"How can you be so absurd as to throw away your time in this manner? Don't you know that Mr. is only a younger brother?-I must once again repeat what I have told you frequently before-never to allow any man to monopolize your attention till I have given the signal by holding up my fan."

I lately, too, received a lesson for my vanity I shall not easily forget: I danced at a ball with a very pretty girl, who, having visited the Continent, and travelled even as far as Naples, possessed a fund of conversation very superior to that of the generality of unmarried females whom I meet in society. She received my attentions so favourably, that I ventured to hand her to supper, and to keep by her side during the remainder of the evening. In going away I was introduced to her parents, and was invited to their house, where I soon became a constant visitor. This intercourse had continued some days, when calling one morning at our ambassador's, I learnt that a near relation of the young lady, on the day after the ball, had made the most particular enquiries there respecting the extent of my fortune and the antiquity of my family. I found, too, that great anxiety had been expressed to ascertain whether I was the identical Marquis de Vermont, who possessed the hotel in the Rue Foubourg, St. Honoré, whose garden, opening in the Champs Elysee, had so often excited the admiration of the person who asked the question. In short, I found that the young lady and her family were fond of Paris, and that all the civility, which they had bestowed on me, arose from a selfish speculating on the advantages of a possible matrimonial union with a rich inhabitant of their favourite city. Need Ladd, that, after making this discovery, the sweetest smiles of the fair fortune-hunter could not induce me to repeat my visits.

While on this subject, will you permit me to observe, that, in spite of the supposed reserve and diffidence of the females of this country, I perceive no backwardness, when those who address them are the known possessors of large fortunes, or the immediate heirs of persons so circumstanced.

Wherever I go, I see mothers impatient to display the showy, useless, and often but imperfectly acquired accomplishments of their daughters. Equal anxiety is manifested to get them seated, at dinner and supper parties, near those single men, whose expectations are supposed to be the most promising; and, when the manoeuvres for carrying such arrangements into execution fail of success, I often see the prettiest faces disfigured by the expression of anger and disappoint

ment..

Indeed, no greater contrast can be exhibited than that, which may be traced in the countenance of a London belle, when she listens well pleased to the silly nonsense of a youth of fashion in possession of the requisite qualification, and when she is doomed to bear the annoying attentions of a single quiz, or married bore. In the one case she assumes a thousand smiles, and her behaviour is easy, polite, and almost too. condescending. In the other her answers are cold, monosyllabic, and repulsive. In short, it seems to me that your young women come into society as into a market; and that every moment: not so employed as to tend in some degree to their views, end, and aim, is considered both by them and their parents as lost and thrown away.

While, therefore, you blame French parents for entering into negociations for the union of their children, you should recollect, that, though such is not the habit of this country, here, too, interested considerations are not forgotten.

Perhaps, too, the open manner in which we transact these affairs in France is preferable and less indelicate than those secret schemes and match-makings which are so common in England, and in which the youngest girls are often taught to play a part.

This letter is already too long, but I cannot conclude it without observing, that both sexes are equally culpable in this respect. Among the subjects of conversation universally introduced at your tables after the departure of the ladies, I know no one more common than the fortune of reputed heiresses: nor is it at all unusual to hear young men

on such occasions declare themselves willing to give their hands to women, no matter how old or ugly, provided they possess the means of gilding amply the matrimonial pill. Nor are such speeches merely made in the exuberance of spirits, for I have met with several instances of boys married to women old enough to be their mothers.

Think not, however, as you read these remarks, that I think ill of England, or feel disposed to caricature her manners: my sentiments and my intentions are quite the reverse.

The longer I live here the more I find to admire, but when you attri bute to national peculiarities those faults and foibles, which, though

met with in France, are common to human nature, justice compels me to call your attention to similar imperfections found on this side of the Channel.

Pecuniary considerations must every where be the motive of many marriages, but I will candidly ac knowledge, that, generally speaking, the inclinations of the heart seem to me more attended to in England than on the Continent, and the reason of this is obvious; you are the richest nation in the world, and have therefore less reason to allow the voice of love and nature to be stifled by the dictates of cold-hearted prudence. Adieu.

