Hon; the Frenchman an eagle; the Italian a fox; and the Spaniard an elephant.

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"In the sciences, the German is a pedant; the Englishman a philosopher; the Frenchman has a smattering of every thing; the Italian is a professor; and the Spaniard a profound thinker.

Magnificence-In Germany the princes; in England the ships; in France the court; in Italy the churches; in Spain the armories; are magnificent.

"Husbands (make the conclusion), in Germany they are masters; in England servants; in France companions; in Italy schoolboys; and in Spain tyrants."

I will readily grant you, my dear madam, that one-third of these singular characteristics is untrue, and sometimes absurd; but the other two thirds I could vouch to be true. With regard to us Germans, we have the least reason to complain of the painter; if he had but omitted the horrid libel that we do not understand how to love, and that among us husbands are masters, we might then be well satisfied with him.

Now let us, if you please, walk further up this library suspended by threads; it borders on another of musical productions, which is followed by a third, consisting of pictures: among the musicals, you find all the new ariettas, duets, &c. from the most popular French and Italian operas: among the pictures, a representation of every thing that is most interesting to the Parisians; for example, Fanchon, the lute girl; the fine drum-major of the consular guard, with his enchanting whiskers; the first consul's superbly dressed mameluke; and of course, the first

consul himself, in a thousand different attitudes, especially with his drawn sword in his hand, replanting the cross, Faith presenting him with a palm branch, and the other two consuls by his side; or the beautiful madame Recamier, with

her face half veiled.

Plenty of caricatures are like. wise to be met with here, and the king of England is at present the general mark at which the French direct the shafts of their satire; for which they are, however, not only more abundantly, but even more wittily, requited by their transmarine neighbours; for it must be confessed, that among twenty French caricatures, there is scarcely one that has any claim to wit. Here you see the king between his good and evil genius, throwing himself into the hands of the latter; there an Englishman riding upon a Calcutta turkey; on the pommel of the saddel are wine-hampers with bottles, and below is written," the attack." The companion to this print is the defeat, where the same Englishman is seen flying on a fleet stag, losing his hat and tobaccopipe.

Here, the duke of C-mbr-ge is driving the Hanoverian post-waggon, and behind it is a cask, on which is written Hanoverian blood; there an army of frogs, whose general wears British regimentals, and rides on a lobster, while a Frenchman takes up one frog after the other, and cuts them in two with his broad sabre. At other times, an elephant is laying hold of the king's cup, and dashing it with his trunk into a well; on the cup is to be read this inscription, "Thou must go to pieces after all."

In some of these wretched productions,

ductions, Mr. Pitt is represented riding on his m-j-sty's back, on the sea shore, peeping at the French ships in the offing; here the sovereign leaps over the channel, and in his jump loses his crown; there he picks up a number of paper cases, on which the names of his dominions are written, but, unable to hold them all, he lets some of them fall. Hanover is already on the ground, Ireland just tumbling, and Malta appears very loose. Here the English are seen flying before a cloud of dust, raised by a flock of sheep; and there Mr. Pitt exercising his troops, all of whom have pig's heads. The caricature which may perhaps be called the wittiest, is the following: a maker of trusses for ruptures presents the king with a new truss, on which is written, "observation des tratiés-the observance of treaties." At his majesty's feet lie two broken bandages, one bearing the inscription, "forces navales-or, naval forces;" the other, "levée en masse-raising in a mass." Thus you see that politics are the axis round which every thing turns. A few only of these distorted figures attack the manners of the English; such as, for instance, the English family in Paris, where a huge, clumsy Englishman, stuffed with roast beef, leads two stiff misses by the arm, who make a very awkward curtesy, &c. &c.

Hence it appears, on the whole, that no doubt is entertained as to the success of a descent upon England; and if you will not credit the printsellers, you may bestow your belief on that fellow, who, surrounded by hundreds of hearers, is singing a ballad, describing to a tittle all the occurrences of the future landing. If you wish to hear

his vain, bombastic prophecies, permit me, in the mean time, to go to that statuary's barred yard, which is so full of busts and statues, of marble stone, good and bad, that there is scarcely a narrow winding footpath left to the artist's door; nor am I ashamed to stop before this shop with children's play-things, where Fanchon, the lute-player, again performs a distinguished part, and where I observe a circumstance which is quite a riddle to me, viz. that the French, who are so fond of toys, are far behind the people of Nuremburg in inventing and fabri cating children's toys; and the Nurembergers again are perhaps as much excelled by the people of Berlin.

