The practical conclusion from all that the learned Professor has advanced in this comparative view, we think is, that all concession of political power (for of the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty we rejoice that the Roman Catholics are in complete possession) to those who acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of a foreign potentate, could not but be attended with extreme hazard, in all its extended results and conse. quences. And the stress the Professor lays upon this circumstance appears to be most able and judicious, from the slight and very indefinite boundaries which even sophistry can institute between spiritual and civil jurisdiction.

The inexpediency of allowing men professing such principles as the Romanists of the present day are proved to entertain, to legislate for a Protestant Church, even they themselves cannot with consistency deny. As by far the most numerous party among them, sanctioned, as we believe, by the Pontiff himself, deny to a Protestant Parliament the smallest interference with their ecclesiastical system in the provision of those safeguards which may be thought necessary to secure the Protestant establishment, how can they in reason suppose that we shall concede to them that place in our Senate, which will enable them to take a share in every enactinent relative to the discipline, the order, and the revenues of the established Church? The very interference against which in their own case they so strongly protest, they would require us in ours to concede.

To close all, we cannot but rejoice, whatever may be the re sult of the eventful period in which our lot is cast, to our national Church, that she has found among her sons a defender in every way so worthy of her; who in so many various directions and against so many opposite assaults, has sustained her cause, in a manner which even her adversaries must respect, and which would have adorned her best and brightest ages. The consciousness of an intrepid discharge of duty, and the affectionate gratitude of those who have understanding enough to appreciate, and heart enough to feel the value of his labours, will be his first, his best reward. The younger part of the University. we cannot but congratulate upon the possession of such a guardian of sound principle, and of such a guide in their theological

career,

Tua dicere facta

Assuescant, primis et te mirentur ab annis.

ART.

ART. V. Paris Chit-Chat, or a View of the Society, Manners, Customs, Literature, and Amusements of the Parisians. 2 vols. 12mo. 10s. Hookham. 1815.

DURING the short interval of repose which the passing events of the last year afforded us, the intercourse between the two rival powers was considerable, but the amalgamation of society and manners was by no means proportionate. John Bull returned from Paris, for the first time, with his native simplicity unencumbered by an aukward imitation of foreign elegance, and with his honest patriotism uncorrupted by the frivilous and contemptible sophisms of French philosophy. On the contrary, we believe that the French became imitators of the English, who introduced both in dress and manners far more elegance than they found. The jealousy of the nation was not a little roused, as appears indeed from the book before us, by the general adoption of bonnets, hats, coats, and gaiters a l'Anglaise. But as our travellers imported neither principles nor manners from the opposite continent, neither did they import any information respecting the society, the literature, or the life of the Parisians. We have seen many of the tours which the present year has presented to the world, with all of which our curiosity would tempt us to quarrel, did not our patriotism get the better of our taste, so purely English are they all. An enumeration, generally inaccurate, of the wonders of the Louvre, a catalogue, sufficiently meagre, of the public amusements, a description, provokingly dry, of the streets of Paris and the turnpike roads of the country form the sum total of a continental tour, which is presented with appropriate solemnity to the public as an introduction to Parisian life and manners.

We consider the volumes before us as the only true French publication which has yet appeared in the country, the only one we mean, which acquaints us with the character, introduces us to the society, and initiates us in the turn of sentiment which prevails in that nation. It is a continuation of a series of essays under the name of the "Franc Parleur," which was received with much approbation at Paris; it presents us with detached histories, anecdotes, and essays which develope the French character in a manner far more satisfactory than any publication which we have yet read.

We were much pleased with an essay on courtiers and their flattery, which in the reign of Louis the XIVth was carried, as an art, to an extent which to an Englishman is almost incredible. The courtiers of that day appears so accurately to have

studied

studied that science, as to become perfect practitioners in panegyric. The answer of Voltaire to the observation that the words grand and gros might be indifferently applied in speaking of great merit and reputation, is perhaps the happiest specimen of lively adulation: "You may say what you please," rejoined Voltaire, "but you shall never make me believe that Louis le Gros is the same as Louis le Grand.

There is rather less delicacy in the preamble of a Capuchin, who, preaching before Louis XIV. at Fontainbleau, began his sermon thus: My brethren,, we shall all die." then suddenly stopping, and turning to the King, " Yes, Sire, we shall almost all die."

"The memoirs of the time concur in describing the Duke of Grammont as the most witty and subtle courtier of that period. He one day entered the Cardinal's closet without previous_announcement, while His Eminence, in one of the moments of re laxation in which he indulged his mind, was amusing himself with taking standing jumps against the wall. The Duke instantly felt the danger of surprising a prime minister in so puerile an occupation another would have retired stammering excuses, which would have been answered by instant disgrace: the Duke was too skilful a courtier to fall into such an error: hastily entering, he exclaimed, "I will bet a hundred crowns that I jump higher than your Eminence" and the Duke and the Cardinal began jumping together. Grammont took care to loose his wager by jumping a few inches lower than Monseigneur. In six months, he was marshal of France.

Flattery was never more dextrously administered than to Louis XIV.; but it was given in larger doses to Bonaparte, as I shall soon have occasion to remark. In the last years of the great King, adulation became, if not more ingenious, at least more studious in preparation. While the gardens of Versailles were being decorated with the master-pieces of Coustou, Coisevox, &c. Louvois conceived the design of placing statutes on their pedestals a little out of the perpendicular. The inclination was sufficiently remarkable to be observed by the King, who desired that it might be rectified. Louvois strongly maintained the perpendicularity of one of the statutes. Mansard and Le Nôtre, who were in the plot, sided with the minister. The King, confident of the truth, ordered the perpendicular to be verified by means of the level; the instrument determined the question in favour of the King, and the courtiers fell into raptures on the accuracy of his Majesty's eye.