I AM somewhat addicted to snoring-start not, my good reader, at this extraordinary assertion; I am fully awake now. Indeed I may be wrong; I have never had the pleasure of hearing those musical sounds issue from the tubes of my olfactory organs; but I may not presume to doubt the words of Mrs. Cinna, who declares that the noise proceeding from my chamber in the night-time resembles, for all the world, that of a herd of elephants somnolizing under a palm-tree. This is very extraordinary!

Snoring, delicate reader, according to the best authorities, is that sound or noise which is heard, or supposed to be made, in the passage between the palate and the nostrils that boiling or bubbling noise which in respiration proceeds from the larynx or head, or orifice of the aspera arteria: thus having given the anatomical definition of the cause, I shall proceed to the explanation of the effect..

It has been my unfortunate chance to be thrown into situations where this my failing (if indeed the world will hold it one) has brought me into peculiar ill will. Indeed, it has procured me also the cognomen of "Stertor," an epithet which, like King Richard's "Sluggard," I am by no means ambitious of being distinguished by.

It is indeed an unfortunate propensity. Mr. L. H———, mine espe cial friend, would not speak to me for a month owing to a singular cir cumstance, which took place at his house some years since, and which gave me great discredit by reason of his misrepresentations among my literary acquaintances. I was in vited with Mr. S, who was then in England, Messrs. P, Kand a few other choice spirits, to hear the first private reading of his new poem. It had been an extreme ly warm summer's day; and as we sipped our delightful, qualified bohea, the cooling breeze, which, as Keats has somewhere observed, "kiss ed our ivory fronts," was excessively pleasing and grateful. It certainly is a most exhilarating beverage; and upon this occasion it did its office to a t. Wit and repartee dropped from the mouths of each as fast as the queries and retorts of Jonson, and I felt inclined to burst my sides with laughter-this seemed auspicious-alas! the calmest sky is often the forerunner of a storm. My friend L, on account of my years, had assigned to me a venerable arm-chair, which, like Gay's, was hereditary; it had an extremely soft back-" fearful annunciation, you exclaim; you are right; that delicately tender soft back was my undoing. After discussing three

awaken a gentleman who was reposing in an alcove behind. "Oh dear! I believe it's gone now," said the first lady, "for I don't hear its dreadful howls;" I-I mean the gentleman-conjecturing what had been the matter, walked off as quietly as he could..

I must also relate an instance of the unwarrantable authority exercised by the holy fathers of the church. I rode over, being then upon a visit at my friend G's,— to R- and it happening to be Sunday, I attended divine service; the weather was somewhat oppressive, and the seat commodious; the text, I believe, “In that day shall they be awakened as from a sleep." But I heard not the arguments-I must acknowledge, I slept. In a field adjoining this sacred place grazed a "solitary ass; this animal occasionally uttered that sound which is denominated braying; and upon the present occasion-Oh!must I go on?-as I unconsciously snored peculiarly loud, the brute fancying, (I suppose) for he fancied like an ass, that it was the voice of a comrade, set up a hideous roar-the clergyman and congregation were astonished the junior part were convulsed with laughter-a dreadful response echoed from my nose to this donkeyish ebullition-and he, not to be behind-hand in politeness, returned the compliment with interest; this was too much-but the mirth was, if possible, increased, by the clergyman's calling gravely to the parateur, "turn that beast out

to his brother."

Thus you see, Mr. Editor, I was born under a most malignant star; to think that I have been mistaken for a ghost, (I really possess a grave appearance) a polar bear, and an ass-an ass!!! oh! gentle reader, I almost snore at the thoughts of it. But if it has been injurious in some respects, it has been really beneficial in others. Some thieves once broke into our house, and were ransacking the next room, when they took to their heels at hearing what they mistook for the unearthly

bellowings of the devil, but which was in reality my voice during a sound sleep.

