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'William, you must know I am pre-engaged. I never yet could like a burnt cuttie [a burnt-out tobacco pipe]. Í have now by the hand my sonsy menseful strapper, with whom I intend to pass my days. You know old age and youth cannot agree together. I must then be excused, if I tell you I am not your humble servant.' The honest man, not taking it much to heart, only said, 'Come, let us at least keep the feast on the feastday; dinner will be ready, let us go drink and drive away care may never a greater misfortune attend an honest man.' Back to dinner they went, and from the company convened, the bridegroom got one hundred merks, and all charges defrayed; with which he was as well satisfied as he who got Madam."

An edict was this year published at Hanover, prohibiting "all pages, footmen, and other persons in livery, huntsmen, cooks, scholars, journeymen of persons in trade, and other such-like persons, to wear any sword, sabre, cutlas, or other arms, in that town and suburbs, on penalty of a fine of three crowns for every offence. It is to be wished, says the Grub Street Journal, that his Majesty would in like manner disarm the numerous coxcombs in this town and suburbs." From Ireland they write "of one Mr Bacon of Ferns, who, being an one-and-twentieth son, born in wedlock without a daughter intervening, had performed prodigious cures in the king's evil and scrofulous cases, by stroking the part with his hand."

Crimes may

Upon a general survey of the contents of this volume, one is impressed forcibly with a notion of the great improvement which has been effected in almost every department of the social system since 1731. The di minished mortality has already been alluded to. The extinction of lotteries is another point on which the present age has to congratulate itself. now be more numerous than they were formerly, but they are certainly in general of a less atrocious and revolting character. Murders, robbery, and other of the more violent classes of offences, appear to have then been much more frequent than they now are. The mails are frequently robbed, and great numbers There are also many of highwaymen are executed. exposures of perjurers and other offenders on the pillory, where the crowd expresses a sense of their guilt in such a violent manner, that the blood of the criminal flows on the scaffold, and in one case life is destroyed. Nothing, however, is more striking than the great increase which has taken place, at once in the freedom of the press and its decorum, since 1731. The articles condensed by Mr Urban are generally very wretched in point of talent, and many instances of the worst kind of licentiousness occur; indeed, there is hardly now any class of publications that could be put on a level with these. At the same time, public affairs are only alluded to in obscure terms, in order to avoid prosecution; and when Mr Urban begins in 1732 to give a few of the more important debates in Parliament, it is with the initials of the speakers only.

ARMORIAL MOTTOS. HAPPENING lately to notice the motto of a coat of arms on a carriage in the street, which spoke plainly a particular sentiment, it chanced to occur to us, that, as it is likely that the chooser of a family motto speaks out the prevailing feeling of his mind, the family character, at least its founder's, in other words, the original predominating family organisation, might be inferred from the armorial motto, and the accompanying crest, which is generally a hieroglyphic or emblematical design, expressing the same sentiment with the motto itself. We thought it probable that the books of heraldry would show a great preponderance of selfish over social feeling, in the earlier The founders of families, in rude times, would of course be proud of the qualities by which

mottos.

they rose; and although these were seldom just and merciful, the motto and crest would hold out the laconic boast to the world. We expected that next to the boasters would come the worshippers, the preux chevaliers of chivalry, who bent the knee alike to their king, their mistress, and their God; and that of sentiments not selfish, Veneration would figure in heraldic blazonry; and Hope, that never-failing impulse of the ambitious. We did not expect more than a sprinkling of justice, and little, if any, mercy at all. With these anticipations, it was interesting to open heraldic works, both English and Scottish, and observe how far we were correct. We were nearly so, and precisely in the above order. With the exception of Firmness, which forms an element in many mottos, and which may mingle in a combination of faculties for ill as well as for good-the great majority ascend no higher in the scale of dignity than the twelve lowest faculties, embracing the animal propensities and lower sentiments. A considerable number ascend to Veneration-not just so many to Hope-more than we expected to Conscientiousness-and a very few to pure Benevolence.

Beginning with the lowest class of feelings, we find these in some mottos in their unmingled degradation. For example, mere Destructiveness comes forth in such legends as these-Strike-Strike hard-Spare nought-Gripe fast. Destructiveness with Combativeness dictated, Through-I dare-Fortiler. An arrow for crest, with, It lacks not a bow-I make siccar, with a hand and dagger for crest, adds Caution to Destructiveness, and was the murderous boast of Kirkpatrick, who re-entered the church of the Dominicans at Dumfries to finish the Cummin, whom

Bruce, under Veneration, said, he doubted he had killed-"You doubt! I'll make siccar." Acquisitive. ness, Secretiveness, and Caution, suggested the grovelling family motto of Lock siccar; while Thou shalt want ere I want, aspires no higher than the ambition of the strongest hog in a swine-stye. However this unseemly motto may, as it must, have described the founder of the noble family to which it belongs, we can answer for its contrast to the sentiments of the present representative. He has an easy course before him: let him reverse it, and mark the time as a truly proud epoch in his family history. Forth Fortune and fill the fetters, would also be improved by a change to Forth Fortune and break the fetters. Rising in the scale, but still in the regions of selfishness, are most of the boastful mottos of the warrior. Of course these manifest Combativeness always in alliance with Self-Esteem, variously modified by Firmness, Love of Approbation, Caution, and Hope. I have decreed, is Self-Esteem and Firmness. I saw, I conquered, is Combativeness and Self-Esteem, as are, I advance-I am ready-Foremost if I can-Stronger than enemies, equal to friends-Quo non ascendam-Stand fast-In defence-Steady-arose from Combativeness and Firmness. Glory victory's reward-Never behind-Death rather than disgrace-Fear shame-have reference to the world's opinion, and therefore spring from Love of Approbation, in combination with Self-Esteem.

Cautiousness, when powerful, would not be concealed even in a warrior's motto, as in On-slow-Beware the bear-Bravely but cautiously.

Hope may well be expected to predominate in minds subjected to all the chances of war and consequent vicissitudes of fortune; accordingly we have, I hopeishes By hope and labour-They go high who attempt While I breathe I hope-I live in hope-Hope nourthe summit. Self-Esteem mingles largely in this last. We lately met with a singular example of this motto expressing the ruling feeling. A man rather below middle rank happened to come to us often for professional advice. We observed in him the qualities of unreasonable sanguineness and great love of show. He died, and left a widow and children nearly destitute. Among his effects there was a costly watch, chain, and seals, almost new, worth not less than sixty guineas, which it was perfect insanity for a person in his circumstances to have purchased. Of course there was a crest on one of the seals, and we were curious to observe the motto. It turned out to be

Spero meliora-I hope better things." Still with Self-Esteem for a basis, Secretiveness lends its aid in

some minds to constitute the favourite sentiment.

