Though they advanced at the rate of only thirty miles in a day, they were the first bearers of authentic news to every inn; or rather they were the only persons in those homely receptacles who were enabled to appreciate the ridiculous stories circulated among a thoughtless and credulous people. The inha bitants appeared almost every where to be royalists; the troops alone maintained a gloomy silence. It is common in some parts of France to travel in what are called coches d'eau, or passage-boats; the comforts of which, in Languedoc at least, appear to be much on a level with those of the country-inns. Wednesday, 22d March.-Left Pezenas at half past five, and arrived to breakfast at half past nine at Beziers. We went to see the coches d'eau, described as superbes and magnifiques by our French friends. Their ideas differ from ours. It would be perfectly impossible for an English lady to go in such a conveyance, and few gentlemen, even if alone, and with only a portmanteau, would venture. The objections are there is but one room for all classes of people; they start at three and four each morning; stop at miserable inns, and if you have heavy baggage, it must be shifted at the locks, which is tedious, and costs a great deal. Adieu to all our airy dreams of gliding through Languedoc in these Cleopatran vessels. They smell, they are exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and they are filled with bugs, fleas, and all kinds of bad company. The country to-day, though still very flat, is prettier. Very fine large meadows, with willows, but too regular. Bullocks as common as mules in the plough. Wheat far advanced, and barley, in some small spots, in the ear.' Tuesday, the 28th. This morning, at three, I left my party, and took a very light gig, determined (as the news were getting daily worse, and the road full of English hurrying to Bourdeaux) to post it from Agen. By paying the post-boys double hires, we got on very fast, and although we broke down several times, we arrived at Bourdeaux at six in the evening, a distance of more than a hundred miles. The country from Agen to Bourdeaux is the richest I have seen in France, chiefly laid out in vines, dressed with much more care than any we have yet seen; a good deal also of fine wheat, and some meadows of grass pasture. Every thing is much further advanced than in Languedoc, even allowing for the advance in the days we have passed in travelling. Barley in the ear, and some even yellowing. Bourdeaux is a noble town, though not so fine, I think, as Marseilles.' Thursday, the 30th. Things look very ill. The fort of Blaye has hoisted the tri-coloured flag. The town of Bourdeaux is in a dead calm; but I am sure all is not well. The cries of Vive le Roi are not heard to-day. The Duchess d'Angouleme passed through the streets to-day, and visited the casernes of the troops. Poor woman! her exertions are incessant. To her addresses the people are enthusiastic in their replies, but the troops are sullen and silent; Bb 2 they they answered, that they would not forget their duty to her, as far as not injuring her. I hope that she passed our door this evening for the last time, and that she has left Bourdeaux. Every individual in Bourdeaux, the troops excepted, hate and detest the tyrant as cordially as he detests them. - Friday, the 31st. We left Bourdeaux at half past five: the utmost tranquillity in the streets; not a soul stirring. Our coachman reported, that General Clausel had reached the gates, and that the national guard had been beat off. Arrived at the inn at half way, we met with the Marquis de Valsuzenai, who confirmed the bad news: the town has capitulated without almost a shot. Two men only have been killed; a miserable resistance! But it could not be otherwise, as no militia could long stand against regulars. Still I expected tumults in the streets, rising among the inhabitants; weeping and wailing. But no.' The conclusion of the narrative informs us that, after a tedious and uncomfortable passage, the party landed in Devonshire and proceeded to Scotland. The rest of the second volume is occupied with an account of the state of France, political and social; with a variety of observations on Bonaparte; and finally with a comparative register of the weather from December 1814 to the succeeding March, in which the respective temperatures of Aix and Edinburgh are contrasted, and found, as we might expect, to exhibit very different results. We extract a few remarks from the part of the volume which is appropriated to national manners. An Englishman never dreams of entering into conversation without some previous knowledge upon the point which is the subject of discussion. You will pass but few days in France before you will be convinced, that to a Frenchman this is not at all necessary. The