and weeds, as to convey a most uncomfortable feeling of cold, dampness, and desolation. The grass of the lawn is equally foul, and every thing of dirt and rubbish is collected under the windows in front. The gardens behind are in the same execrable state: gravelwalks over-run with moss and weeds; flower-beds ornamented with statues of leaden Floras, painted Mercurys, and Dians with milkpails. Every yard almost salutes you with some similar absurdity. The hedges are shaped into peacocks, and not unfrequently into ladies and gentlemen dancing a minuet. Pillars of cypress, and pyramids of yew, terminate almost every walk, and if there is an hollow in the garden, it is formed into a muddy pond, in which half a dozen nymphs in stone are about to plunge.'

Almost every chateau has a certain number of fish-ponds, and a certain quantity of woodland, and these are considered as such necessary appendages, that an house is scarcely regarded as habitable without them. The table of a French gentleman is almost solely supplied from his land. Having a plenty of poultry, fish, and rabbits, he gives very little trouble to his butcher. Hence in many of the villages meat is not to be had, and even in large towns the supply bears a very small proportion to what would seem to be the natural demand of the population.'

'One distinction of French and English visiting I must not omit. In England, if any one comes from any distance to visit the family of a friend, he of course takes his dinner, and perhaps his supper, but is then expected to return home. Unless he is a brother or uncle, and not even always then, he must not expect to have a bed. To remain day after day for a week or a fortnight, would be considered as an outrage. On the other hand, in France, a family no sooner comes to its chateau for the summer (for since the Revolution this has become the fashion), than preparation is immediately made for parties of visitors. Every day brings some one, who is never suffered to go, as long as he can be detained. Every chateau thus becomes a pleasant assemblage, and in riding, walking, and fishing, nothing can pass more agreeably than a French summer in the country. As we passed along, we met several of these parties in their morning rides; they invariably addressed us, and very frequently invited us to their houses, though perfectly strangers to us. The mode of living in these country-residences differs very little from what is common in the same rank of life in England. The breakfast consists of tea, coffee, fruits, and cold meat. The dinner is usually at two o'clock, and is served up as in England. The French, however, *have not as yet imitated the English habit of sitting at table. Coffee in a saloon or pavillion, fronting the garden and lawn, immediately follows the dinner: this consumes about two hours. The company then divide into parties, and walk. They return about eight o'clock to tea. After tea they dance till supper. Supper is all gaiety and gallantry, and the latter perhaps of a kind which in England would not be deemed very innocent. The champagne then goes round, and the ladies drink as much as the gentlemen, that is to say, enough to exhilarate, not to overwhelm the animal spirits. A French woman with three or four glasses of wine in her head, would certainly make

an English one stare; but France is the land of love, and it is an universal maxim that life is insipid without it.'—

The returned emigrants who had lived in England have been instrumental in introducing a better taste with regard to the disposition of country-residences; and a traveller may sometimes, though still rarely, discover a lawn neatly mown, with painted seats, and a neat palisaded gate opening to the road. It were to be wished that the same class directed their attention to the dissemination of habits of delicacy among their fellow-subjects, who are still as far behind as ever in that respect. The pantomime at Amiens was so deficient in this point, as to make it necessary for Mr. Pinkney to withdraw; and we are assailed throughout his journey with complaints of the coarse manners at inns, especially of the disposition to gallantry among the hostesses and chambermaids. The presence of men-servants in bed-rooms, and the invincible loquacity of the females, who hold conversation with a gentleman with as much ease as if he were of their own station in life, seem to have been productive of no inconsiderable annoyance to him. The equivoques, which are common in genteel company, excited in him similar sensations; and, notwithstanding the superior vivacity and fancy of the French ladies, he is inclined to give a marked preference to our country-women. Every thing in Paris is done, as he justly remarks, for exhibition. The French dance, converse, and sing in company as if they were on the stage. Their conversation has consequently more wit than interest, and their dancing more vanity than mirth. The French ladies care not what they exhibit so that they exhibit their skill; they are figurantes even in their chit-chat; and in the grand point of good looks, Mr. Pinkney concurs in the general opinion of their inferiority to the fair sex in England.