For example, Never show your rage-I bide my time. This declaration of cherished revenge is a singular melange of Self-Esteem, Destructiveness, Secretiveness, and Cautiousness.

baser feelings, which lead to bigotry and persecution, has nothing selfish in it, and when expressed on the warrior's shield, has higher claims to our respect. Its manifestation in rude times was, it is true, for the most part superstitious, and for that reason it is not entitled to be classed with Conscientiousness and Benevolence, unless it is found in company with them -Salvation from the cross--Glory to God-While I breathe I will trust in the cross-From God, not from fortune-Worship God, serve the King-Aymer loyalty -With good will to serve my King-One God-One King-One heart. These and many others were probably mere effusions of Veneration, and have nothing in them to show that they were more. But we might conclude true religious feelings to belong in addition to the mind, where Conscientiousness prevailed so decidedly as to appear upon the shield. For example: To the lovers of justice, piety, and faith-Boldly and sincerely-Be just and fear not-Candidly and steadily By courage, not by craft-Every one his own-Do right and trust-Fideliter-Judge nought-Keep tryst (contract)—Probity the true honour-Virtue the sole nobility To be rather than to seem-High and good Sound conscience a strong tower-The palm to virtue. Last of all comes Benevolence, and it is like a gleam of sunshine in the midst of a storm, to see its mild and beautiful countenance in the ages of pride, cunning, and ferocity; but it is but thinly sown. Be brave, not fierce Clemency adorns the brave-That I may do good That I may do good to others-Do all good. And last, though not least, as a sentiment on the blazon of the warrior who fights for peace, a direct condemnation

Veneration, as Veneration, if unmixed with the

of war, in the motto, “Bellu horrida bella" (wars, horrid wars).

In the continued struggle against power which the history of both ends of our island records, it would be strange if on armorial bearings there were no expressions of the love of liberty-that fruit of a fine combination of Self-Esteem, Conscientiousness, Benevolence, and Firmness. We have, accordingly, such mottos as, Libertas-Liberty entire-Country dear, Liberty dearer-I have lived free and will die free.

The mottos which indicate the reflecting powers, as maxims of wisdom, were rare in rude times, unless we take those for such as express the higher sentiments, as, Virtue the sole nobility, &c. We have, however, lighted upon one which is purely intellectual, and we quote it, because it happens to be eminently phrenological. Nihil invita Minerva-It is vain to expect excellence without the genius from which it springs.

It would greatly increase the interest of this com.

munication, were it permitted us to compare the actual history of distinguished families with their armorial legends. But although public history is public property, family history is not, and we are therefore denied that advantage, and must be content with recommending to the reader to apply the knowledge of such private families as he possesses to the very harmless end of making the comparison between it and the family arms, for himself. We do not entertain a doubt that in every instance they will be found strikingly coincident.-Phrenological Journal.

ODE TO ENTERPRISE.

[We find this scarce ode in a very tasteful collection entitled The
Beauties of Modern British Poetry, by David Grant, Aberdeen,
1831, the peculiar feature of which is the arrangement of the pieces
under subjects, by which means it is possible to find the best
thoughts of various poets respecting all the principal themes of
verse.]
On lofty mountains roaming,
O'er bleak perennial snow,
Where cataracts are foaming,
And raging north-winds blow:
Where hungry wolves are prowling,
And famished eagles cry;
Where tempests loud are howling,
And lowering vapours fly:
There, at the peep of morning,
Bedecked with dewy tears,
Wild weeds her brows adorning,
Lo! Enterprise appears:
While keen-eyed Expectation
Still points to objects new,
See panting Emulation,
Her fleeting steps pursue!
List, list, Celestial Virgin!
And oh the vow record!
From grovelling cares emerging,
I pledge this solemn word :-
By deserts, fields, or fountains,
While health, while life remains,
O'er Lapland's icy mountains,
O'er Afric's burning plains;
Or, 'midst the darksome wonders
Which Earth's vast caves conceal,
Where subterraneous thunders
The miner's path reveal;
Where, bright in matchless lustre,
The lithal flowers unfold,
And 'midst the beauteous cluster,
Beams efflorescent gold;

In every varied station,
Whate'er my fate may be,
My hope, my exultation
Is still to follow thee.
When age with sickness blended,
Shall check the gay career,

And death, though long suspended,'
Begins to hover near ;

Then oft in visions fleeting,
May thy fair form be nigh,
And still thy votary greeting,
Receive his parting sigh;
And tell a joyful story,
Of some new world to come,
Where kindred souls in glory,
May call the wanderer home!

DR E. D. CLARKE.

Crystals, the blossoms of the mineral world; disclosing the nature and properties of stones, as those of vegetables are inade known by their flowers.

TORTONIA THE BANKER.

Tor

A striking instance of the elevation of a person from humble to exalted circumstances, is found in the father was nothing more than a valet de place, that life of Tortonia, a celebrated banker at Rome, whose is, one who showed about strangers for hire. tonia, who was an active intelligent young man, at In course of time he became a sort of banker; and first entered into business in a small way as a jeweller. with Cardinal Chiaramonti. On the death of Pope an unexpected circumstance brought him in contact

election of a new Pope. Chiaramonti had expecta. Pius VI. a conclave was to be held at Venice for the tions of being elected to the vacant office, but he was unable to attend the conclave for want of money. In this emergency he was supplied with a few hundred Venice, where, in the church of St George, he was crowns by Tortonia. The cardinal now repaired to elected Pope, under the title of Pius VII. In gratitude for this act of service, the sovereign pontiff, on

his return to Rome, appointed Tortonia banker to

the court.

He was created a marquis, and afterwards a duke, and is now perhaps one of the richest capitalists in Europe.

KING GEORGE I.

A German nobleman was one day congratulating this monarch on his being sovereign of this kingdom and of Hanover. "Rather," said he, "congratulate me on having such a subject in one, as Newton; and such a subject in the other, as Leibnitz."

LONDON: Published, with Permission of the Proprietors, by ORR & SMITH. Paternoster Row; G. BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand; BANCKS & Co., Manchester; WRIGHTSON & WEBB, Birmingham; WILLMER & SMITH, Liverpool; W. E. SOMER SCALE, Leeds; C. N. WRIGHT, Nottinghain; WESTLEY & Co. Bristol; S. SIMMS, Bath; J. JOHNSON, Cambridge; W. GAIN, Exeter J. PURDON, Hull; G. RIDGE, Sheffield; H. BELLERBY, York. J. TAYLOR, Brighton; and sold by all Booksellers, Newsmen, &e. in town and country.

Stereotyped by A. Kirkwood, Edinburgh. Printed by Bradbury and Evans (late T. Davison), Whitefriars.

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CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S HISTORICAL NEWSPAPER."

No. 158.

THE NEW CUT.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1835.

AN old tailor, who had almost gone out of fashion in
his native village, and who pieced out a scanty sub.
sistence by serving as church-officer, was one day
asked by the equally aged and obsolete clergyman
how it happened that the congregation was now get-
ting so thin.
"Are not you aware," said the man of
shapes, "that half the parish go over the hill to hear
young Ferly o' Ginglekirk?" "Oh, yes, I have
heard something of that," replied the minister; "but
I cannot understand what they see in that young man
more than ordinary-more than in myself, for in-
stance, with all humility be it spoken." "Neither
can I, sir," quoth John; "and I would say the same
thing of that young chield that has ta'en my trade over
my head. But it's just the new cut, sir; it's just the

new cut."