moment he enters the room or caffé, where a circle may happen to be conversing, he immediately takes part in the discussion of whatever nature, or upon whatever subject that may be, is not of the most distant consequence to him. He strikes in with the utmost self-assurance and adroitness, maintains a prominent part in the conversation with the most perfect plausibility; and although from his want of accurate information, he will rarely instruct, he seldom fails to amuse by the exuberance of his fancy, and the rapidity of his elocution. "Un Français," says M. de Stael, with great truth, “scait encore parler, lors même il n'a point d'idées;" and the reason why a Frenchman can do so is, because ideas which are the essential requisites in conversation to any other man, are not so to him. He is in possession of many substitutes, composed of a few of those set phrases and accommodating sentences which fit into any subject; and these mixed up with appropriate nods, significant gestures, and above all with the characteristic shrugging of the shoulders, are ever ready at hand when the tide of his ideas may happen to run shallow. 'He cannot be grave or unhappy, because he never allows himself time to become so. His mind is perpetually busied with the affairs of the moment. If he is in company, he speaks without introduction, to every gentleman in the room. Any thing the most trivial serves him for a hook on which to hang his story; and this generally lasts as long as he has breath to carry him on. He recounts to you, the first hour you meet with him, his whole individual history; diverges into anecdotes about his relations, pulls out his watch, and under the cover shews you the hair of his mistress, apostrophizes the curl-opens his pocket-book, insists upon your reading his letters to her, sings you the song which he conposed when he was au desespoir at the parting, asks your opinion of it, then whirls off to a discussion on the nature of love; leaves that the next moment to philosophize upon friendship, compliments you, en passant, and claims you for his friend; hopes that the connection will be perpetual, ard concludes by asking you to do him the honour of telling him your name. In this manner he is perpetually occupied: he has a part to act which renders serious thought unnecessary, and silence impossible. If he has been unfortunate, he recounts his distresses, and in doing so forgets them. His mind never reposes for a moment upon itself." Every thing in a French Diligence is life, and motion, and joy. The coach generally holds from ten to twelve persons, and is sufficiently roomy. The moment you enter you are on terms of the most perfect familiarity with the whole set of your travelling. companions. In an instant every tongue is at work, and every individual bent upon making themselves happy for the moment, and contributing to the happiness of their fellow-travellers. Talking, joking, laughing, singing, reciting, every enjoyment which is light and pleasurable is instantly adopted. A gentleman takes a box from his pocket, opens it with a look of the most finished politeness, and presents it, full of sweetmeats, to the different ladies in succession. One of these, in gratitude for this attention, proposes what she well knows will be agreeable to the whole party, some species of round game like our cross-purposes, involving forfeits. The proposal is carried by acclamation, the game is instantly begun, and every individual is included.' The French carry on every thing in public, every thing, whether it is connected with business or with pleasure, whether it concerns the more serious affair of political government, or the pursuit of science, or the cultivation of art, or whether it is allied only to a taste for society, to the gratification of individual enjoyment, to the passing occupations of the day, or the pleasures of the evening, all, in short, either of serious or of lighter nature, is open and public. It is carried on abroad, where every eye may see, and every ear may listen. — The French nobility, and the men of property who still remain in the kingdom, invariably pass their lives in Paris. Their whole joy consists in exhibiting themselves in public in the capital. Their magnificent chateaus, their parks, their woods and fields, and Bb3 their their ancient gardens, decorated by the taste and often cultivated by the hands of their fathers, are allowed to fall into unpitied ruin. If they retire for a few weeks to their country-seat, it is only to collect the rents from their neglected peasantry, to curse themselves for being condemned to the triste sejour of their paternal estate; and, after having thus replenished their coffers, to dive again, with renewed strength, into all the publicity and dissipation of the capital.' We conclude our quotations