companion, and Felice happening to enter the room, asked her how she should like a foreign husband. "Very well, Mademoiselle," replied the girl with great innocence, "after I had taught him to talk in French: and I believe you are of the same opinion, Mademoiselle," added she with more pertness. Mademoiselle, with true French dexterity, here dropt a cup on the floor, and thus saved the necessity of reply, and furnished an excuse for the confusion into which the girl's impertinence had evidently thrown her. Shall I confess that my vanity was gratified, but I will defy any one to travel through France without becoming something of a coxcomb. resembling an English parsonage, about five Louis a year, or with a garden, paddock, and orchard, about eight Louis; butter eightpence per pound; cheese fourpence; and milk a halfpenny a quart. According to the best estimate I could make, a family, consisting of a man, his wife, three or four children, two maidservants, a man-servant, and three horses, might be easily kept at Saumur, and in its neighbourhood, for about a hundred pounds a year. I am fully persuaded that I am rather over than under the mark. The country immediately about Saumur is as lively and beautiful as the town itself. It consists of corn-fields studded with groves, or rather tufts of trees, and divided by green fences, in which were pear and apple-trees in full bearing. The fields near the town had paths round them and across them, where the town-folk, as I un. derstood from my informer, were accustomed to walk in the evening, and which, the corn being ripe and high, were pleasantly recluse. Felice and myself crossed three or four of them, and if I may judge from the little scrupulosity with which she ran among the corn, the proprietors of the lands must gain little from their fields being the customary promenade of their townsinen. One thing, however, I have observed peculiar to the landholders in France, that wherever the free use of their property can contribute in any thing to the enjoyment of others, wherever their fields, or even their parks and gardens, lie convenient for a promenade, those fields, parks, and gardens, are thrown open, and whatever they contain, flowers, fruits, and seats, are all at the public disposal. A Frenchman never thinks of raising the height of his own wall in order to interrupt the prospect of his neighbour. One quality, in a few words, pervades all the actions, all the words, and all the thoughts of a Frenchman-a general benevolence,ing, but every mile began to have a new an anxious kindness, which is daily making sacrifices to oblige and even assist others. Upon my return to the inn, I found Mademoiselle at the breakfast table, which was set in a back room fronting a very pleasant garden. She rallied me pleasantly enough, but as I thought with an air of pique, upon my morning walk and my fair Having resumed our journey, we proceeded merrily, under a cheering sun refreshed by a morning breeze, on the road for Tours, through les Trois Voletes and Langes. The road was still along the banks of the Loire, and continued on the southern side till we reached Chousay, a very sweet village about twelve miles from Saumur. We had here a repast of bread, grapes, and a sweet wine peculiar to the country, but the name of which I have not noted; and though together with our servauts we drank nearly four quart bottles, and ate a good quantity of grapes and bread, our reckoning did not exceed seven francs. Nothing indeed surprised me so much as the uncommon cheapness in this country. The country to Chousay had a very near resemblance to what we had passed through the preceding day, except that it was more hilly, and the hills being clothed in vines, more beautiful. On some of these hills, moreover, amidst groves or tufts of trees, and lawns extending down the declivity, were some very pretty chateaus, which being white and clean, looked gay and animated. The landscape, indeed, seemed to improve upon us as we advanced; every mile was as charming as the preced character. At Chousay I saw the cleanly way in which the Vignerons of the Loire bruise their grapes. In Spain and Portugal they are put into a mash tub, and the juice is trodden from them by the bare feet of men, women, and girls hired for the purpose: here the practice is to use a wooden pestle. The grapes being collected and picked, are put into a large vat, where was formed most peculiarly to relish the How sweetly, and even how justly, did We passed through Langeais, a small town, celebrated for its melons, with which it supplies Paris, and all France. This town was known to the Romans, by whom it was called Alingavia. We stopped to examine its castle, which is celebrated in the history of France, as the scene of the marriage of Charles the Eighth and Anne of Bretagne. The castle, as may be ex they are bruised in the manner I have mentioned, and are thence carried to the press. || Our next post was Planchoury, a small village, which we reached about six o'clock in the evening, and where we agreed to remain for the night, that our horses might|| have a rest, which they seemed to require. Our inn here was a farm-house. We had for our supper a