customers continued, nevertheless, to leave them, and,
even while laughing at the last joke of the old tailors,
crossed the street to give their first commission to the
new. The ancient style of attire was soon only to be
found exemplified on the persons of the neighbouring
rustics, and of the poorer class of people in the burgh,
who could not afford to have a taste; or at the utmost
it clung to the persons of a few superior people,
who had a way of disliking whatever was much run
after by the bulk of their fellow-creatures. But this
only served to make the case the worse. Supported
by this minority, miserable as it was, the ancient
members of the craft were encouraged to hold out
against modern fashions, till they could not have
changed without such an injury to their pride as no-
thing could reconcile them to. Long, long did they
console themselves with the reflection of Foote in re-
ference to the crowds which deserted his strut and de-
clamation for the nature of Garrick-"They'll all
come back to church again." Much did they plume
themselves when, at Martinmas, a ploughman would
have his blue duffle shaped out by them, or a gentle-
man commission them for a pair of overalls, or some
other easy article. Reckoning up the two or three
old customers who adhered to them, however par-
tially, they would still contrive to make themselves
believe that they retained all the more respectable part
of the public, while only the light-headed, and those who
did not mean to pay, went over to the enemy. But in
spite of every self-deluding notion and prognostication,
the new cut went on with increased vigour and flor-
escence, while they declined in exact proportion; and
in the long-run, the veterans were one by one starved
off, and sent to their graves, each bearing, we believe,
the figure of a broad-skirted Queen Anne coat en-
graven on his heart, like a crest patched upon a ham-
mercloth.

The new cut alluded to by honest John was a smarter fashion of attire which a youthful rival had of late years introduced into the town. In John's young days, when tailors worked in the houses of their customers for a groat a-day, the prime consideration was good and sufficient sewing. So that their thread was properly waxed and brought well home, little regard was paid to niceties of shape. The children were supplied with doublets calculated to serve two years without becoming too little; and if the goodman was not positively pinched in any part of his physical system, it did not matter though his coat hung upon him much after the fashion of a sheet over a firescreen. The artist would thumb the garment a little perhaps in trying it on, give a pinch here and a pull there, here a twitch and there a tug, one button out and another button in-for he allowed, theoretically as it were, that every thing lay in giving clothes a good set; but he always finished by declaring that the article fitted to a very hair; and though the good wife might occasionally be somewhat critical about the lie of the lapels and the position of the pockets, it was seldom that the first felicitous sketch required to be retouched. Those were the golden days of tailoring; but in time a change came over the art. It in fact became an art. A young man of an ambitious and active turn of mind, who had practised his craft for a twelvemonth in the capital, all at once introduced the new cut into the little burgh. He began to make real coats-coats that the Duke of Leinster might not have been ashamed to describe as such, in the presence of Beau Brummell. He had studied the figures of his customers, and discovered the great secret in tailoring, known to so few of his contemporaries to make clothes, not sufficiently ample, but sufficiently little. Many good limbs and handsome backs thus broke out, like new lights in science, upon the eyes of the community; and where formerly the human form divine could scarcely have been supposed to exist, Praxiteles or Lawrence Macdonald might have now found it worth while to linger for a week. The old tailors at first treated the improved system with great contempt, and did not think it necessary to take any measures for maintaining their ground against it. "Like all new things," they said, slightingly; "run after at first." They openly scoffed at the fine staring prints of gentlemen with jimp waists, and ladies in riding habits, which their youthful competitor boasted he got down monthly from London, that he might be enabled to keep pace with the progress of metropolitan fashion. A lay figure, on which he exhibited a constantly renewed coat within his shop door, and a advertise for advertising is not respectable. Accorwaxen boy, whom he kept fashionably attired in his window, were favourite subjects of derision with them. They said he had no more brains than the one, and that it was a pity the other constituted all he could point to in the way of family. They had a decided advantage, we believe, in the matter of wit; but their

It is hardly necessary to point out that there are few departments of professional exertion in which the introduction of a new cut has not wrought similar results, partly through the absolute difficulty which an old dog experiences in learning new tricks, and partly through the obstinate disinclination which the most of us, after being accustomed to any opinion or mode of procedure, feel to changing it. In the law, for instance, there have of late been so many alterations in the forms of process and of papers-all in the way of simplification, too-that an old Scotch writer has become a kind of stranger on the very ground he has paced for forty years, and will be seen running about the Parliament House, beseeching his juniors to inform him of this and that act of sederunt, which he has suddenly found to be inconsistent with his old use and wont. Men thought sharp enough about the year 1790, and who made fortunes by conveyancing and other simple and lucrative work, now find themselves quite obtuse, while striplings of yesterday-mere callantsfrom acquaintance with all the improved and abbreviated plans of labour, which have latterly been struck out, conquer the earth from all its former conquerors. Every sharp thing is now indeed out-sharpened. If the old booksellers who dealt with Cadell and Davies, and William Creech, were to rise from their graves and resume business, they would find themselves unable to make salt where they had formerly made broth. They would altogether refuse to deal in the low-priced trifles which are now purchased, and nothing else would ever be asked from them. Neither would they

dingly, they would go the way of the old tailors. The
same fate would, under the same circumstances, over-
take the old authors. They would try to live by pub-
lishing, at the same rate with the present sheet, a
much smaller one, containing formal essays On Pride,
On the Epitaphs of Pope, On a Certain Passage in the

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

Eneid, relieved by trifling stories of Eudoxus and
Flavilla, or allegories respecting the vanity of human
wishes; when mankind are craving either strong hu-
morous stimulants as a recreation for their over-la-
boured minds, or uncompromising inquiries into the
means of improving their social condition, and all this
in such a form and at such a price as to overpower all
scruples of the pocket. The old gentlemen would
spend days in polishing their sentences, and putting
every thing into the fine cool haze, which in the last
century was called taste; when men have agreed to
pay for sense alone, and to like it all the better the
more clear it is of every thing else. Were a doctor of
the old school to revive, he would be no less at a loss.
His wig might be right to a hair, his cane unimpeach-
able, and his system graced with all the authority that
famous nanies could give it; but it is probable that
some slapdash fellow in a black stock and blue sur-
tout, who had a way of performing cures in spite of
system, might be accepted instead. He would be
asked right down how many patients he saved per
cent., and not being accustomed to do business in this
arithmetical way, exit cane and bagwig discomfited.
Old schoolmasters would find themselves in a still worse
dilemma. They would truly be scholars where they
came to teach. "Do you fully understand the Ma-
dras system ?" we can conceive such an individual to
be asked. "No; I don't know what it is."
you qualified to superintend the infant part of the es-
tablishment?" "Infant! I never heard of infants
at school in my life." "In teaching Latin, whether
do you prefer the system of Hamilton or the system
of Black ?" "I am totally at a loss to know what
you mean.' "Could you, at extra hours, give lectures
upon natural philosophy, exercises in calisthenics, and
a few lessons occasionally in political economy?" The
only answer is a stare, and the candidate is dismissed,
to make room for a young man, formerly an assistant
in Mr Wood's Sessional School. The juveniles of the
present day have in fact made such an advance upon
the old, that the latter, but for the accumulated gains
of former and easier times, and similar accumulations
of reputation, could never stand for a moment against
them. The one accomplishes the better part of his
work, while the other had not yet finished his pre-
liminary pinch of snuff.

