about which quartos are written, and sixty-volumed Biographies Universelles, and Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædias, and the like! the facts are nothing in it, the names everything; and a gentleman might as well improve his mind by learning Walker's Gazetteer, or getting by heart a fiftyyears-old edition of the Court Guide. "Having thus disposed of the historians, let us come to the point in question-the novelists. This pithy piece of special pleading is succeeded by some excellent remarks on the general incompetence of travellers to form a just estimate of the habits and characters of a strange people. "Passing from novels in general to French novels, let us confess, with much humiliation, that we borrow from these stories a great deal more knowledge of French society than from our own personal observation we ever can hope to gain for, let a gentleman who has dwelt two, four, or ten years in Paris (and has not gone thither for the purpose of making a book, when three weeks are sufficient)-let an English gentleman say, at the end of any given period, how much he knows of French society, how many French houses he has entered, and how many French friends he has made?—He has enjoyed, at the end of the year, say "At the English Ambassador's, so many soirées. At the houses to which he has brought letters At cafés At French private houses } so many tea parties. so many dinners. say three dinners, and { very lucky too. "He has, we say, seen an immense number of wax candles, cups of tea, glasses of orgeat, and French people, in best clothes, enjoying the same; but intimacy there is none; we see but the outsides of the people. Year by year we live in France, and grow grey, and see no more. We play écarté with Monsieur de Trêfle, every night; but what know we of the heart of the man-of the inward ways, thoughts, and customs of Trêfle? If we have good legs, and love the amusement, we dance with Countess Flicflac, Tuesdays and Thursdays, ever since the Peace; and how far are we advanced in acquaintance with her since we first twirled her round a room? We know her velvet gown, and her diamonds (about threefourths of them are sham, by the way); we know her smiles, and her simpers, and her rouge-but no more she may turn into a kitchen wench at twelve on Thursday night, for aught we know; her voiture, a pumpkin; and her gens, so many rats: but the real, rougeless, intime, Flicflac, we know not. This privilege is granted to no Englishman: we may understand the French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate into Flicflac's confidence: our ways are not her ways; our manners of thinking, not hers: when we say a good thing, in the course of the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the bêtise of the Briton, who has never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day after her marriage to the day she reaches sixty, she thinks you a fool. We won't play at écarté with Trêfle on Sunday nights; and are seen walk ing, about one o'clock, (accompanied by fourteen red-haired children, with fourteen gleaming prayer-books,) away from the church. Grand Dieu !' cries Trêfle, is that man mad? He won't play at cards on a Sunday; he goes to church on a Sunday; he has fourteen children!' "Was ever Frenchman known to do likewise? Pass we on to our argument, which is, that with our English notions, and moral and physical constitution, it is quite impossible that we should become intimate with our brisk neighbours; and when such authors as Lady Morgan, and Mrs. Trollope, having frequented a certain number of tea parties in the French capital, begin to prattle about French manners and men,—with all respect for the talents of those ladies, we do believe their information not to be worth sixpence; they speak to us, not of men, but of tea-parties. Tea-parties are the same all the world over; with the exception that, with the French, there are more lights and prettier dresses; and, with us, a mighty deal more tea in the pot. "There is, however, a cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a man may perform in his easy chair, without expense of passports or postboys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating library, he sends his imagination a gadding, and gains acquaintance with people and manners, whom he could not hope otherwise to know. Twopence a volume bears us whithersover we will;-back to Ivanhoe and Cœur de Lion, or, to Waverley and the Young Pretender, along with Walter Scott; up to the heights of fashion with the charming enchanters of the silver-fork school; or, better still, to the snug inn parlour, or the jovial tap-room, with Mr. Pickwick and his faithful Sancho Weller. I am sure that a man who, a hundred years hence, should sit down to write the history of our time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary history of Pickwick aside, as a frivolous work. It contains true character under false names; and, like Roderick Random, an inferior work, and Tom Jones (one that is immeasurably superior), gives us a better idea of the state and ways of the people, than one could gather from any more pompous or authentic histories." Mr. Titmarsh then, in illustration of his theory, quotes some striking pictures of Parisian life, from the novels of M. de Bernard, a writer little known in these countries, but as Mrs. Gore is about to translate some of his most popular productions, we shall content ourselves with quoting a single page of comment on the description of a CARNIVAL BALL. "The 'rugissements et bondissements, bacchanale et saturnale galop infernal, ronde du sabbat tout le tremblement,' these words give a most clear untranslateable idea of the Carnival ball. A sight more hideous can hardly strike a man's eye. I was present at one where four thousand guests whirled screaming, reeling, roaring, out of the ball-room in the Rue St. Honoré, and tore down to the column in the Place Vendôme, round which they went shrieking their own music, twenty miles an hour, and so tore madly back again. Let a man go alone to such a place of amusement, and the sight for him is perfectly terrible: the horrid frantic gaiety of the place puts him in mind more of the merriment of demons than of men: bang, bang, drums, trumpets, chairs, pistol-shots, pour out of the orchestra, which seems as mad as the dancers; whiz a whirlwind of paint and patches, all the costumes under the sun, all the ranks in the empire, all the he and she scoundrels of the capital, writhed and twisted together, rush by you; if a man falls, wo be to him: two thousand screaming menads go trampling over his carcass : they have neither power nor will to stop. "A set of Malays, drunk with bang, and running the muck, a company of howling dervishes, may possibly, at our own day, go through similar frantic vagaries; but I doubt if any civilized European people, but the French, would permit and enjoy such scenes. But our neighbours see little shame in them; and it is very true that men of all classes, high and low, here congregate and give themselves up to the disgusting worship of the genius of the place." The next essay which attracted our notice is one on "" Napoleon and his System," and here Mr. Titmarsh is not so much at home. Napoleon is too grand, too vast an object for him, and he does not know what to make of him; he cannot jump over him, nor put him in his pocket, nor walk with him arm in arm, and so he takes to abusing him, as we suppose he has done more at length in a recent production which we have not seen:* altogether, what with his democratical tendencies, and his profession of anti-humbuggism, he is in a sad quandary. There are however splendid passages in the essay, but we dare not enter upon it: it would lead us into an interminable argument with the author-and besides have we not our friend, Count Stiffinhisstock, to fight it for us? The battle of the fortifications is just over, and the discomfited Captain Dieaway has retreated to the drawing Tremble, O Titmarsh, the Count, with his one finger, shall slay thee. room. drawing on stone. The two former may be called art done by machinery. We confess to a prejudice in favour of the honest work of hand, in matters of art, and prefer the rough workmanship of the painter to the smooth copies of his performances which are produced, for the most part, on the wood-block or the steel-plate. "The theory will possibly be objected to by many of our readers: the best proof in its favour, we think, is, that the state of art amongst the people in France and Germany, where publishers are not so wealthy or enterprising as with us," and where Lithography is more practised, is infinitely higher than in England, and the appreciation more correct. As draughtsmen, the French and German painters are incomparably superior to our own; and with art, as with any other commodity, the demand will be found pretty equal to the supply: with us, the general demand is for neatness, prettiness, and what is called effect in pictures; and these can be rendered completely, nay imcopying the artist's performances. But to copy proved, by the engraver's conventional manner of fine expression and fine drawing, the engraver himself must be a fine artist; and let anybody examine the host of picture-books which appear every Christmas, and say whether, for the most part, painters or engravers possess any artistic merit? We boast, nevertheless, of some of the best engravers and painters in Europe. Here, again, the supply is accounted for by the demand; our highest class is richer than any other aristocracy, quite as well instructed, and can judge and pay for fine pictures and engravings. But these costly productions are for the few, and not for the many, who have not yet certainly arrived at properly appreciating fine art. "Take the standard 'Album' for instance--that unfortunate collection of deformed Zuleikas and Medoras (from the Byron Beauties, the Flowers, Gems, Souvenirs, Casquets of Loveliness, Beauty, as they may be called); glaring caricatures of flowers, singly, in groups, in flower-pots, or with hideous deformed little Cupids sporting among them; of what are called mezzotinto' pencil drawings, 'poonah-paintings,' and what not. The Album' is to be found invariably upon the round middle classes, and with a couple of 'Annuals' berosewood brass-inlaid drawing-room table of the sides, which flank it on the same table, represents the art of the house; perhaps there is a portrait of the master of the house in the dining-room, grim The second volume opens with a laudation of lithography, and its beneficial effects in popularising art, not forgetting its politi-glancing from above the mantel-piece; and of the tical influence, in the diffusion of caricatures. Here the author is quite at home, and discourses very much to the purpose, as the reader shall have an opportunity of judging, though we can only extract a couple of passages. The comparison between the state of the arts in England and on the Continent is too important to be omitted. "In England, where money is plenty, enterprise so great, and everything matter of commercial speculation, Lithography has not been so much practised as wood or steel engraving, which, by the aid of great original capital and spread of sale, are able more than to compete with the art of The Second Funeral of Napoleon, and the Chronicle of the Drum, by Mr. M. A. Titmarsh. mistress over the piano up stairs; add to these some odious miniatures of the sons and daughters, on each side of the chimney-glass; and here, commonly (we appeal to the reader if this is an overcharged picture), the collection ends. The family goes to the Exhibition once a year, to the National Gallery once in ten years: to the former place they have an inducement to go; there are their own portraits, or the portraits of their friends, or the portraits of public characters; and you will see them infallibly wondering over No. 2645 in the catalogue, representing The Por There countries are, to be sure, inundated with the productions of our market, in the shape of Byron Beauties, reprints from the Keepsakes, Books of Beauty, and such trash; but these are only of late years, and their original schools of art are still flourishing. trait of a Lady,' or of the 'First Mayor of Little Pedlington since the passing of the Reform Bill;' or else bustling and squeezing among the miniatures, where lies the chief attraction of the Gallery. England has produced, owing to the effects of this class of admirers of art, two admirable, and five hundred very clever, portrait-painters. How many artists? Let the reader count upon his five fingers, and see if, living at the present moment, he can name one for each. holidays, have no place of resort but the tap-room "On a banni les démons et les fées, Ah! croyez moi, l'erreur a son mérite !" "If, from this examination of our own worthy middle classes, we look to the same class in France, what a difference do we find! Humble cafés in country towns have their walls covered with pleasing picture papers, representing Les Gloires de l'Armée Française, the Seasons, the Four Quarters of the World, Cupid and Psyche, or some other allegory, landscape, or history, "We are not putting in a plea, here, for demons rudely painted, as papers for walls usually are; and fairies, as Voltaire does in the above exquisite but the figures are all tolerably well drawn; and lines; nor about to expatiate on the beauties of the common taste, which has caused a demand for error, for it is none; but the clank of steamsuch things, undeniable. In Paris, the manner engines, and the shouts of politicians, and the in which the cafés and houses of the restaurateurs struggle for gain or bread, and the loud denunciaare ornamented, is, of course, a thousand times tions of stupid bigots, have well nigh smothered richer, and nothing can be more beautiful, or more poor Fancy among us. We boast of our science, exquisitely finished and correct, than the designs and vaunt our superior morality. Does the latter which adorn many of them. We are not prepared exist? In spite of all the forms which our policy to say what sums were expended upon the paint- has invented to secure it-in spite of all the ing of Véry's or Véfour's, of the Salle-Musard, or preachers, all the meeting-houses, and all the leof numberless other places of public resort in the gislative enactments, if any person will take upon capital. There is many a shopkeeper whose sign himself the painful labour of purchasing and peis a very tolerable picture; and often