tions, and Thoughts, and "Pocket- the latter part of the performance, Books," all intended to inform the pub-which, as a whole, resembles the comlic that the writers had enjoyed the position described by Horace, advantage, so envied by Sterne, of hav-«Undique collalis membris, ut turpiter atrum ing crossed the channel, and stepped on Disinat in piscem mulier formosa supernè : foreign ground. This prophecy, resting on inspiration, not unequal to that by which the predictions in our Annual Almanacks are guided, has received its fulfilment in the same remarkable man-vation, than is perceptible between the ner: the press teems with accounts of Travellers relative to France; their sage conjectures respecting her politics; and their scientific remarks on all the novelties she presents to them. We mean not, however, to complain of the tremendous addition to our labours which has accrued in conséquence of the successes of the Allied Armies; so far from it, we, coincide perfectly in the opinion with which the Author of these volumes concludes his observations :

The traveller has industriously exemplified the precept of the poet. For, never was there a more remarkable contrast in style, sentiment, and obser

The present we consider as the moment when all those who have had opportunities of judging of the French character, ought in duty to make public the information they have collected; for it is now that a more perfect intercourse must produce its effects on the two uatious; and taking it as an established maxim, that vice to be hated, needs only to be seen.' We have thus hastily laid our little store before the public; claiming their indulgence for the manifold faults which our anxious desire to avail ourselves of the favourable moment has unavoidably given rise to.

first and second of these volumes. This is honestly accounted for by the author, who confesses himself indebted for the first part of his work to the observations of some friends. To that part, then, which is most deserving of notice, we shall chiefly direct our remarks; and shall with pleasure lay before our readers some of the elegant and judicious observations with which it abounds, particularly on the state of the Fine Arts. in France, and the national character; which we have seldom seen better delineated. The evanescent features of the day are likewise caught with great spirit; the busy scene which Paris has presented during the last two years, is brought immediately before the reader's eyes, in the following description.

The streets of Paris are always amusing and interesting, from the numbers and varieties of costumes and characters which they present; but at the time of which we speak they might be considered as exhibiting an epitome of the greater part of Europe. Parties of Russian cuirassiers, Notwithstanding, however, that we Prussian lancers, and Hungarian hussarsTM, are very ready to give him credit for Cossacks old and young, from those whose the motives which induced him to pub- beards were grey with age, to those who Jish his "little store "of information, were yet beardless, cautering along after we feel it our indispensable duty to mark their singular fashion-their long lances. some of the manifold faults" with poised on their stirrups, and loosely which it abounds; in order, that should fastened to their right arm, vibrating over their heads; long files of Russian and his patriotism incline him to take anoPrussian foragers, aud long trains of Aus ther journey of discovery, the result of trian baggage-waggons winding slowly it may be laid before the public in lan-through the crowd; idle soldiers of all guage less vulgar and flippant; and his services, French as well as Allied, lounging attention be turned to facts somewhat about in their louse great-coats and trow more important than that at one innsers, with long crooked pipes hanging from he and his party had "a miserable pigging together," at another, the rooms “smoke like the devil,”—at a third, they had a “tough chicken, and a pork chop,"at a fourth, a good fowl, fine mutton chops, sweetbread, apple-fritters, and a custard pudding, with a good desert. Our censures must be understood as applying only to

66

their mouths; patroles of infantry parading about under arms, composed half of Russian grenadiers, and half of Parisian national guards; Russian coaches and four, answering to the description of Dr. Clarke, the postillions riding on the off-horses aud dressed almost like beggars; Russian carts drawn by four horses abreast, and driven by peasants in the national costume; Polish Jews, with long black beards,

dressed in black robes, like the cassocks of English clergymen, with broad leathern belts-all mingled with the Parisian multitude upon the Boulevards: and in the midst of this indiscriminate assemblage, fall the business, and all the amusements of -Paris, went on with increased alacrity and fearless confidence. The Palais Royal was crowded morning, noon, and night, with Russian and Prussian officers, in full uniform, decorated with orders, whose noisy merriment, cordial manners, and careless profusion, were strikingly contrasted with the silence and sullenness of the French officers.