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So far as these disadvantages of the old arise from pure inability to keep pace with the young, they are entitled to commiseration; but surely we are not called upon to extend the same sentiment, in an equal degree, towards that obstinacy which we daily see arraying our seniors against almost every new mode that promises to be a matter of general benefit. Not that all the old are liable to this weakness. Some men contrive to be as young at sixty as others are at half the age. We allude only to those who are really guilty of the habit of cherishing obsolete prejudices. Numberless things which the more prompt and sprightly intellects of the age open their eyes to and find of incalculable benefit, continue to be sneered at by old men of thirty and upwards, till the world is gained from them. They will never allow any thing to be canonical till the time is past for their taking any advantage of it. They prose away at their antiquated lectures, while their pupils, though compelled by ancient rule to listen, have acquainted themselves with something infinitely better, and are more fitted to instruct than to be instructed. Thus almost all the great accessions that have been made to human knowledge have sprung from young, ardent, unchar. tered minds; and, instead of being even aided, not to say originated, by the conscript fathers of science or literature, have found their chief struggle to be with those very individuals who enjoy the bounty and veneration of the public. Even after new lights

ble;

have been generally received and appreciated, how often do we find the best of the elder minds retreating from scepticism which can no longer be tolerated, to a system of carping, quibbling, and jesting, as if a building which could not be overthrown by main force might be undermined by vermin! It is customary to tell young people that they should go as much into the company of their elders as possibut it would be little, if at all, less advantageous for the old to consort much with the young. Both seem to us alike qualified to improve each other. The young may be in general over sanguine, over eager, and too little inclined to regard expediency. But ten times rather the generous devotion to principle, and the self-abandoning anxiety to realise it, which characterise youth, than the dull hopelessness of good, which too often falls like a blight on the minds of the aged. Let the young keep their minds open to the counsels which veteran experience is qualified to give -always guarding, however, against the fallacy which is so apt to lurk in references from the past to the present, in as far as circumstances may now be different; but also let the old be alive to the advantage of receiv. ing from the young constant accessions of warm feeling, fresh information, and unsophisticated thought.

bitants of the earth, who for once were constrained
to admit the evidence of one to whom might almost
be applied the designation of the "witness of the
deluge."

mer period inhabited, the abode at least of land animals, which were destroyed by some previous deluge; and that they had even suffered two or three such visitations, which destroyed as many orders of animals.

It is impossible to conceive any grander legitimate subject for the investigation of man than this-a subTHE STORY OF SILVIO PELLICO. ject, the pursuit of which has rendered us in a manEXCEPTING the famed case of Baron Trenck, and ner familiar with the most secret arcana of nature, that of some of the prisoners of the Bastille, no instance and laid open the history of the earth almost from the of excessive barbarity in shutting up an innocent hu. moment when it was called into existence by the fiat man being in a dungeon, that has been made known in of the Creator. But how unbounded must have been modern times, can be compared with that of Silvio Pelthe capacity, how fervent the ardour, and how untir. lico, an individual whom we are about to bring under the notice of our readers. The name of Silvio Pellico ing the perseverance, which could lead their possessor is familiar to the reader of Italian poetry, as one of the to results so sublime, to contemplations so magnimost distinguished of the modern dramatists of Italy. ficent, from delineating plants, and anatomising in- The glowing and yet gentle spirit, the pure and elesects, fishes, and birds, for his boyish amusements! vated imagination of the author, is reflected in all his For it ought not to be forgotten, that although Cuvier writings. Somewhere about fifteen years ago, this amiable person, whose life was wholly devoted to licarefully studied, and availed himself of the labours terary pursuits, fell under the suspicions of the Ausof all preceding and contemporary naturalists, his sys-trian authorities, who keep possession of the Italian tems of arrangement, to which may mainly be attributed states, in which he dwelt as a citizen. These suspihis extraordinary success in every department of the cions, instigated either by a misconception of the character of Signor Pellico, or by some base informer, science of natural history, were exclusively his own. were at length direfully demonstrated. On the asThe light thrown on geology by Cuvier's researches sumption of his being implicated in a conspiracy against is in the last degree interesting. The strata called the Austrian government, he was arrested at Milan primitive, on which all the others repose, containing in October 1820, and, without a moment's notice, no remains of life, teach us by that circumstance that transferred from the society of a numerous circle of life has not always existed on our planet, and that prison of St Marguerite. This was a dreadful blow to relations and friends, to solitary confinement in the there was a time when physical forces alone acted on the hopes of one who at the time formed a rising orthe land and on the sea, in which all the wonders of nament in the literature of his country. LAST week we presented a sketch of the life of Cuvier, organisation were subsequently developed. All orone of the most eminent naturalists in modern times, ganised existences were not created at the same time: and whose discoveries both in animate and inanimate vegetables seem to have preceded animals; mollusmatter have given quite a new turn to this interesting cous animals and fishes appeared before reptiles; and and useful branch of science. None of the discoveries reptiles before the mammalia. The species which of Cuvier were so novel or remarkable in their charac-formed the ancient animal population have been deter as those relating to the organic remains found in the strata which compose our globe. He was among

POPULAR INFORMATION ON SCIENCE.

ORGANIC REMAINS.

the first who came to the rational conclusion that the

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The first day of Pellico's imprisonment passed wearily indeed. The jailor, who had studied the phikill time by taking some wine with his meals, and losophy of imprisonment after his way, advised him to when Pellico informed him that he drank none, "I pity you," said he; "you will suffer doubly from solitude." But here the jailor was in error; Pellico possessed moral energies much better suited to sustain liquors. He was now left to gaze out of the window him in his misfortunes than the temporary stimuli of into the court, to listen to the sound of the jailor's feet as they tramped along the passages of the prison, and to the half-frenzied songs which at times rose from the different cells. Evening approached, and he now thought of home and of his mother. These reflections were agonising, and, sitting down on his hard couch, his heart was relieved by a flood of tears. like a child.

He wept

A few days' experience of his imprisonment led him into a state of greater cheerfulness. The turnkey afforded him the use of a Bible, and from this source he drew much that was calculated to elevate and soothe his feelings. He also found a friend on the outside of his cell. This was a deaf and dumb child of five or six years old, whose father and mother had been robbers, and had fallen victims to justice. The poor orphan was brought up here by the police, with other children in the same situation. They lived altogether in a room in front of Pellico's, and at times they came out to take the air in the court. The deaf and dumb boy, young as he was, felt interested in Pellico; he gam bolled and danced to amuse him, and for his exertions he was rewarded by a share of the prisoner's allowance of bread. Pellico longed to educate this goodhearted child, and to rescue him from his abject con. dition. But this wish was vair.. Pellico was shortly removed to a distant cell, and saw no more of his young friend; and on the night of the 18th of February 1821, he was roused from his bed, ordered to come forth, and in a few minutes be found himself in a rapid-driving vehicle along with a body of police. In two days he arrived in Venice, and was immediately confined in the prison called the Piombi, a huge edifice, once the residence of the doge. Here, lodged in an upper chamber, from whence he could but catch a glimpse of the square below, he felt his solitude more complete than even in the prison of Milan. At first the jailor, his wife, and family, took some little interest in his fate. They heard he had been a tragic poet; and seeing that he was of a mild demeanour, they commiserated his confinement; and when the daughter and her two brothers brought him his coffee or his meals, they would often turn round and regard him with a deep expression of pity.