I never dream; and it is certainly better to snore than to dream; I have none of the nocturnal spectra -no incubi, or headless monsters floating in my disturbed slumbers; I lay me down and rest; sleep steals upon me almost the instant I couch my head-sleep the most tranquil and profound. Perhaps one reason may be I eat no supper; I go to bed soon and rise early-but oli, my unfortunate lungs!-my most unmusical larynx!-I am no sooner placidly laid in the arms of Somnus, than a piping arises which would frighten his Satanic majesty himself -a noise not unlike that of a bassoon, or a hymn chaunted in a country church. Would that I might sleep in a vessel during a rough and boisterous sea-my nose has a natural antipathy to any thing more sonorous than itself; I will hold a wager, let the winds roar and the rain pelt as they would, it shall outstorm them all.

L'ENVOY.

CINNA,

I understand that there have been several questions concerning my identity. Now, as this is an affair in which I may, I hope, be allowed to take a part, I beg leave to declare, for the satisfaction of all such querists, that my name is really and bona fide, Cinna. Being introduced once to a young lady, she smiled, and whispered to a sprightly beau near her," Lord! what a heathenish unchristian name!" I am sure the ancient family of the Cinnas were much beholden to her-I am also much perplexed by the fooling manner in which my friends of Cockayne pronounce it. "How came you," said P to me one day, "to get so appropriate a name as Sinner?" This was too bad. How would he approve of my saying, "I like the last scene in Mirandoler?

Eur. Mag. Vol. 82.

3 E

THE Canton of Berne is divided into Bailiwicks or Prefectures, as they are now called; each of these Prefectures elect two deputies to the Sovereign Council, and every town the same number. The elections are made by the majority of suffrages of the citizens, and on the nomination of the Magistrates, Overseers, and other public officers. The candidates must be thirty years of age at least, and possess ten thousand Swiss francs, or fifteen thousand French franks (about 6251. sterling). These elections produce eighty-six Councillors, a number, doubtless, sufficient to represent such a small population and so confined a territory, particularly as the elections, being held in the respective jurisdictions, are not so liable to be perverted by foreign suggestions

or influence.

To complete the third part of the National Representation, there remains about sixteen places to be filled. The nomination is left to the Council; and such power was, undoubtedly, granted by the Legislature, with very generous intentions. It affords to indigent merit, precocious talent, and obscure vir tue, an opening to public offices, and that in the quickest, surest, and most honourable manner; for in a Republic, the free, spontaneous suffrage of the Magistrates is to a citizen the most flattering distinction. Several elections of this nature prove, that the Bernese Senate was imbued with the spirit of the Constitution; and it is evident, that in making these elections, public opinion, rather than private suggestion, was attended to. But as the best institutions are not perfect, and as those, which appear irreproach able in theory, are often defective in practice, because men, and generally passionate or prejudiced men, execute them, it may be easily conceived, that this, also, is subject to some inconveniences; as, for exam

ple, being destined to favour merit in the lowest ranks of the people, it only perpetuates old prejudices and obsolete pretensions; and thus a measure, calculated to render a government more popular, only tends, on the contrary, to strengthen aristocratical influence.

The Grand Council is the Legislative Assembly of the Canton. It discusses and promulgates the laws; regulates the police; contracts political alliances and treaties; appoints the Foreign Ministers, Deputies of the Diet, and the Officers of the Federal Contingent; examines the public accounts, and superintends the expenditure of the public revenues. But it exercises no authority over the different branches of the Administration: this authority is vested in the Little Council, whose members, taken from the Great Council, and appointed for life, are, in reality, the heads of the Republic. These magistrates are 27 in number, including the two Avoyers, who are perpetual Presidents, and who divide between them the advantages and honours of the supreme power.The same popular spirit which modified the old Constitution, relative to the Great Council, prevails also in the composition of the Little Council, in which the inhabitants of the cities and country are allowed to sit; and there actually are, at the present time, two peasants in the Little Council,-a progress towards democracy, which may appear very slight, but which, in reality, is very remarkable in an aristocracy so inflexible as that of Berne, and which, it must be allowed, had acquired the right of considering itself in possession of the wisdom, as well as the confidence of the people.The Little Council, or Council of State, is charged with the detail of the Administration, the nomination to all the civil employments of the Canton, judicial and military, with the receipt and expenditure of the