66 They say that they are quite out of wine." "Will Sir Simon lend the plate?" "No, my lady, for a very good reason, it went N 2 268 THE ENGLISH ABROAD. last week to pay for the hire of his horses." "Do you think that the banker's clerk, un- known to his master, would lend us some, if I were to ask him to my party ?" "Certainly not, my lady, he got finely scolded for advanc- ing you five hundred francs on your in-coming quarter, which your ladyship knows is pro- mised three deep." "Would the grocer?" "I have made him believe that you are gone on a visit for a week in order to put him off, and to keep things a little quietish." "Ask Mrs. Mac Blunder to come here." "Ma'am, she is in prison.' "I'm ready to faint; but the cook ?" "Has not a copper, and has given us warning; besides, my lady, we have no wax lights; and the music must be paid before-hand, as they say that we have bit 'em too often; and we can't hire waiters, or get wood, or in short, any thing." 66 99 Then, Constance, (with a deep sigh) make the little poet write apologies to the whole party, and I must go to bed and sham desperately ill. Oh me! oh me! Constance, THE ENGLISH ABROAD. 269 leave the room or I shall sink into a swoon; send me up my smelling-bottle and the ether." Here an hysteric fit concluded the scene. I will not, in the language of Virgil say, "Ab uno disce omnes." But I must say, from the example of one, you may learn much of the English conduct and character abroad. It will be objected that these are but a certain set; true, but the set is numerous, and one has to regret that their conduct in their native land forced them to their present state of banishment, where their behaviour disgraces the first and freest nation in the world. I was once asked, "What would you have people do whose estates are out at elbows ?" Simply to change their habits," was the answer of THE HERMIT ABROAD. END OF VOL. I. LONDON: SHACKELL AND ARROWSMITH, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DUPL 32101 015324427 383 .93 .341 V.I DATE ISSUED DATE DUE DATE ISSUED DATE DUE DUE JUN 15 1999 DUCHUN 15 1990 UN T5.2003