stroyed and replaced by others, and the present ani-
mal population is perhaps the fourth series. And it
is no less interesting than important to remark how
strictly these geological discoveries agree with the
Mosaical record of creation. That record distinctly
intimates the great antiquity of the earth, in a state
of darkness and desolation, compared to the age of
man; and amongst all the fossil remains of the ancient
strata, not the slightest vestige of man or his works
appears. Again and again the workmen in the
quarries of Montmartre, in the neighbourhood of
Paris, announced the remains of man; but when
submitted to the inspection of Cuvier, the true re-
lation of the fossil was established beyond dispute with
some lower species. Either man did not exist before
several of the revolutions of the globe, or his bones lie
yet unburied at the bottom of the present seas; yet
that he existed before the last great catastrophe of the
deluge, we know from the universal traditions handed
down concerning it in every part of the earth, as well
as from the oldest record possessed by man.
cord, Cuvier observes, bears date about 3300 years be-
fore our own time, and it places the deluge 2000 years
before its own date, or about 5400 years since.
tradition accords man a greater antiquity than that to
which our antediluvian records lay claim; and it is
only after the time of that great event that we find
men collected into societies, and the arts and sciences
springing up. To the evidence thus afforded by civil
history, and the inferences drawn from geological re.
searches into the internal strata of the earth, Cuvier
added the calculations respecting the periods of certain
natural changes actually known to be going on at the
present moment upon the earth's surface; such as the
progress of sand in the Bay of Biscay, which annually
advances sixty feet, and must reach Bourdeaux in about
two thousand years; the gradual burying up of whole
and once fertile districts of Egypt, by the drifting of
sands, which have already entombed temples and ci-
ties within a space of time, with the leading events of
which we are, by history, in a great measure familiar.
These, and innumerable other circumstances, are all
brought to bear on the theory of the last great revo It was, however, only on rare occasions that he was
Every where, and however in- thus attended, and in a short time he was almost
terrogated, observes Cuvier, nature speaks the very wholly deserted by his fellow-creatures, his food being
same language, and tells us by natural traditions, pushed in to him in his cell by an official. Deprived
by man's actual state, by his intellectual developement, of human society, Pellico had recourse to that of the
and by all the testimony of her works, that the pre-insect creation. He feasted large colonies of ants which
sent state of things did not commence at a remote pe- inhabited his window, and made a pet of a handsome
riod. He agrees, he says, with the opinion of MM. spider on the wall, whom he fed with guats and flies,
Deluc and Dolomien, that if there be any thing de- and who became at last so domesticated, that he would
termined in geology, it is, that the surface of this crawl into his bed, or on his hand, to receive his al-
globe was subjected to a great and sudden revolution lowance. It would have been well for Pellico if these
catastrophe was caused the disappearance of countries posed. But the extreme mildness of the winter, and
not longer ago than 5000 or 6000 years; that by this had been the only insects to whose visits he was ex-
formerly the abode of man and of animals now known the heat of the spring, had generated millions of gnats,
to us; that the bottom of the sea of that time was left which filled the sweltering oven in which he was con-
dry, and upon it were formed the countries now inha. fined. The reflection of the heat from the leaden roof
bited; and that, since that epoch, the few of the hu- was intolerable, while the bed, the floor, the walls, and
man race who were spared, have spread themselves the air, were filled with these venomous insects, con-
over the world and formed societies. But he also be- stantly going and coming through the window with
lieves that the countries now inhabited, and which their tormenting hum. The suffering produced by
that great catastrophe left dry, had been at some for- the burning heat and stings of these creatures almost

Let us try to follow this eminent individual in some of his illustrations. The diluvial deposits of mud and clayey sand, mixed with round flints, transported from other countries, and filled with fossil remains of large land animals, for the most part unknown, or foreign to the countries in which they are found-those vast deposits which cover so many plains and fill the bottoms of caverns and clefts of rocks, deposits which took place when the hippopotamus, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the horse, the ox, and the deer, were the prey, even in our climate and soil of England, of the hyena and the tiger have been carefully distinguished from the alluvial deposits containing the remains of animals common to the country in which they are found, and are now considered as the most decisive proofs of an im. mense and ancient inundation. Far beneath the chalky stratum which lies under various alternate layers of marine and fresh-water deposits, there have been found, more especially in England, the remains of gigantic reptiles, including crocodiles and others of the lizard tribe. the remains of an era now un. known for it is above the chalk, and between it and the era of the general deluge, that the explanation of the earth's history has been sought and found. Lower than these are laid the vast deposits of former vegetables, coal retaining the impression of palms and ferns, which show that even at those depths there was once dry land, although no bones of quadrupeds are found there; whilst lower still the naturalist traces the first forms of existence, the crustaceous animals, zoophytes, and mollusca, of a world yet al-lution of the earth. most inert and lifeless. From the imperfect forms of fossil quadrupeds, Cuvier thus elicited striking testimony of the early changes of the earth's surface, and materials for the history of its first and darkest periods those periods concerning which the greatest philosophers had before been content with the mildest speculations. He became, so to speak, the great antiquary of the earth. He learned the characters of that obscure time when first this planet became the abode of locomotive organisations, and established an order of facts bearing a date anterior to that of the history of man, and far before the half-hidden ages of those ancient empires which have themselves become as much the domain of fable as of history. From the burial of many centuries he called up the forms of things unknown, and made them familiar to the present inha

drove the prisoner to distraction. He applied frequently for a change of prison, but no attention was paid to his request. Still, with the assistance of his own firmness of mind, and religious faith, he bore up against all these miseries. He determined, if possible, to divert his attention by committing to writing the thoughts which passed through his mind. He was allowed paper, pen, and ink, by the jailor, but was obliged to account for every sheet he used, by exhibiting its contents. He did not venture, therefore, to make use of any part of his allowance of paper for this purpose, but contrived to procure a substitute by scratching the surface of a deal table smooth with a piece of glass, and using it as a tablet. And thus, with his hands in gloves, his legs and head wrapped up as much as possible from the attacks of the gnats, be sat, covering the surface of the table with reflections and recollections of the history of his life, and giving vent in this mute shape to all the anxious visions that crossed his mind. When he heard the jailor approaching, he used to throw a cloth over the table, and place upon it his legal allowance of ink and paper.

At times, again, he would devote himself to poetical composition, often for a day or a night at a time. Two tragedies, "Esther of Engaddi," and "Iginia of Asti," and four cantiche, "Tancreda," "Rosilde," Eligi e Valafrido," and "Adello," with many other sketches of poems and dramas-among others, one on the league of Lombardy, and another on Columbus attest the undiminished activity and power of his mind, amidst every thing calculated to paralyse the intellect and deaden the heart. As there was occasionally some difficulty in getting the legal supply of paper renewed when exhausted, the first draft of all these was made either on the table, as above mentioned, or on the scraps of paper in which figs and dried fruits had been brought to him. Sometimes, by disposing of his allowance of food to one of the turnkeys, he could procure a sheet or two of paper in return, and endure the pains of hunger till the evening, when some coffee was brought to him.

him: it was contrary to the rules. At last the visit-
ing physician sanctioned his removal from the subter-
ranean cell to the floor above, and ordered a mattress;
and this, after a special application to the governor of
the province, was with some difficulty effected. In a
day or two, Pellico's prison dress arrived, consisting
of a sort of harlequin suit of two colours, and a sheet
as rough as haircloth, with chains for the feet. As
the smith fastened the chains to his ancles, he observed
to the jailor, "that he might have been spared the
trouble, as the poor gentleman did not appear to have
two months to live." After being thus manacled, no
indulgence was afforded except a walk twice a-week
for one hour, between two guards, upon a platform on
the battlements of the castle. It was with difficulty
that the invalid could drag himself and his chain as
far as the platform; and once arrived there, he used
to throw himself on the grass, and remain there till
the expiration of the hour allowed him. The guards
stood or sat beside him, and gossiped together. Both
were good-natured and kind, and one of them, Kral,
a Bohemian, was well acquainted with Klopstock,
Wieland, Goëthe, Schiller, and the best German wri.
ters. Of these he used to recite long passages, while
Pellico lay on the grass and listened to his harangues,
which assisted in breaking the monotony of his hours
of imprisonment.