The principal performers in this motley assembly next pass in review; the Emperor Alexander leads the way, no doubt as a deference due to his rank:

a very mteresting situation. We had gone to visit the Hotel des Invalides, and on entering the church, under the great dome, we found this celebrated commander accompanied only by his son and another officer, leaning on the rails which encircle the monument of Turenne. We followed him into a small apartment of the church, where the bodics of Marshals Bessieres, and Duroc, and the hearts of Generals Lariboissiere, and Baraguay D'Hilliers lay enbalmed, under a rich canopy of black velvet, in magnificent coffins, which were strewed with flowers every morning by the Duchess of Istria, the widow of Bes sieres, who came thither regularly after and lighted only by a small lamp which mass. This room was hung with black, burnt under the canopy, and threw its light in the most striking manner on the grey hairs, and expressive countenance of the old Marshal, as he stood over the remains of his late antagonists in arms. He heard the name of each with a slight inclination of his head, gazed on the coffins for some moments in silence, and then turned about, and as if to shew that he was not to be moved by his recollections, he strode out of the chapel, humming a tune.

and to the same consideration he owes some part of the panegyric lavished on him by the writer. His humanity is described as almost unparalleled; and the praise is supported by instances which are highly creditable to him. His simple mode of living is likewise well worthy of praise and of imitation. His skill in military tactics is also mentioned; but this is always a point which The different appearances of the vait is very difficult to ascertain in the cha- rious nations at that time in France, racter of Sovereigns. We have, indeed, under the strict forms of military disciamong us many well-meaning persons, pline, is noticed as forming a most who sit by their fire-sides and "know striking picture. The Prussian officers what passes in the Capitol," who not are remarked, as bearing in their counonly penetrate into the cabinet of tenance the fine expression of that roprinces; but find out that "that al-mantic energy with which their whole though the Duke of Wellington managed the battle of Waterloo pretty well; yet his manœuvres were very different from what they should have directed." The King of Prussia next follows, a brave and modest soldier ;and by his side appears Blucher, of whom we have the following interesting

account.

"An English gentleman who saw him at the time of the action, in which a part of his troops were engaged at Soissons, a few days previous to the great battle of Laon, gave a striking account of his cool, collected appearance on that occasion. He was lying in profound silence, wrapped up in his cloak, on the snow, on the side of a hill overlooking the town, smoking his pipe, and occasionally looking through a telescope at the scene of action. At length he rose up, saying it was not worth looking at, and would come to nothing.

"He never appeared in public at Paris ; but, we had the pleasure of seeing him in

nation entered into the war with France, under the impulse of the feeling so strongly marked in the formation of their "legion of revenge." The Russian Imperial Guard is described as the finest body of men in Europe; about 30,000 strong, when the regiments are all complete: the equipment of the artillery of the guard is likewise stated to be, probably, the completest in the world; " each gun of the horse artillery, is followed by three tumbrils of ammunition, and the artillery men, being all mounted and armed, a battery of horse-artillery is fitted to act in a double capacity." Military rewards and honours appear to produce a great effect on the minds of the Russian soldiers, who prize their medals and decorations most highly, and preserve them with religious fidelity.

The public buildings and environs of Paris are well described. St. Cloud

was the favourite seat of Buonaparte ; | military nation of France, Buonaparte

did but dexterously avail himself of her natural inclination, and turn to their best account, in his favour, the charac2 teristics which so peculiarly fit the French for becoming soldiers. That the

Versailles, of the Empress Marie Louise, and Malmaison, of the divorced Josephine: it would be easy for the reflective mind to trace the local circumstances on which the preference of each might be founded. The bold and rug-nation is pretty well inoculated with mi ged scenery around St. Cloud, which litary ardour, is evident, from the mistands upon a lofty bank overhanging nuteness of information displayed by all the Seine, looking down upon magnifi- ranks, on military affairs; which is res cent woods of aged elms, in the wildest presented as far exceeding among those form, and stupendous height, was well who had been in actual service, that of fitted to nurse in the mind of Napoleon the English soldiers. It should be rethose schemes of wild ambition which membered, however, that the fluency of purposed to "pile Ossa on Olympus." French narrative never suffers from That Versailles had been the chosen re- want of information; it is generally considence of a race of "legitimate mo- ducted on the same principle as that narchs," and of females of the house of which actuated Voltaire, who impatient Austria, was sufficient to endear that of waiting for documents, wrote his residence to Marie Louise, who is uni-siege of Rhodes from the stories of his formly represented as cold, proud, and own imagination. "Mon siege est haughty in her manner, and unconcilia-fuit," said he,when the long expected ting in her ordinary address." How dif- materials arrived. ferent was the cast of mind manifested in We should be glad to particularize the the attachment of Josephine to the beauti-acute distinctions, and vivid descriptions ful retreat of Malmaison !