"Towards the close of this reign, flattery became perfectly shameless. Louis XIV. grown old, lamented one day at table that he had lost his teeth. "Ah! Sire, who has not ?" eagerly exclaimed la Roche Aimon, endeavouring to hide a very beautiful set. The Marshal de Villeroi, the King's most particular fa

vourite,

vourite, who had not lost ground in his estimation even by several disastrous defeats, maintained his influence by similar sayings. The King, who had the weakness of not liking to grow old, inquired the age of a veteran officer who wished to retire from the service. "How old is he?" said the King, "Why Sire," said the Marshal, "as old as every one else-sixty-six." The King, who thought this answer perfectly natural, laughed nevertheless at that of the less experienced sycophant, who, in reply to the royal question, "When his wife would lie in ?" said, with a profound bow, "Whenever it shall please your Majesty."" P.62.

Flattery, indeed, appeared to decline under the severe yet amiable honesty of Louis the XVIth, a monarch of whom the French nation was not worthy. To the queen, indeed, the incense of flattery was more directed: the answer of M. Calonne to a request of her majesty is still recorded. "If what your majesty asks be possible, it is done; if impossible, it shall be done." We pass over in horror and disgust the blasphemous adulation paid to Buonaparte in the plenitude of his power, an adulation for which the French nation appear inclined, notwithe standing his late recal, hereafter to indemnify themselves.

A very amusing account is given of a journey in the Bourdeaux diligence, part of which we shall extract for the amusement of our readers.

"If the rising of the sun on the sea-shore, in an extensive and beautiful country, be a majestic and impressive picture, the rising of the same luminary in a diligence is, on the contrary, not a little grotesque: the first rays of light fall on a set of figures so whimsical, so comic, so burlesquely accoutred after a night's tra velling, and mutual surprise and curiosity are so pleasantly de, picted, that the most farcical imagination cannot produce a more ridiculous scene.

"As soon as objects were distinguishable, we began to examine one another: the tun of man who was still snoring by me, was the first object of attention, and was saluted with a general peal of laughter, which at last awoke him; he lifted his woollen nightcap from over his eyes, yawned, stretched out his arms, pulled out his watch, and talked of breakfast.

The female who sat opposite me, with a young wolf-dog on her knees, appeared to be about forty years of age, as well as I could judge from her figure, which was partly concealed under a black velvet hat, adorned with two feathers that had once been white suspended from her arm was a large work-bag, whence peeped forth the corners of several manuscripts; from which, and from her occasionally humming an air of a comic opera, I concluded her to be a provincial actress, and was not wrong in the conjecture.

"The Englishman, muffled in an immense box-coat, with a

thick fur cap on his head, employed himself sometimes in rubbing his leg where the dog had bitten it, sometimes in whistling as he looked at the scenery, and now and then in swallowing a mouthful of rum, of which he carried a stock in a leathern bottle. The fat man laid siege to his generosity by an encomium on the very salutary travelling practice of taking a drop of comfort in a morning: the Englishman signified his assent to the proposition by taking another sip, then stopped the bottle, and replaced it in his pocket.

"The young man in the other corner of the front seat, kept his eyes fixed on the girl opposite to him, whose pretty figure even surpassed the idea I had formed of it. From the care he took to keep his hat drawn over his eyes, it seemed that the return of day was not quite so agreeable to him as to us.

"We stopped to breakfast. All alighted, and I saw for the first time my fellow-travellers of the suburbs of the diligence. The hussar had already scraped acquaintance in the cabriolet with a plump rosy-cheeked nurse of Ruffet, who had been to Paris to restore her nurseling to its parents. The travellers on the imperial descended as expeditiously as they could: one of them, either from haste, or to display his activity, showed a magnanimous contempt of the ladder, and took a flying leap with so little dexterity, that, to prevent too sudden a collision between his nose and the ground, he was obliged to take the first thing that came in his way: this happened to be the collar of the Englishman's box-coat, who was the last of the inside passengers to alight from the diligence: the consequence was, the instant downfall of both parties, who rolled over each other on a heap of dung, near which the vehicle had stopped. The laughter of the spectators increased the wrath of the unfortunate travellers. The Englishman jumped off with a vehement God damn! the Provençal betrayed himself by an equally energetic Torn de Diou! accompanied with a menace, which the Englishman answered with a vigorous blow of the fist, and immediately put himself into a boxing attitude. The inhabitant of Marseilles, who was by no means at home in the fine arts of the Thames, seized the handle of a pitchfork, with which he would infallibly have killed his adversary, if he had listened only to the fat man, who had remained in the diligence to breakfast by himself, and who cried out with all his might," Strike home! They have taken from me two ships, without declaration of war: revenge the cause of our colonies: pay it into his forecastle:" but we made haste to part the combatants, and entered the inn together.

"We there witnessed a conjugal recognition between the mistress of the little dog and one of the travellers on the imperial: this tender couple, both provincial performers, met after a separation of twelve years, and congratulated each other with a very ill grace on the good luck that had caused them, unknown to each other, to contract an engagement at the same theatre. The commencement of the explanation promised a comic scene, but it was interrupted by another between the fat man and the actress.

2

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