When Pellico and Maroncelli were brought to Spiel-
berg, it contained many other Italians accused of
conspiring against the Austrian authority in Italy;
but these one by one were released by death, being
killed by the horrid nature of the confinement; and
at last Pellico and his friend were almost the only pri-
soners who remained alive. One comfort was now
allowed to Pellico: Maroncelli was permitted to share
his cell. A new stimulus was given to both by this
indulgence. The emperor had promised at the period
of their condemnation that the days of their imprison.
ment should be reckoned by twelve hours each, in-
stead of twenty-four, a roundabout way of promising
that they should be confined only half the time for
which they were sentenced. This declaration helped
to buoy up the minds of the prisoners. The end of
1827 they thought would be the term of their incar-
ceration; but December passed, and it came not. Then
they thought that the summer of 1828 would be the
time, at which period the seven and a half years of
Pellico's imprisonment terminated, which, from the
report of the emperor's observation to the commissary,
they had reason to think were to be held equivalent
to the fifteen, which formed the nominal amount of
the sentence. But this too passed away without a
hint of deliverance. Meantime, the effects of his long
subterranean confinement began to show themselves
in Maroncelli by a swelling of the knee-joint. At
first the pain was trifling, merely obliging him to halt
a little as he walked, and indisposing him from taking
his usual exercise. But an unfortunate fall in conse-
quence of the snow, which was already beginning to
cover the ground, increased the pain so much, that
after a few days the physician recommended the re-
moval of the fetters from his legs. Notwithstanding
this, however, he grew daily worse: leeches, caustics,
fomentations, were tried in vain-they merely aggra-
vated his pangs.

In the meantime, what was called a commission was deliberating on the case of Signor Pellico and some other individuals who had been seized and imprisoned on the same accusation; and the examinations which he underwent almost drove him to frenzy, for he was entirely innocent of any crime, and he groaned in anguish under the oppression heaped upon him. On the 11th of January 1822, he was informed that he was to be transported to the prison of St Michele at Murano, to receive the sentence of the commission. On the 21st of February he was brought before this dread tribunal. "Silvio Pellico," said the president, rising with an air of dignified commiseration, "your sentence has been a terrible one-it is death; but it has been mitigated by the kindness of the emperor: and you are now sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen years in the fortress of Spielberg, in Moravia." "The will of God be done!" replied the unfortunate man. The indignities offered to Signor Pellico were not yet completed. He was told, that, along with Signor Maroncelli, the only one who was condemned at the same time as himself, he should appear on a scaffold in public to have his sentence read in presence of the people. Next morning, accordingly, he and his friend, whom he now met for the first time since the day of his confinement, were put into a gondola, and reconducted to the prison at Venice. The scaffold from which the sentence was to be proclaimed was in the centre of the Piazetta. Two files of soldiers were drawn up from the foot of the stair from which they descended to the scaffold, along which they walked. It was surrounded by an immense multitude, on whose countenances sat marks of terror and pity, though the consciousness that every part of the square was commanded by canron, with lighted matches ready, controlled the expression of their feelings. An officer now appeared on the balcony of the palace with a pa- Even in this deplorable condition, he composed per in his hand; it was the sentence; he read it aloud, verses, he sang, he discoursed, he did every thing to and the deepest silence prevailed, till he came to the deceive me into hope, to conceal from me a portion of words condemned to death, when a general murmur of his sufferings. He could now no longer digest nor compassion arose. It subsided when the crowd per- sleep; he grew frightfully wasted; he often fainted; ceived there still remained something farther to be and yet the moment he recovered his vital power again, read, but renewed more loudly at the conclusion he would endeavour to encourage me. His sufferings "condemned to the carcere duro; Maroncelli for for nine months were indescribable. At last a contwenty years, and Pellico for fifteen." And thus the sultation on his case was allowed. The chief phyceremony terminated. It may be necessary to explain sician came, approved of all the physician had ordered, that the words carcere duro signified imprisonment, and disappeared, without pronouncing any farther accompanied with labour, chains on the feet, sleeping opinion of his own. A moment afterwards the subon bare boards, and miserable food. This may be intendant entered, and said to Maroncelli, 'The chief considered a pleasant sort of punishment in compari-physician did not like to explain himself in your preson with that which is termed carcere durissimo, which implies that the prisoner is to be chained to the wall in a dungeon, so as to be unable to move be yond a certain distance, and that his food is to be only bread and water.

We now follow these unhappy objects of commiseration to their place of confinement in the fortress of Spielberg in Germany. Arrived at this strong cas. tle, they were put into separate cells, and ordered to submit without murmuring to the rules of the prison. These regulations were of the most stern and savage nature. The journey from Venice across the Alps had exhausted Pellico's strength; his body was racked with pain and fever; a continual cough preyed upon his constitution; yet he was compelled to lie on the bare stones of his subterranean apartment, and was allowed only the coarsest food. He in vain applied for the use of some of the sheets he had brought with

"Maroncelli," says Pellico, in his narrative, from whence these details are drawn, "was a thousand times more unfortunate than myself; but oh! how much did I suffer for him! The duty of attendance would have been delightful to me, bestowed as it was on so dear a friend. But to see him wasting amidst such protracted and cruel tortures, and not be able to bring him health-to feel the presentiment that the knee would never be healed-to perceive that the patient himself thought death more probable than recovery and with all this to be obliged at every instant to admire his courage and serenity-Ah! the sight of this agonised me beyond expression !

sence; he was apprehensive you might not have suf-
ficient strength of mind to endure the announcement
of so dreadful a necessity. I have assured him, how.
ever, that you do not want for courage.'

'I hope,' replied Maroncelli, I have given some
proof of it, by suffering these pangs without complaint.
What would he recommend ?

'Amputation, signor!-except that, seeing your frame so exhausted, he has some hesitation in advising it. Weak as you are, do you think yourself able to bear the operation? Will you run the risk?'

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'Of death? And should I not die at all events in
a short time, if this evil be left to take its course ?'
Then we shall send word immediately to Vienna,
and the moment the permission is obtained-
'What! is a permission necessary?' 'Yes, signor.'
In eight days (!) the expected warrant arrived.
The patient was carried into a larger room: he asked

Our

me to follow him. 'I may die,' said he, under the operation; let me at least do so in the arms of a friend.' I was allowed to accompany him. confessor came to administer the sacrament to the sufferer. This act of religion being over, we waited for the surgeons, who had not yet made their appear. ance. Maroncelli employed the interval in singing a hymn.

The surgeons came at last: there were two of them; one the ordinary household surgeon, that is to say our barber surgeon, who had the privilege, as matter of right, of operating on such occasions, the other a young surgeon, an élève of the school of Vienna, and already celebrated for his talents. The latter, who had been dispatched by the governor to superintend the operation, would willingly have performed it him. self, but was obliged, in deference to the privileges of the barber, merely to watch over its execution.