of our authors in their political reflecThis villa had been her favourite resi- tions, but, as we must propose limits to dence while she continued Empress, and ourselves, we prefer some of their reformed her only home after the period of marks on the state of the Fine Arts, her divorce;-here she lived in obscurity wherein they appear to equal advanand retirement, without any of the pomp of a court, or any of the splendour which tage; and where the subject is more belonged to her former rank,-occupied congenial to our feelings. Indépen entirely in the employment of gardening, or dently of the question of right or wrong, in allevating the distresses of those around in the restoration of the pictures and sta→ her. The shrubberies and gardens were toes which had been collected in the laid out with singular beauty, in the En-Louvre by French rapacity, which con◄ glish taste, and contained a vast variety of siderably agitated the minds of the Parare flowers, which she had for a long risians, there is another view to be taken' period been collecting. These shrubberies of the subject, which may reconcile ar→ were to her the source of never failing enjoyment; she spent many hours in them tists in the north of Europe, to their re every day, working herself, or superintend. moval from a place which those intering the occupations of others; and in these ested described as possessing peculiar delightful occupations seemed to return advantages, on account of its central siagain to all the innocence and happiness of tuation. Our author, evidently leans to youth. the idea, that by assembling in one Our travellers were informed at Fon-point of view the productions of many tainbleau, where Buonaparte signed his first abdication, that he kept up his spirits and fortitude: and that, when he departed, under the custody of the Commissioners of the Allied Powers, the whole army wept-"there was not a dry eye in the multitude who were assembled to witness his departure." The strictures on the French army, and the Imperial Government, are extremely well written; they shew that in making a

ages, and consequently of many dif
ferent schools in painting, a comparison
of the excellencies and defects of each
might operate to produce a new one of
a more general character, free from er-
rors, perpetuated by the partiality with..
which each nation has surveyed its own
productions, regardless of the peculiar.
circumstances that may have controuled
or impeded its efforts towards perfection, ·
But, when we consider the state of so-

The old adage, “Evil communication corrupts good manners," is equally true in matters of taste as' of morality; and an eye continually beholding those deformities in art which innudate Paris and its environs, might, in time, turn from the sublime tranquillity, which the older masters knew how to preserve, even in the midst of passion, to rest upon the contortions, the bodily agenies, which it is the delight of the French David to represent; and the disgrace of his countrymen to admire. The French have no taste, because they have no feeling; those who do not feel them

ciety in Paris, the infinite variety of temptations it offers to the unthinking, the distracting interruptions to study, which must perpetually beset even those of the firmest resolutions,—who can deem a place so riotous, equally favourable to studious and regular habits, as Rome, with all her classic associations, her calinness, her beautiful climate, and surrounding scenery? What benefit may accrue to the artist from an evening walk to the Thailleries, or the Boulevards, where he is encompassed with French levity, grimace, and immorality? The very forms of nature are tortured into stiffness, and every surround-selves, can never make others feel. Noing object tends to awaken some painful thing.can illustrate more strongly the arrecollection of the ferocious and bloody gument in favour of keeping the producscenes connected with the revolution. tions of the Fine Arts in those places to Contrast this with the still majesty of which they seem to belong, and which the city of the Caesars, presenting, even we have been accustomed to associate in decay, the most magnificent demon-in our ideas of admiration of them, than strations of her former power, and im- the effect produced on any other than a printing on the mind of the artist, at Frenchman by the Musée des Monaevery step and every look, that, while mens Français; where the finest specithe vanity of mere worldly greatness and mens of sepulchral monuments, throughworldly contentions must cease, the de-out the country, have been gathered tovelopement of the finer powers of man, his approach to that ideal beauty which is shadowed forth in his own image-will survive the wreck of em 'pires, and the fluctuations of society. The impression which the grandeur and harmonious forms of some of the statues in the Louvre produced in the winds of the rudest nations, is well described.

The Hungariaus and the Cossacks, as we ourselves have frequently seen, during the stay of the allied armies in Paris, iguoraut of the name or the celebrity of those Works of Art, seemed yet to take a delight in the survey of the statues of antiquity, and in passing through the long line of marbled greatness which the Louvre presents, stopt involuntarily at the sight of the Venus, or clustered round the foot of the Apollo-indicating thus, in the expression of unaffected feelings, the force of that genuine taste for the beauty of nature, which all the rudeness of savage manners, and all the ferocity of war had not been able to destroy. The poor Russian soldier, whose knowledge of art was limited to the cracifix which he had borne in his bosom from his native land, still felt the power of 'ancient beauty, and in the spirit of the Athenians, who erected an altar to the unknown God, did homage in silence to that unknown spirit which had touched a new chord in his untutored heart.

gether, torn from the ashes they were intended to protect, and classed with as much precision as the words in a chemical nomenclature; and, we should suppose, they would excite as much feeling in the breasts of the contrivers of the plan, as would be roused by a list of acids and alkalies.

Adjoining to the Museum, is a garden planted with trees, in which many of the finest monuments are placed; but in which the depravity of the French taste appears in the most striking manner. It is surrounded with high houses, and darkened by the shade of fofty buildings: yet, in this gloomy situation they have placed 'the tomb of Fenelon, and the united monument of Abelard and Eloise: profaning thus by the barbarous affectation of artificial taste, and the still more shocking imitation of ancient superstition, the remains of those whose nanies are enshrined in every heart which can feel the beauty of moral excellence, or share in the sympathy with youthful sorrow.

The defects of French taste, and the fallacious principles on which it is founded, must have been evident, on the very entrance into the Louvre, in the first hall of which, among older and better works are placed the productions of their modern school.

tion into a nobler being, when the exertion of mortality has passed, and his powers seem to repose in the trauquillity of heaven; not Apollo, when straining his youthful strength in drawing the bow; but Apolio, when the weapon was discharged, watch

The general character of the school of French historical painting, is the expression of passion and violent emotion. The colouring is for the most part brilliant; the canvas crowded with figures, and the incident selected, that in which the painter might have the best opportunity of display-ing, with unexulting eye, its resistless course, ing his knowledge of the human frame, or the varied expression of the human countenance. In the pictures of the modern school of French painting, this peculiarity is pushed to an extravagant length, and, fortunately, for the art, displays the false principles on which the system of their composition is founded. The moment seized is uniformly that of the strongest and most violent passion; the principal actors in the piece are represented in a state of frenzied exertion, and the whole anatomical knowledge of the artist is displayed in the endless contortions into which the human

frame is thrown.

on

Some excellent remarks follow, the superiority of ancient sculpture over modern painting; owing to the exalted intention of the Grecian artists, who sought to embody their conceptions of the several attributes of mind, which they imputed to the respective deities whose temples they were called upon to adorn. It required no slight effort to excite the devotion of a cultivated people, whose perceptions of mental beauty were every where assisted by the beauties of nature with which they were surrounded; the tranquillizing effect of a serene and equable climate, and the fruitfulness of a soil that, relieving them from unnecessary cares for the maintenance of life, left them abundant leisure to multiply its most refined enjoyments, and to bring every work of art to the test of strict and unrelenting comparison.

The Grecian statues in the Louvre may be considered as the most perfect works of human genius, and after surveying the different schools of painting which it contains, we could not but feel those higher conceptions of human form, and of human nature, which the taste of ancient statuary had infused. It is not in the moment of ac

tion that it has represented man, but in mult of passion has ceased, and all that is great or dignified in moral nature remains. It is not Hercules in the moment of earthly combat, when every muscle was swollen with the strength he was exerting; but Herculez, in the moment of transforma

the moment after action, when the tu

and serene in the enjoyment of immortal power. And inspired by these mighty examples, it is not St. Michael when struggling with the Demon, and marring the beauty of angelic form by the violence of earthly passion, that Raphael represents; but St. Michael in the moment of unruffled triumph, restraining the might of Almighty power, and radiant with the beams of eternal mercy.

We could with great pleasure have multiplied our extracts from these critical remarks, which are conceived in a spirit of true taste, and expressed with elegant felicity; but we must not omit a few observations respecting the general character, and state of society, in France.

Our author appears to think the patriotism of the French chiefly built upon vanity to his incessant flattery of this frivolous disposition, Buonaparte certainly owed whatever interest he inspired, in this lively people; although he evidently cared nothing about their happiness. In his decorations of Paris, they forgot the ruin and insolvency of the distant provinces. A Frenchman who hears the Louvre commended, takes it as a personal compliment. The French talk much of the glory of their country; but, about the good of it they care little: few persons step forward to take a part in public affairs merely from the thought of rendering a service to the nation. Their gratitude is no greater than their dişinterestedness, and the very names of many of the Marshals to whom they owe the distinction on which they pride themselves, seemed unknown to. the citizens of Paris. Contempt of Religion, and laxity of moral principle, are the leading features of the French, in the present day: their virtues we might be at a loss to particularize: their good qualities are sobriety, cheerfulness, and gund temper; these render them oblig ing to strangers, and peaceable among each other, as may be seen in the Hotel des Invalides, the inhabitants of which live together in a state of harmony, which it would be well if our veterans în