tendance in the House of Commons-where the public affairs of the week, like the fabled islands of the Mediterranean, for ever flit before you, and for ever vanish at your approach—I soon resigned an idea which I had only imperfectly formed, or rather reserved it for some moment of golden leisure— such as we rarely find, and never cease to hope for. In a visit, however, that I paid to Paris last year I recurred to a design so long meditated, and pursued with some diligence my former researches. As far as the materials with which those researches furnished me are concerned, I feel almost convinced that I obtained what in the hands of most writers must have imparted entertainment and information-but no one can be more sensible than I am, that I have not profited as I ought to have done by this advantage.. The greater part of these pages was written during the heat and fever of a London existence ;

* There was also, let me add, another difficulty thrown in my way by the late publication (“England and the English") of a near and dear relation, in whose literary success no one more deeply sympathizes than myself. For as the nature of our several works in some degree assimilated, so where I differed from him I might appear-to censure, and where I agreed with him-to imitate. This feeling damped at first my inclination to an enterprise, which afterwards his own kind wishes and my secret predilections induced me to hazard; with the hope, indeed, that I might steer through the obstacles I have referred to, as well as those even still greater, which I had also to encounter.

many of them, begun before the ordinary pursuits of the day were commenced, have been finished on returning home, after a late parliamentary division; and thus, independently of those faults, into which my inability would have involuntarily led me, there are others for which I am deeply sensible that I have to request the consideration of the reader, and the indulgence of the critic.

It is also true that I have not been able to comprise within the compass of two volumes all that I have written. I have here shown something of the character, something of the habits, something of the history-of the state of parties, of the predominant influences, and the literature of Francebut many great questions which relate to the government, and industry of the country-to the state of the daily press, to the state of property, (now only glanced at,)-much that must govern the foreign and domestic prospects of the French, I have been obliged to defer to the volumes by which those I am now publishing will be succeeded. Still I venture to hope, that the curious and good-natured reader will find even in the following pages sufficient to repay him for their perusal.

I have endeavoured to paint France-France as France is not only France serious, but France gay. I have endeavoured to paint France in her studies, in her crimes, in her pleasures, whether the latter might be found in the guinguette and the ball-room, or the former might be tracked from

the ball-room to the prison. In political as in domestic life, happiness depends as well on little things as on great things. And so saith the scripture most sublimely of the wisest of men- -"his heart was as the sands of the sea;" 66 one of the largest bodies," observes Bacon, "consisting of the smallest proportions."

In passing from one subject to another I have written with a feeling which I have long entertained, viz., that ideas are most naturally introduced into the minds of others, in the form and order in which they most naturally introduce themselves into our own minds;-in endeavouring to cut and to square, and to press and to clip, our thoughts into exact forms and proportions, we most frequently injure every part of a work, on a false idea of improving the whole, and make our book on the plan which presided over that royal palace, where all the pictures of Italy were systematically mutilated to the form and size of an apartment.

The plan I have adopted, then, is not without its method; but, however in some respects I might deem it desirable, I have not attempted to throw the colouring of one particular idea over the whole of my work, or to connect every effect that I have observed with one particular cause. Indeed I confess, for my own part, that when I pursue speculations of this kind, I advance on my way with considerable hesitation and doubt.

I confess that I am one of those who believe there to be so many chains, visible and invisible, in the connexion of human affairs-so much mystery and intricacy in the government of human actions-that oftentimes I hesitate involuntarily even at the moments when I feel most inclined to be presump

tuous.

The plague breaks out at Florence; all the pious virgins, the religious matrons, and even the sacred sisters devoted to seclusion and God, give themselves up in a species of voluptuous delirium to the wildest excesses of prostitution and debauch. The same pestilence visits Aix, and the oldest courtezans of the place rush in a pious frenzy to the hospitals, and devote themselves to the certain death which seizes those who attend upon the sick. Yet a religious education does not lead necessarily to debauch-nor are brothels the best seminaries of charity and christian zeal.

What happened once may never happen again. Yet that which forms no ground for a theory, is often interesting as a fact.

I will now allude to one difficulty I have laboured under in this work—a difficulty which I particularly feel, and which if I had been writing of England I should have been spared. In speaking of our own country, we speak in a spirit which induces us to believe that we may take any liberty we think proper with our friends. We are at home, and we have the pri

men

vilege of relationship. But it is different in a foreign land. Received as a stranger, but received with kindness and hospitality-the seal of courtesy is placed upon our lips, and we ought to shrink with disgust from being, or seeming, guilty of ingratitude. If then I could suspect myself of any of that national hostility which might induce me to find unnecessary fault with my hosts —if I disliked the French because they wear wooden shoes, or if I despised them because they do not live upon roast beef and plumb pudding—if I felt that kind of antipathy or rather jealousy towards them which I have remarked among some of my country-if I thought all their women had the features of Calmucks, and all their men the principles of Count Fathom-if I deemed the New Road infinitely superior to the Boulevards, and the Louvre a hovel by the side of St. James's palace,-if I believed all this, and even believed it conscientiously, I should hesitate long, after the kindness I have experienced, before I stated my opinions. But France to me is a country in which repose many of my affections. I visited it young-its scenes and its people are connected with some of my earliest and therefore with some of my dearest, recollections. I never touch its soil but the green memory of fresher and happier times rises up around me. Some of those whom I have most valued

-some of those whom I have most loved, link me