If you are by this time tired of the squalling of the ballad-singer, we will saunter about the garden of the Capuchin's, where there are tigers and monkeys, where Franconi exhibits his equestrian feats, where the spirits appear at night, and where, in a word, a thousand different spectacles are to be gazed at from morning till night. Here stands for a moment a portable booth, hung with old carpet, in which my dear punchinello is very amiably fighting with the devil. Two hocus-pocus men attract crowds on both sides; one by cups, the other by tricks with cards. A much greater concourse of people gathers round a man whose whole apparatus consists of a chafing-dish full of glowing charcoal, and about half a dozen small pieces of asbestos. He begins with an impressive account of the expedition to Egypt: whilst his neighbour represents at the same time in his show-box, to those who like to see it, what heroic exploits were achieved by his assistance in

that country against mamelukes and crocodiles; and how he once stripped one of the slain men of his shirt, and found that it did not consist of linen, as usual, but of a fossil fabricated into cloth, which the Egyptians use for the sake of convenience, as they need not wash or dry their shirts, but only throw them into the fire in the evening, and take them out again in the morning as white as snow.

In order to impress on the minds of his hearers a conviction of the truth of what he says, he seizes one of the needles, to which he has fastened a small bit of asbestos, and turns it round in the mud till the original colour cannot be distinguished; he then throws it into the chafing-dish, and while it is glowing, continues to harangue his audience for a few minutes longer, when he draws it out of the fire, and, to the great astonishment of all the spectators, quite purified by the fiery element.

One of my neighbours, who seemed to be a wit, compared his whole process to the French revolution; which likewise arose pure, new, and brilliant, out of the glowing fire. I wish, with all my heart, that nobody could dispute the truth of this assertion.

LETTER IV.

The strong woman who is to be seen in this hut of planks, is still more disgusting than the female with the long black beard. With the latter, pity gains the upper hand; for how can the poor creature help being obliged to wear a beard so immensely long? but with the former, disgust and indignation get the better of compassion. The one merely obeys nature, the other sets VOL. XLVI.

her at defiance. She suffers three men to tread upon her body, which is stretched out in a hollow posture; she suffers iron to be forged upon it, and exhibits other tours des forces, from which you, my dear, very properly turn away. But how can I help it? You must creep with me into another hut of this kind to see the incombustible Spaniard, who really excites as much horror as admiration. Do you see the jar of oil, bubbling and boiling over a coal fire? the young man, who takes it off, drinks a hearty draught of its burning contents without distorting a feature, rinses his mouth for a long time with it as if it were fresh water, and spits it out still boiling; he then, with the remainder of the oil in the pot, washes his hands, arms, face, and even eyes, which, however, he shuts. Having been purified by the fire, like the asbestos, he takes a walk, by way of change, with his naked feet upon a piece of red hot iron, and to refresh himself, he even licks the glowing metal with his tongue. If this poor youth be equally insensible to the flames of love, he is undoubtedly to be pitied. All this is no imposture, but really happens as I have now related; but whether, as some assert, he causes a kind of salamander-ointment to be rubbed into his skin, which is not to be perceived, I shall leave undetermined.

To efface these unpleasant impressions, let us for a few minutes step before this little fortress, of which you find many patterns on the Boulevards. It is a new kind of game at nine-pins, at which you not only see boys, but even respectable looking citizens delight to play. It is, indeed, preferable to the usual game, as it takes up much less room,

and may be removed from one place to another. This little fortress is about the height of a man, built in the form of an amphitheatre; below it has a draw-bridge, over which the walls are gradually raised, and on them a number of soldiers stationed at intervals. Eight or ten yards from the fortress a wooden mortar (or even a cannon) is planted, from which, as with the children's guns, a ball is discharged. The force of the mortar is calculated exactly according to the distance, from eight to ten paces. The skill in this play consists in taking so good an aim, as to knock down one or more soldiers at once, or even in accurately hitting the very centre, in which case, the draw-bridge falls, and by means of the spring, which has been touched by the ball, a state coach with six horses comes out: in others a white flag is hoisted at the top of the fort; the ball is lost within, and comes out again at the bottom. This pretty game has manifold advantages over the common game at nine-pins; it can be exhibited in the smallest garden, nay, even in any room in the least spacious. It requires but trifling bodily exertion, so that even ladies may play. It is interesting, because the aiming and hitting premises a certain dexterity and practice; in short, by describing this game, I hope to have furnished a pleasing supplement to the gymnastic exercises.

Decorum not permitting us, my dear friend, to partake of this game, on the Boulevards, we had better look awhile at those poor little canary birds, who are instructed in yonder booth in all sorts of arts directly contrary to their nature. Here one turns a spit; another drives his fel

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low in a wheelbarrow; a third stands centry with his gun, sword, and grenadier's cap; a fourth does not stir from his master's shoulder, though he beat the drum loud enough to make one run away; a fifth fires a cannon, the burning cork of which knocks a sixth down from the table, and leaves him on the ground for dead; a seventh sits in the very middle of a flaming wheel, as quiet and merry as if perched upon a rose-bush in its native island. You have probably often seen such things in Germany, though not in equal perfection; but one observation relative to these birds, you have perhaps never heard. It was made by their teacher and master, and affords matter of reflection. "The hen," said he, "certainly takes every thing much quicker than the cock, and I can generally render them very skilful at the expiration of a few weeks, but they soon forget, and soon die.” Methinks his argument respecting the feathered tribe may be equally applied to his tormentors, men; for if our belles learn moral or æsthetic arts, they do not indeed die of it, but their loveliness generally finds its tomb in them.

Having yet half an hour to spare, let us make use of it to see two ce lebrated fountains. The fountain in the Rue Grenelle is really very fine, but the street narrow and obscure; the fountain has not a fres exposure on all sides, and the great building is, besides, deformed by all sorts of signs. On the right is a large painted cow, because milk is sold there; on the left is a carpenter's sign, &c. To me, pardon the heresy, if it really be one, it will always appear ridiculous to raise such a building with two wings to such a

height

height of three stories to decorate it with columns and statues, and all this on account of the two lions' heads below, a few feet above the ground, which you do not even perceive, because there is no stream of water; but what little remains must be brought up by pumping.

Of the inscription, which is for the most part erased, only these words remain: "For the use of the citizens, and for the ornament of the city." The conclusion alone is true, and that only in part. This end might have been obtained much more splendidly in another manner. We have still a long way to the other fountain in the market of the Innocents, (marché des Innocens) I shall therefore quickly conduct you by the infamous Abbaye, which you will recognize by its small distant turrets at the corners. In the inner part of the court the windows are secured in a manner so singular, and cruelly inventive, that the prisoner can absolutely see nothing, though a little light comes in at the top. The windows resemble a box in which caterpillars or cockchafers are shut up, the covers of which are placed slanting, that these animals may have just a little air. Here is the door, out of which the victims were thrown during the epoch of terror; here we stand on the spot, where the lurking cannibals received and tore them to pieces; this is the kennel where human blood flow. ed like water. O! let us hasten away! it is a terrible spot! and I would not even accept of a palace as a gift, if it were facing the Abbaye, though a more modern inscription says that it is now used only as a military prison.

Now we are in the marché des Innocens The fountain may be

fine when the water flows; but it is still worse than that in the Rue Grenelle, as not a single drop can be pumped out, it being quite dry. The large bason, which stands at a considerable height in the centre, looks like a round tea-table, which has just been placed there, and forms an odd contrast with the surrounding objects. Upon the whole, this monument is altogether extremely filthy, and out of repair. To indemnify you, however, for being disappointed in your expectation, please to cast a look on the fine market-place, which, by its spaciousness and bustling scenes, is far more interesting than that useless piece of architecture. There, in numerous rows, monstrous fat women, called Poissardes, or fish-women, are seated under large umbrellas, between eight and ten feet in diameter, forming, if viewed from above, a roof resembling that of the ancient Roman soldiers, when advancing with their shields thrown over their heads, in a manœuvre, called the testudo. These umbrellas are not the property of those women, but hired in the market for a few sous. Thus screened from the rain and the sun, you may here admire mountains of butter, shoals of fish, stores of eggs, towers of apples and pears, gardens of flowers, and great quantities of grapes and other sorts of fruits, together with a party coloured mixture of vegetables, among which, the large dazzling, white, and neatly raised heaps of cauliflowers, afford a spectacle par ticularly pleasing. Listen a little, meanwhile, to the energetic patois (gibberish) of the stout market women, an energy from which you have now nothing to fear; and if the view of so many dainties has 3 D2

created