by some curious passages relative to French dress, which were suggested to the travellers on visiting at the house of one of the principal lawyers at Aix. • We were received in a very neat and very handsome furnished house. The mother and daughter were well and handsomely dressed. But seated on one side of the room, was a young man in an old, dirty, torn great coat, with a Belcher handkerchief about his neck, a pair of old military trowsers, of worse than second cloth, dirty white stockings, and his shoes down at the heel-this was the counsellor's brother. Never was a more blackguard-looking figure. But this is the French fashion in the morning, and often all day the gentlemen are seen in this way.' Among the higher ranks of society you will find many obliging people; but you will also find many whose situation alone can sanction your calling them gentlemen. There appears also in France to be a sort of blending together of the high and low ranks of society, which has a bad effect on the more polite, without at all bettering the manners of the more uncivilized. Now, really, to find out who are gentlemen, and who not, without previously knowing something of them, or entering into conversation, is very difficult. In England, all the middling ranks dress so well, that you are puzzled to find out the gentleman. In France, they dress so ill in the higher ranks, that you cannot distinguish them from the lower.' In the higher ranks among the French, a gentleman has indeed a good suit of clothes, but these are kept for wearing in the evening on the promenade, or at a party. In the morning clothes of the coarsest texture, and often much worn, or even ragged, are put on. If you pay a lady or gentleman a morning visit, you find them so metamorphosed as scarcely to be known; the men in dirty coarse cloth great coats, wide sackcloth trowsers and slippers; the women in coarse calico wrappers, with a coloured handkerchief tied round their hair. All the little gaudy finery they possess is kept for the evening.' In stating our objections to this work as a literary com position, we must remark that it contains, particularly in the second volume, too much detail about small matters; and, which is worse, somewhat of a disposition to go to ex tremes 6. tremes in the descriptive colouring both of places and individuals. This is more particularly apparent when the author is speaking of the disbanded solders of Bonaparte's army, whose aspect is repeatedly style blackguard and ruffianlike.' Now, whatever may be their appearance from bad clothing or long exposure to the weather, the truth is that these men have lapsed very quietly into the labouring classes, and have scarcely ever been known to commit any of those offences which the sight of them suggested to the imagination of our travellers. Nothing can be a stronger proof of this fact than their forbearance from personal injury and insult towards either the royal party or the emigrants, at the time of the general flight in 1815.-In the next place, it is much to be regretted that a respectable writer should have introduced into his pages the string of pretended anecdotes of Bonaparte, which are recorded in Vol. ii. p. 96. et seq.; and which, whether they relate to his ferocity, his vanity, or, as is the case in one or two instances, to his humanity, we believe to be indiscriminately the fabrication of Parisian scribblers. The only part of this chapter that bears the appearance of authenticity is the narrative (p. 149.) of the sub-prefect of Aix, who accompanied Bonaparte from that town to the coast; and the insignificance of the particulars related by that officer affords presumptive evidence against the wondrous tales proceeding from more doubtful sources. Lastly, with regard to the typography of these volumes, we must observe that it is frequently incorrect, and discovers such errors as Russia (Vol. i. p. 252.) for Prussia; fonciese (Vol. i. p. 279.) for foncier; Essconne (Vol. ii. p. 5.) for Essonne; De Gominier (Vol. ii. p. 103.) for Dugommier, &c. Repetitions likewise occur frequently, and sometimes in passages very near to each other, as in the account of the Flemish farmers and cottages; who are represented on two occasions (Vol. i. pp.266. and 274.) as possessing over their French neighbours the same advantages in nearly the same words. We suspect, therefore, that the MS. has been sent to the press, and the work of the press sent into the world, each without sufficient revisal; an omission which it very often falls to our lot to reprehend, and which in the present case we notice the more because the writers are men of observation and reflection, and were evidently capable of careful and finished composition. The comments on the pictures and statues (Vol. i. p. 93. et seq.) will be read with particular interest, |