couple of roasted fowls, and a dish which I had never s en before, some new wheat boiled with pepper and salt. It was so savoury, and I have reason to believe so wholesome, that I have frequently taken it since. I can say from experience, that it is a powerful sudorific, and very efficacious in a cold. I must not forget to mention that I slept on some straw, in a kind of hay-loft, and to the best of my memory never slept more delight-pected, is now in ruins; but enough refully. When I opened my razor case on the following morning, I found a paper, upon unrolling of which I found a ringlet of hair, with the word Felice on the envelope. Once for all, the French women can think of nothing but gallantry, and live for nothing but love. Sweet girl, I will keep thy ringlet, and when weary of the world, will remember thee, and acknowledge that life may still have a charm. mains of it to prove its former magnificence. It frowns with much sublimity over the subject land. I never remember to have passed through a more lovely country, more varied scenery, abounding in vines, corn, meadow, wood, and water, than the whole of the road between Saumur and Tours. Well might Queen Mary of Scotland exclaim, when leaving the vines and flowers of France for her Scotch kingdom. "Dear delightful land, must I indeed leave thee! Gay, lovely France, shall I never see thee more!" We reached Tours somewhat later than we expected. According to our previous arrangement, we were to stay there only the whole of the following day, but we again broke our resolution, and extended our time from one day to three. I envy not that man's heart who can travel France by his watch. We remained at Planchoury till the noon of the following day, when we resumed our journey, with the intention of dining at Tours. From Planchoury throughout the whole way to Tours, the scenery exceeded all the powers of description. The Loire rolled its lovely stream through groves, meads, and flowers. On both sides was a border of meadow clad in the richest green, varied sometimes by hills which hung over the river, the sides of these hills robed in all the rich livery of the ripening grape, and the towers and battlements of castles just surmounting the woods, in which they were embosomed. How delightful must it be to wander in a summer's evening along these lovely banks, far from the din of the distant world, and where the deep tranquil-lieve almost the only picturesque descriplity is only interrupted by the song of the tion of the scenery of the French provinces, nightingale, the whistle of the swain return- and of the manners of the peasantry of the ing from labour, or the carol of the milk-interior of Languedoc and Provence. maid as she is filling her pail. Surely man No. XLVI-Vol. VI. Having extracted so liberally from this elegant work, we cannot do less than recommend it to general perusal. It not only contains the present state of France (in the summer of 1808) but the best, and we be Y MR. EDITOR, HYMENEA IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND. as from our best monitor; it prevents us from taking counsel with ourselves; it hurries us from the more serious offices of self-examination into the more attractive offices of the rout and ball. And if life has any better end than mere enjoyment, if we are made for any thing better than to pass away the day, and make our journey imperceptible, if such be not the aim and purpose of our life, a course of fashionable dissipation is not calculated to make us either better or wiser. evening. This is the day when we invited all my friends to a party at Mrs. Pagod's, the rich Nabob's wife, just returned from the Indies. "And why did you invite them there," said I; "have you not a house of your own, aunt, why did you not have them here?" THE kind of life which I was now living at my aunt's began to have peculiar charms for me. I cannot concur in sentiment with these who prefer the tranquil enjoyments of the country to the more splendid pleasures of the fashionable world. 'Believe me, Sir, nothing has been more injuriously dealt with by writers who know nothing about it, than the world of fashion. Pythagoras, with his heaven of glass, and 'clouds of crystal, was not inore ignorant To resume, however, my narrative:of the real world, of the grand system of My aunt had a kind of fashionable ledger, nature, than are your ordinary tribe of in which were entered all her engagements, novelists of what is called the beau monde. as well as her own days This was produced According to them the world of fashion every morning on the breakfast table, as is a world of monsters; every man or wo-regularly as the Morning Post, and the man of fashion is either an extraordinary Porter's Visiting List. My aunt, after exfool, or an extraordinary knave. They amining it one morning, told me with a seem perfectly to forget that the fashion-smile to prepare for a splendid party in the able world is but a splendid scene, and an elevated stage, and is only distinguished from more humble life from being pos sessed of greater opportunities both of good and evil. With due allowances for these greater opportunities, and the: efore greater temptations, there