The latter part of Col. P.'s journey was in the direction of Marseilles, by Lyons, and the banks of the Rhône; and here, as in the earlier portion of his tour, the country wore the appearance of healthfulness and fertility, but was much inferior in beauty to the banks of the Loire. The most useful inform ation in this division of the work is the account of the prin cipal towns on the road.

• Moulins somewhat disappointed my expectation. It is indeed beautifully situated, in the midst of a rising and variegated country, but the interior of the town does not merit description: the streets are narrow, the houses dark, and built in the worst possible style.'The market-place is only worthy of mention as introducing the price of provisions. Moulins is as cheap as Tours: beef, and mutton, and veal, are plentiful; vegetables scarcely cost any thing, and fuel is very moderate. Fruit is so cheap as scarcely to be sold, and REV. SEP. 1811.

very

very good; eggs two dozen for an English sixpence; poultry abun dant, and about sixpence a fowl. A good house, such a one as is usually inhabited by the lawyer, the apothecary, or a gentleman of five or six hundred per annum, in the country-towns in England, is at Moulins from twelve to fourteen pounds per year, including garden and paddock.'- Our inn at Moulins, however, was horrible: our beds would have frightened any one but an experienced traveller.'

'Avignon is in a plain, equally fertile and beautiful, about fifteen miles in breadth and ten in length. On the south and east it is circled by a chain of mountains. The plain is divided into cultivated fields, in which are grown wheat, barley, saffron, silk, and madder.'-From the high ground in the city, nothing can be finer than the prospect over the plain and surrounding country. The Rhone is there seen rolling its animated stream through meadows covered with olive trees, and at the foot of hills invested with vineyards.’—

Avignon is surrounded by walls built by successive Popes; they still remain in perfect beauty and preservation, and much augment, particularly in a distant view, the beauty of the town. They are composed of free-stone, are flanked at regular distances with square towers, and surmounted with battlements. The public walks are round the foot of this wall.' The interior of the city is ill built: the streets are narrow and irregular, and the pavement is most troublesomely rough. There is not a lamp, except at the houses of the better kind of people; the funds of the town are still good, but they are all expended on the roads, public walks, and dinners. The necessity of a constant attention to paving and lighting, never enters into the heads of a French town-administration; they seem to think that the whole business is done when the town is once paved.'

The Avignonese, whilst under the papal jurisdiction, bore a general reputation for the utmost profligacy both of principles and conduct. This character has now passed away, and, with the exception of what is termed gallantry, the Avignonese seem a gay and harmless people.'

Aix, the capital of Provence, is very pleasantly situated in a valley, surrounded by hills, which give it an air of recluseness, and romantic retirement, without being so close as to prevent the due circulation of air.' The interior of the town very well corresponds with the importance of its first aspect. It is well paved, the houses are all fronted with white stone, and the air being clear, it always looks clean and sprightly. Many of them, moreover, have balconies, and some of them are upon a scale, both outside and inside, which is not excelled by Bath in England. Aix is almost the only town next to Tours, in which an English gentleman could fix a comfortable residence. The society is gond, and to a stranger of genteel appear. ance, perfectly accessible either with or without introduction.' The promenade, or public walk, equals, if not excells, any thing of the kind in Europe-it consists of three alloys, shaded by four rows of most noble elms, in the middle of a wide street, the houses on each side being on the most magnificent scale, and inhabited by the first people of the city and province.' Provisions of all kinds are in

the

the greatest possible plenty: fish is to be had in great abundance, and the best quality; meat is likewise very reasonable, and tolerably good; bread is about a penny English by the pound; and vegetables as in other provincial towns, so cheap as scarcely to be worth selling. The baths of Aix are very celebrated, and the town is much visited by valetudinarians: they are chiefly recommended in scorbutic humours, colds, rheumatisms, palsies, and consumptions. The waters are warm, and have in fact no taste but that of warm water. Upon the whole, Aix is most delightfully situated, and the environs are beyond conception rural and beautiful. They are a succession of vineyards relieved by groves, meadows and fields.'