The patient was seated on his bedside, with his legs hanging down, while I supported him in my arms. A ligature was attached round the sane part, above the knee, to mark where the incision was to be made. The old surgeon cut away all round to the depth of an inch, then drew up the skin which had been cut, and continued to cut through the muscles. The blood flowed in torrents from the arteries, but these were soon taken up. At last came the sawing of the bone.

Maroncelli never uttered a cry. When he saw them carry away the leg which had been cut off, he gave it one melancholy look; then turning to the surgeon who had operated, he said, 'You have rid me o an enemy, and I have no means of recompensing you.' There was a rose standing in a glass near the window. May I request you to bring me that rose ?' said he. I took it to him, and he presented it to the surgeon, saying, 'I have nothing else to present to you in token of my gratitude.' The surgeon took the rose, and as he did it, dropt a tear."

"I am

The cure was completed in about forty days, after which, Pellico and the mutilated Maroncelli, with his wooden stump and crutches, were again consigned to their old prison. Here they resumed their monotonous and painful dungeon existence. Ten years had now nearly elapsed since Pellico had first been imprisoned, and eight and a half since he had been consigned to the vaults of Spielberg. A gleam of compassion seemed now to have shot through the heart of the Austrian monarch. The resignation with which Maroncelli had borne his hard fate touched his feelings. On Sunday, the 1st of August 1830, while the pri soners were preparing their table for their miserable meal, Wegarth, the superintendant, entered. sorry," said he, "to disturb your dinner, but have the goodness to follow me-the director of police is waiting for you." As this gentleman's visits generally indicated nothing very pleasant, the prisoners, it may be supposed, followed their guide somewhat reluctantly to the audience room. They found there the director and the superintendant, the former of whom bowed to them more courteously than usual; then taking a paper from his pocket, he began-" Gentlemen, I have the pleasure, the honour of announc ing to you, that his majesty the emperor has had the kindness" Here he stopped without mentioning what the kindness was.

"We thought," says Pellico, "it might be some diminution of punishment, such as freedom from labour, the use of books, or less disgusting diet. You do not understand me, then,' said he. 'No, signor. Have the goodness to explain what this favour is.' Liberty for both, and also for another of the Italian prisoners.' One would suppose this announcement would have thrown us into transports of joy. Yet it was not so: our hearts instantly reverted to our relations, of whom we had heard nothing for so long a period, and the doubt that we might never meet them again in this world so affected our hearts, as entirely to neutralise the joy which might have been produced by the announcement of liberty.

Are you silent?' said the director of police; I expected to see you transported with joy.' 'I beg of you,' I answered, 'to express to the emperor our gratitude; but, uncertain as we are as to the fate of our families, it is impossible for us not to give way to the thought that some of those who are dear to us may be gone. It is this uncertainty that oppresses our minds, even at the moment when they should be open to nothing but joy.'

The director then gave Maroncelli a letter from his brother, which allayed his anxiety. He told me, however, he could give me no tidings of my family, and this increased my fears that some accident had befallen them. We conversed till evening, when a soldier's cloak and cap were placed on each of us, and in our old galley-slave attire, but divested of our chains, we descended the fatal hill, and were conducted through the city to the prisons of the police. It was a lovely moonlight night. The streets, the houses, the people whom we met, all appeared to me so delightful, so strange, after so many years during which I had looked on no such spectacle. After four days, the commissary arrived, and the director of police transferred us to him, putting into his hands at the same time the money we had brought to Spielberg, and that produced by the sale of our books and effects, which was delivered to us at the frontier. The expense of our journey was defrayed by the emperor." The journey towards Italy need not be described. It excited both pleasing and painful reflections." My

depression of spirits," says Pellico, "increased as we approached Italy. The entrance to it on that side has few charms for the eye; or rather, the traveller descends from the beautiful mountains of Germany into the plains of Italy, by a long, sterile, and unlovely track, which gives to foreigners but an unprepossessing idea of our country. The dull aspect of the country contributed to render me more melancholy. To see once more our native sky, to meet with human faces whose features bore not the aspect of the north, to hear on all sides our own idiom-all these melted my heart, but with an emotion more akin to sorrow than joy. How often in the carriage did I cover my face with my hands, pretend to be asleep, and weep! Long years of burial had not indeed extinguished all the energies of my mind, but, alas, they were now so active for sorrow, so dull, so insensible to joy !"

The parting of the two friends after years of confinement, on each proceeding to his respective home, was one of the most agonising circumstances which attended their liberation. It was on the 16th of September 1830, that a final permission was given to Pellico to go where his choice directed. "And from that moment," he adds, "I was liberated from all surveillance. How many years had elapsed since I had enjoyed the privilege of going where I would, unaccompanied by guards! I set out about three in the afternoon. My travelling companions were a lady, a merchant, an engraver, and two young painters, one of them deaf and dumb. They came from Rome, and I was gratified to learn that they were acquainted with the family of Maroncelli. We spent the night at Vercelli. The happy morning of the 17th September dawned. Our journey proceeded: How slow the conveyance seemed! It was evening ere we reached Turin.

Who can attempt to describe the transport, the consolation my heart received when I again saw and embraced father, mother, and brothers. My dear sister Josephine was not there, for her duties detained her at Chieri, but she hastened as soon as possible to join our happy group. Restored to these five objects of my tenderest affection, I was-I am the most enviable of mortals."*

A FEW DAYS IN FRANCE.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

THE French, as I have said in the preceding article, are still strangely behind their British neighbours with respect to a great number of comforts and conveniences, particularly about their dwellings; but in estimating these deficiencies it should be kept in mind that the genius and habits of the people are very different from what we in this country consider to be the standard of perfection. If the Parisian has a poorly furnished house, it must be recollected that his principal pleasure does not consist in sitting at home by the fireside, but in spending his spare time in coffeerooms, public gardens, theatres, or other places of general resort. A large portion of the male population, to use a familiar expression, seem to put off a great deal of time doing nothing. In all parts of England the struggle for existence is prodigious; it is the genius of the people to be busy-to seek for something to do and if possible to make money. London exhibits the most perfect spectacle of human industry -industry often carried the length of destroying both soul and body. They manage these things very differently in France.

Paris has a sort of a bustle in two or three streets

that is, the very narrow pavements are tolerably crowded with passengers, and there is a dashing along of gigs and coaches; but all that is exhibited in this way is hardly worth speaking of. The prevalent characteristic is dawdling-doing little or nothing. Possibly the reader may be inclined to inquire how the people contrive to live, if they thus spend so much of their time in idleness. This is a question that I profess my inability to answer with entire satisfaction. It would seem, in the first place, that the gentry and trades-folks are contented to live on a much less expensive scale than the same classes in this country. They can purchase many little luxuries and enjoyments at a trifle, and for these they forego the pleasure of accumulating either a fortune or a competency for old In other words, the French live as they go along through life, while the English prefer to drudge

age.

• During the long imprisonment of Signor Pellico, he composed

a small work upon the moral duties of life, which has been translated into English by Mr Roscoe; and the pure spirit of religion, humanity, and Christian charity which it breathes, is the strongest attestation of the innocence and the excellence of character of the author. His narrative is written in a similarly gentle tone; he never utters a reproach, but carries his forbearance to an extreme almost unjustifiable. The narrative has been well translated by a

through their youth and manhood, and defer living
till their old days. This sentiment accounts for a
great deal of the difference of system in the two coun-
tries. There is another way of accounting for the pe-
culiarity. In Paris, indeed in every part of France
that I visited, a very large proportion of the duties
incumbent on the human being for gaining his sub-
This I take to
sistence, are performed by women.
be the most striking feature in the organisation of
society in France. Wherever I went, I found women
conducting business and executing the work of ar-
tizans. There is hardly a shop in Paris that is not
kept by a woman.

No matter what is the trade,

remarked any thing of this nature, except in the case of the soldiers in the regiments of the line. These troops appear to be composed of a poor stunted race of beings, and are in general very inferior in stature, bulk, and aspect, to the soldiers in the British army. When viewed side by side with the national guards, they have a very shabby appearance. It should nevertheless be stated, that much of the miserable appearance of the French soldiers is owing to their dress, which is neither of good materials nor well fitted. In looking along the ranks at a parade, you will see many of the men with glaring patches of red cloth on the knees of their faded trousers. I do not remember there you see a female behind the counter. I went ever seeing such an exhibition of mendings in the one day into a respectable shoemaker's shop in the British regiments. The want of gloves has also a mean Rue St Honoré, to purchase a pair of shoes, and in effect. While on this subject, I cannot help remarkthis shop there were four or five women at work, and ing what appeared to others as well as myself a strange but one man, who was a subordinate. Even in the fancy in the arrangement of the accoutrements of the drug and the gunsmiths' shops, women are found in soldier: this is the extraordinary length of the belts attendance. It appeared to me that all these shop- from which are suspended the bayonet or sword and women were exceedingly industrious. When no cus-cartridge-box, by which these things hang down nearly tomer is in the shop, they are always engaged in sew- as low as the hollow behind the knee, and bump against the leg at every step. This clumsy practice makes ing. In the watchmakers' shops, women are likewise seen working, and they may also be seen engraving the French soldiers look like so many boys dressed up copperplates. All the coach or diligence offices in in the harness of grenadiers. The officers in the French Paris and elsewhere are chiefly kept by women; and army do not seem much better dressed than the priit will be remarked, that women are placed within vates, from whom they cannot easily be distinguished, the wickets at the doors of the theatres to take the which many will conceive to be an improvement in money and issue checks. In every coffeeroom, a lady the practice of the military profession. acts as president and clerk, and fulfils the duty of matronising the establishment, and rendering it fit for the entrance of female customers. It would be needless to specify further in what respect women are employed in transacting business: there are few esta. blishments without them. They are initiated into the management of trade, commerce, and agriculture. They do every thing. There is thus no wonder that the female sex exert that influence in public affairs in France, which has for many years been attributed to them. It is more a matter of astonishment that they have not long since insisted on having an ostentensible share in the administration, for it must be allowed they have wrought well for the honour.

It may be said without a joke, that, in setting the
women to work for them, the French have discovered
a principle for supporting a population not dreamed
Yet our
of by the most sage political economists.
neighbours hardly deserve any credit for this fe.
licitons discovery. Their employment of women in
all kinds of businesses in the place of men, has most
probably originated in the long course of civil and ex-
ternal war in which the nation has been engaged.
During these wars, so exhaustive of the male po-
pulation, the management of the country must at
times have been thrown almost entirely into the
hands of the women, without whose interference the
nation would have gone to wreck. So inveterate has
the practice become, that even in times of profound
peace the female sex continue to be, to all appearance,
the principal breadwinners in the country. While
it is impossible to regard the industry of the French
females without admiration, there is every reason to
conclude that it is productive of the very worst results.
It leaves too much spare time to the male population,

which they devote to a sauntering and gossiping un-
worthy of the sex. It has obviously a much worse effect
still; for it enables them to squander a large proportion
of their time, not to speak of money, upon figuring in
uniforms, belts, and cartridge-boxes, out of which no
Wherever you go in Paris, you see
good can come.
clusters of the national guard-a species of volunteers
loitering at the doors of guardhouses and in the
fronts of public buildings. A great number of these
men are shopkeepers and tradesmen-at least nomi-
nally so-whose wives are conducting their business
in order to support their families, which would other-
wise starve, or be very poorly off. I cannot but con-
demn this system of things as a social anomaly of the
worst kind it is most degrading to the female sex,

and there can be no doubt that it tends vastly to keep
France in an unsettled condition. No country can
expect to attain opulence, and the blessings of tran-
quillity, where the management of affairs is committed
to women, and where the male part of the population
are ever ready and willing to spend days, weeks, and
months, on the foolery of soldiering, the most mis-
chievous of all kinds of idleness.

It has been mentioned by some writers that the
continued exhaustion of the better part of the male

It will appear to the visitor of Paris that the troubles in France for the last forty years have had the effect of producing a marked generalisation of the ranks of society. There is little that is high or haughty, and as little that is abjectly poor. Society has been smoothed down to a great middle class, and the proportion of well-dressed people in Paris seemed to me to be greater than in London or Edinburgh. The bulk of the French are indeed much more respectable in appearance than they are usually represented to be amongst us. I have already said that decorum of manners is much more conspicuous in the French than the English towns; and in connection with this observation, I may mention that there is obviously a greater taste for literary recreation. The number of shops in Paris fitted up as reading-rooms is enormous. In all places are seen people-men and women, young and old-reading books or newspapers. You see the seats and walks

in the public gardens occupied with readers, and you will often observe the sentinels sitting at the doors of the palaces perusing a volume or a newspaper. All this is certainly indicative of an activity of mind, a degree of intelligence, which could not from other circumstances have been expected in the French cha

racter.

From what has come under my own observation, I am inclined to believe that the British still labour un

der many prejudices regarding their French neighbours, which it is time for them to abandon. Whatever the French may have been at one period, they do not now exhibit that love of frivolity which many heedlessly attach to their character. They are a considerably sobered people; and gravity or thoughtfuluess has in the present day assumed the place of those smirks, smiles, grimaces, and shrugs, which are said to have characterised them under the ancient regime. By

those who are better entitled to judge than I am, they are considered to be rapidly improving and Anglicising. Their scholastic education is daily extending in usefulness; their soldiers, besides showing a fondness for reading, are forming themselves into associations resembling our mechanics' institutions or schools of arts, under the patronage of their officers; and it is gratifying to learn that savings' banks are progressively increasing in number and the amount of their de posits, while the dependence on lotteries and gambling tables is undergoing a corresponding decline. In one of the shops of Paris I noticed a steam-engine at work, grinding chocolate or some such material; and I accepted this circumstance as one among others which certified that an improvement was taking place in the useful arts. All that the French really want is the permanent establishment of peace and good order. These secured, all kinds of improvement will naturally follow; among these beneficial alterations, the greatest of all would be the abandonment of that profitless military mania which is so deplorably mischievous, as respects both the interest of the nation and of individuals.

I could not help remarking on different occasions writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review, whose graceful language population in France has caused a degeneracy in the that there is an agreeable easiness of manner in conphysical proportions of the race. I cannot say that Iversational intercourse.betwixt the two sexes in France,

we have partly adopted in our abridgement.

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