is nothing to surprise in the habits or manners of fashionable life. There are the same feelings, the same common nature, the same propensities, the same virtues, and with a small grain of allowance, the same vices. I speak from an experience which corrected my first notions. The mode of life at my aunt's, however, was one uninterrupted scene of gaiety; and though as far as my own observation went, I can take upon me to say that this gaiety was unmixed with absolute vice, yet I will not assert, on the other hand, that this unintermitting round of dissipation did not banish all serious reflection, and therefore most assuredly in a degree at least encourage a dangerous state of mind. It is an excellent observation of the moralists, that it is with the virtues of "Not at all," replied my aunt; “you the mind as with the physical habits of the must not confound friendship and acquaintbody; they are all confirmed and invigo-ance, or intimacy and personal regard. rated by exercise, and proportionately lost and weakened from the want of it. It is thus with fashionable dissipation; it steals " "This is what I must explain to you, my dear Hymenæa," replied my aunt, you must know that this is one of the good humoured expedients of high life, and of the fashionable world, for transferring one's friends en masse to another friend, who wishes their acquaintance, but who knows nothing of them, nor is known by them. Of all those four hundred persons who will this night shake Mr. Pagod's house over his head, there is scarcely one of them whom he has ever seen before; yet before this time to-morrow, they will all be his dear friends and his most intimate ac quaintance." "What hypocrisy," said I, "there must be in that case on both sides." They are fools, indeed, who expect a friend, as your philosophers define a friend, in every fashionable acquaintance. If you wish to live happy, and to enjoy life, you must take it as you find it; you must not expect to find every acquaintance a friend, nor every friend a Pylades. The world is well enough to those who do not expect too much from it. But if you imagine it an Eden or a Paradise of sweets, you will be necessarily deceived. As to the practice of which I am speaking, it is one of great mutual convenience, and of great mutual kindness: a respectable strange family, that is to say, a family not introduced and not known, makes its appearance in the town, and wishes to be introduced and to be admitted into fashionable society. How was this to be done?" "There is but one way. You, who are unknown, apply to me who am known: I immediately invite all my friends en masse to your house, and thus without having a single friend or acquaintance in the world, you have in the instant your house full of friends, and are introduced to the whole town. Mr. Pagod was in this predicament. He went out to India about twenty years since, and having then made his fortune, returned to England. His first step on his return was to take a lovely and beautiful wife, and what has rendered him a favourite with me, is, that he took her without a fortune. Mr. Pagod himself has little to recommend him but his wealth and profusion. His origin, I believe, was very passable, and his education very imperfect. But he compensates for these defects by a ready and precipitate imitation of all the follies of fashionable life. His lady is truly an estimable woman, and suffers much in her feelings from the absurdities of her husband. However, as Mr. Pagod is a very honest man, and has great good humour, they are a very happy couple, and are envied even by those who laugh at them." "By what you have related," said I, "Mrs. Pagod will be one of my chief favourites. She seems to have some virtues in her of our country stamp." "She deserves your esteem and your friendship," replied my aunt. This conversation was interrupted by a visit from Signor Benvenuto, one of the Opera corps, and who, as it is understood, immediately acts under the manager, in providing the entertainments of the town. This gentleman, if so I must call him, gave me such an invincible, disgust, that his figure aud mauner are forcibly impressed upon my recollection. Conceive a person diminutive in his figure, and at the same time so full of active contortions as to bear a near resemblance to nothing but to a bottle twirling upon a pin. His manners were as affected as his personal address. I confess that I felt a more than common surprise that my aunt, a woman of fashion, and a woman of understanding, could even admit the approach of such an effeminate monster. "Well, Signor," said my aunt, "how have you settled with the Nightingale ?' (This I afterwards understood to be the name of the favourite singer.) "We cannot settle in any way with her, Madam," replied he, "unless indeed the Minister will help us out of the Ways and Means. I have had two meetings; the one with the Nightingale herself, and the other with that monstrous puppy her husband. The Nightingale insists upon being paid according to the time of her performance, the long hundred, as she calls it, by the hour; that is to say, precisely at two guineas per minute. For attending at the rehearsals she is to have half