Letters having arrived from the author's family, intimating that his presence was required at home, he was under the necessity of taking his passage from Marseilles; Mr. Younge. continuing his attention to the last, and refusing to quit his friend till he embarked.

Having thus accompanied the traveller throughout his tour, and endeavoured to communicate to our readers some of the satisfaction which we have ourselves derived from him, it becomes our duty to speak of the more ungracious. parts in the execution of his performance. His most serious error, that which is most likely to mislead the reader who means to form a deliberate conclusion from his report, is the exaggerating tone of his descriptions. The superlative appears to be Col. Pinkney's favourite degree of comparison; and such phrases as infinitely better', or infinitely worse,' very frequently occur in his narrative. When his fancy was once kindled in favour of France by a sight of the banks of the Loire, almost every town, to Aix inclusive, is pronounced to possess charms for permanent residence; and it is remarkable that the last quarter in which he is, whether Touraine, the Bourbonnois, or the Lyonnois, generally appears to make the strongest impression on him. -Our next animadversion relates to a point of less consequence in a public than in a private sense. After the obligation which the author acknowleges to Mr. and Mrs. Younge, and the high compliments which he pays to the latter and her unmarried sister, we scarcely expected to meet with exemplifications of French indelicacy at their expence; and to apprize the public (p. 153.) that the sister, was captivated with him, so far as to betray confusion when charged with the predilection, discovers a share both of vanity and unkindness.Our third criticism regards the loose manner in which Mr. Pinkney has put together his materials. Without the

form of a journal, his work has, in a great degree, the repetition and want of classification which belong to that species of writing; instead of collecting and digesting all that occurred to him on particular heads, such as the fineness of the climate,

the backwardness of agriculture, and the cheerfulness and oblig ing disposition of the inhabitants, he is too apt to bring for, wards the same ideas piece-meal, and by repetitions. Allied to this deficiency of arrangement is vagueness of style, and sometimes even a kind of contradiction as to facts. The climate of Avignon (he says, p. 263.) is at once healthy and salubrious,' a pleonasm which may serve as a specimen of diffuse diction; while, in support of our second remark, we shall merely invite our readers to compare the favourable tone towards France in the middle and latter part of the book, with the very different impressions which are discovered in the beginning. This effect was produced, no doubt, by the improved aspect of the provinces which he latterly visited: but no notice is given either of the cause of change, or of the limitation with which his expressions, often too general, should be received. — In regard to borrowing, in a book of travels, from preceding writers, we are not disposed to find fault with such freedoms in the historical sketches of the remarkable places through which the tourist passes: but we decidedly object to them in respect to matters of ocular observation. The contrast of French and English dresses in the streets of Boulogne, and the communication that the English people resident there were not of the most respectable description, though given here as new, are the remarks of travellers antecedent to Mr. Pinkney. Our last and most severe reprehension is applicable to the title-page, which is so clumsy and even so false an index to the book, that we cannot for a moment ascribe it to the pen of Colonel Pinkney himself. It seeks to entrap attention by asserting that the journey was made by permission of the French government,' though the writer never speaks of any political difficulty, nor of any permission' except that of a common passport: it presumes to call an excursion by the great cities of Tours, Orleans, Lyons, and Avignon, a journey by a route never before performed' it says that the time of travelling was in 1807 and 1808, whereas the tour occupied only the summer of 1807: it brings forwards the south of France as the prominent part of the journey, instead of ths banks of the Loire; and it mentions Languedoc, and the banks of the Garonne, as quarters visited, though Mr. Pinkney only skirted the former, and never saw the latter. The volume being printed in London, and the author residing in America, the probability is that the title was the suggestion of some book-maker belonging to the fraternity in the British metropolis. Travels in France, in the summer of 1807, with a description of the banks of the Loire, would be, what a title always should be, a plain index to the contents of the work: