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For the number of libraries, and for the number of books which these libraries contain, relative to the population in the different departments of France (the department of the Seine excepted), I refer the reader to the Appendix; but as the provinces are far behind the capital, it is worth while remarking, that in Paris the public has three volumes to every two individuals. i. e. there are 1,378,000 volumes.

774,000 individuals.

For the number of works published in literature, the arts, and on science, I also refer my reader to the Appendix, where he will find a statement of the numbers of societies founded by the state, or by individuals, for the advancement of different branches of knowledge among different classes of society.

Among these I would here, however, mention—

"Ecole royale gratuite de Mathématique et de Dessin en faveur des Arts Mécaniques," where five hundred children, the children of artisans, receive instruction gratis. Observe, that this school was founded in 1760, and authorized by the letters patent of Louis XV.

"Ecole royale et gratuite de Dessin de jeunes personnes," where drawing in its various branches is taught for the same purpose.

The School of St. Peter, at Lyons-and for an account of which I refer to Dr. Bowring's evidence on the Silk Committee, which I have alluded to, and which I may give in the Appendix-and Les Ecoles royales des Arts et Métiers; the one at Châlons (Morne), the other at Angers, Maine-et-Loire. Here, the boys going at fourteen

or seventeen years of age, stay three years, and study every thing which can conduce to their understanding or practising their profession with skill and intelligence. They are not only taught the principles of science that would be applicable to their craft, they are made to apply those principles. They work in the carpenter's shop, at the forge, they handle the hammer and the file, and every pains is taken to make them at once clever men and good mechanics. In order to confine these institutions strictly to persons connected with industry, none by a late rule are allowed to enter them who have not served for one year as apprentice to a trade.

Some of the children are apprentices to fathers, who can afford to pay five hundred francs per year, the ordinary sum which those not admitted gratuitously pay; but there are one hundred and fifty who pay only half of this; one hundred and fifty who only pay three quarters; one hundred and fifty who pay nothing: besides, as prizes are distributed to those boys who distinguish themselves, many, who enter at two hundred and fifty francs per annum, gain their pension before the time is expired.* It only remains for me to observe, that so entirely does the government abstain from any improper influence in the patronage of these schools, those who are sent at a less rate than the five hundred francs, i. e. for two hundred and fifty francs, or for three hundred and seventy-five francs, or for nothing, are named on an examination by a jury of the different departments.

It is impossible to calculate the advantages of these establishments, since such advantages are not to be estimated by the number of persons who receive instruction, but by the extension which, through them, that instruction receives, and by the emulation which, through them, that instruction excites. It is by the union of practice and theory, of science and its application; it is by the école polytechnique in one class,

*On quitting these schools, the pupils are placed out advantageously, according to their profession and their proficiency in it.

and these institutions in another; it is by these two fountains which, starting from two different sources, meet and blend in the great stream of social civilization, that the French are now extending the advantages of literary influence, and at the same time correcting the defects it was likely to engender. . . . . But if I have an opportunity of speaking more fully of industry and education, then will be the time to pursue the discussion of these matters-it pleases me now to turn back from the artisan and the workshop to the fine lady and the salon, and to show the same spirit presiding over the two extremes.

As the literary man is honoured in the state, so is he honoured in society. At Madame D's, at Madame de M's, at Madame de R's, you meet all the literary men who belong to all the different political opinions. Indeed, wherever you go, be sure that the person particularly noticed, if not a remarkable officer-is a remarkable writer.

This is the case in France, where we are met on the one hand by the evidence of Dr. Bowring-on the other by the list of pensions, donations, and appointments that I have submitted to the reader. This is the case in France, where the advancement of men of letters seems to go hand in hand with the advance and progress of manufactures. But in England— where men of letters are least esteemed, and yet where industry ought to be most encouraged-what is the case in England and in the society of England?

A literary Frenchman whom I met not long ago in Paris, said to me, that a good-natured young English nobleman, whom I will not name, had told him that dancers, and singers, &c. were perfectly well received in English society, but not men of letters.

"Est-il possible qu'on soit si barbare chez vous?" said the French gentleman to me. I think the young nobleman, to whom the persons pursuing literature in England must be very much obliged, rather exaggerated. I do not think the door is actually bolted upon you directly you are found out to write-but I think it is

opened to you with a much more cautious air-and I am quite sure it would not be opened to you wholly and solely because you had written.

To be known as a writer is certainly to your prejudice. First-people presume you are not what they call a "gentleman," and the grandfather who, if you were a banker, or a butcher, or of any other calling or profession, would be left quiet in his tomb, is evoked against you. If this exhumation take place in vain, if a gentle genealogy be established, and the fact of your being, in vulgar parlance, "a gentleman," placed beyond denial, then your good blood is made the reservoir of all evil passions; you are obligingly painted as the incarnation of envy, of malice, and all uncharitableness; your picture is drawn in some friendly magazine, twisted into contortions that would terrify all the witches of the Hebrides. You have got a horrid nose, red hair, and a heart blacker than all Valpy's, and Whittingham's, and Bentley's printing devils could paint it. At last your banker's book is looked into, and it is found out or presumed that you are poor, or if you are not poor, it is quite clear that you are penurious. You refused ten guineas to a dozen poorer authors than yourself, and did not give 1007., as you ought to have done, to the Literary Fund.

How many gentlemen have refused, and how many gentlemen would refuse their purse to a poetical impostor, without being pelted with every species of abuse, as Horace Walpole was on that story of Chatterton, and simply because Horace Walpole, though a gentleman, and a moderately rich man, was also, unfortunately for him, an author! How many people does one meet quite as be-mummified and twice as illnatured and disagreeable as poor Mr. R- -s, and who yet are neither called dead men nor such very odious and disagreeable men, as everybody, chuckling, calls poor Mr. R-, because--he is an author! A thousand husbands are as bad as Lord Byron ever was, and yet they are not cut, nor called diabolical, and satanic, as poor Lord Byron was cut and called all

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this, because Lord Byron was an author. It is a most singular thing, but hardly is a man pointed out in England as having wielded a pen with tolerable success, than everybody spits upon him every kind of

venom.

Some--many of the reasons for this difference between France and England-I have stated. They belong to history; they belong to the past; they belong to the fact, that a monarchy governed in France which sought to humble the aristocracy, while an aristocracy governed in England which sought to abase the Commons. But there are three causes which more especially operate at the present time to maintain the distinction originated by former laws, and customs, and intentions.

First-The influence of women in France, and the higher cast of their thoughts and their pursuits. Secondly-The "esprit de corps," which in France, as connected with the natural vanity of the French, I have already noticed. And lastly, the state of property in France the state of property, which enters more than people imagine, into every relation of life, into every production of human intelligence, into every law passed for social happiness, and which, when we consider the present state of France, it is most especially our duty to keep before us.

The greater frivolity of English women, and consequently the greater frivolity of English society, necessarily create a kind of fear and horror among that body for a being who, having been guilty of writing, is supposed, oftentimes very fallaciously, to have been guilty of thinking, and who is therefore considered what a sober man would be by a set of drunken associates, viz.-a bore and a critic. The esteem which every man sets upon himself in England-so different from the vanity which makes every man in France connect himself, wherever he can, with all that is greater than himself, induces persons to view with jealousy instead of with pride, any man who, employ

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