the sum; and, in short, for every minute spent in the Opera House, she is to receive one guinea-one guinea a minute throughout the season.” "Unconscionable,” exclaimed my aunt; "then for me, let her return to Italy, I will sooner give my money to the Magdalen, where it may support objects of charity, and my own countrymen; I will not contribute to the insolence of these foreigu vagabonds." "Vagabonds, indeed," said the Signor, "for the mother of the Nightingale was most probably a beggar in a ditch, and her father a gallant lazzarone. But be it as it may, such are the lady's terms, aud such I am instructed to lay before the subscri bers.” “Then you have had my answer in a word," replied my aunt; "but tell me, Signor, did you not find more conscience in her husband; was Monsieur as unreasonable as his lady?" "Infinitely worse," replied the Signor "Monsieur refused to confirm his wife's t offer without an additional half guinea per minute for himself. His time was precious, and he could not hink of either suffering his wife to come to the Opera House with out him, or of coming there himself without being paid for it. Parbleu, why should he have to sit an hour in such a house of barbarians; he could pass his time more comfortably at home." “Then it seems, Signor," replied my aupt, "that we are to engage Monsieur as well as Madame. Pray of what service, and in what capacity is Monsieur to be engaged?" "Because the Lord Chamberlain is one of the dillitante. The Nightingale bas fortunately for herself a party upon her side even in the Privy Counsel, and if I have not been misinformed, her influence has been more than once necessary to keep her husband in the kingdom. He is, in every sense of the word, a perfect puppy; and if he were to receive his deserts, would be hunted from the kingdom by an hue and cry of boys at his tail." At the proper hour in the evening we went to Mrs. Pagod's, where my aunt performed all the offices of the mistress of the "Madame is to sing," replied the Sig-house, and received the company, at the nor; "and Monsieur, I suppose, is to encore his wife. He is to have half-a-guinea per minute for attending her to the Opera, and even in so doing he seems to think that he shall do too much for the English barbarians, for such he does you the honour to call you all en masse." "Well, Signor," replied my aunt, "you have my answer, and I hope it will be that of the main body of the proprietors." "I hope so too," replied the Signor, taking his leave at the same time; "it is my duty to lay these terms before the subscribers, but it is not likewise my duty to persuade them to accept them. The terms are enormous, and if the English nation pay thus for a song, why it is better to be a Nightingale than a Newton." "And is it possible," said I to my aunt, after the Signor had left us, "that what he has stated is true, and that such are the terms which are demanded by an Italian singer. I have, indeed, repeatedly heard of their extravagant extortion, but is it possible that it can reach to this point?" same time introducing Mrs. Pagod. Nothing appeared to me more extraordinary than this practice of receiving company in the house of another, and thus rendering the party as it were a stranger in his own house. I have since, however, lived sufficiently long in the fashionab'e world to have lost all admiration or wonder at any thing however singular. The fashionable world, Sir, has so peculiar a system of its own, that it must not be judged by common rules or common laws. Mrs. Pagod equalled the expectation which I had formed of her from the description which my aunt had given. Toa tall and elegant person, she added an infinite grace of manners; I never remember to have seen any one whose general air more forcibly impressed me. There is a kind of features, which, without approaching to the perfection of beauty, is per haps more powerful than the most perfect beauty; it is impossible to see it without being compelled into something like affection. I have frequently had occasion to "It is very possible," said my aunt; remark that the most perfect beauties are "indeed it is absolutely true. There seems not always the most followed. The point to be no natural bounds to the luxury of of truth seems to be, that something is the age. In the midst of a twenty years' required beyond mere features to touch war, in the midst of so many important the heart. The eye may be pleased by a public and private calls, the Nightingale beautiful statue, but in despite of the is enabled to demand at the rate of two ancient fable, no one I believe was ever se guineas per minute for singing us an Ita-riously enamoured of the most perfect prolian air, and what is more, her demands duction of Phidias or Apelles. will be complied with." "Why does not the Lord Chamberlain interfere," said I, “and banish the whole Italian corps out of the kingdom? Such an act would at once save our money, and dignify our taste." Mr. Pagod himself had nothing to distinguish him from the common herd of those who, from a vulgar origin, by fortuitous circumstances, have been enabled to raise themselves to fortune and distinction. He was almost totally without any other edu |