have we rusing some of the cheap periodical prints which stopped to admire (the reader will give us credit form the people's library of amusement, and confor having remained outside) the excellent work-tain what may be presumed to be their standard manship of the grapes and vine-leaves over the door of some very humble, dirty, inodorous shop of a marchand de vin. "These, however, serve only to educate the public taste, and are ornaments, for the most part, much too costly for the people. But the same love of ornament which is shewn in their public places of resort, appears in their houses likewise; and every one of our readers who has lived in Paris, in any lodging, magnificent or humble, with any family, however poor, may bear witness how profusely the walls of his smart salon in the English quarter, or of his little room au sixième in the Pays-Latin, has been decorated with prints of all kinds." The reflections with which our author follows up his comparison are admirable, and we give them at length. They are truly full of wisdom, and deserve to be laid to heart by every one, who discerning the evils of our present state of social existence, is also minded to aid in remedying them. "Can there be a more pleasing walk, in the whole world, than a stroll through the Gallery of the Louvre, on a fete-day: not to look so much at the pictures as at the lookers on? Thousands of the poorer classes are there: mechanics in their Sunday clothes, smiling grisettes, smart, dapper soldiers of the line, with bronzed wondering faces, marching together in little companies of six or seven, and stopping every now and then at Napoleon or Leonidas, as they appear, in proper vulgar heroics, in the pictures of David or Gros. The taste of these people will hardly be appoved by the connoisseur, but they have a taste for art. Can the same be said of our lower classes, who, if they are inclined to be sociable and amused in their in matters of imagination and fancy, he will see how false the claim is that we bring forward of superior morality. The aristocracy, who are so eager to maintain, were, of course, not the last to feel, the annoyance of the legislative restrictions on the Sabbath, and eagerly seized upon that happy invention for dissipating the gloom and ennui ordered by Act of Parliament to prevail on that day-the Sunday paper. It might be read in a club-room, where the poor could not see how their betters ordained one thing for the vulgar, and another for themselves; or, in an easy chair, in the study, whither my lord retires every Sunday for his devotions. It dealt in private scandal and ribaldry, only the more piquant for its pretty flimsy veil of double entendre. It was a fortune to the publisher, and it became a necessary to the reader, which he could not do without, any more than without his snuff box, his opera-box, or his chasse after coffee. The delightful novelty could not for any time be kept exclusively for the haut ton; and from my lord it descended to his valet or tradesmen, and from Grosvenor-square it spread all the town through; so that now the lower classes have their scandal and ribaldry organs, as well as their betters (the rogues, they will imitate them!); and as their tastes are somewhat coarser than my lord's, and their numbers a thousand to one, why, of course, the prints have increased, and the profligacy has been diffused in a ratio exactly proportionable to the demand, until the town is infested with such a number of monstrous publications of the kind as would have put Abbé Dubois to the blush, or made Louis XV. cry shame. Talk of English morality!-the worst licentiousness, in the worst period of the French monarchy, scarcely equalled the wickedness of this Sabbathkeeping country of ours. "The reader will be glad, at last, to come to the conclusion that we would fain draw from all these descriptions-why does this immorality exist? Because the people must be amused, and have not been taught how; because the upper classes, frightened by stupid cant, or absorbed in material want, has not as yet learned the refinement which only the cultivation of art can give ; and when their intellects are uneducated, and their tastes are coarse, the tastes and amusements of classes still more ignorant must be coarse and vicious likewise, in an increased proportion. "Such discussions and violent attacks upon high and low, Sabbath-bills, politicians, and what not, may appear, perhaps, out of place, in a few pages which purport only to give an account of some French drawings: all we would urge is, that, in France, these prints are made because they are liked and appreciated; with us they are not made, because they are not liked and appreciated;-and the more is the pity. Nothing merely intellectual will be popular among us: we do not love beauty for beauty's sake, as the Germans; or wit, for wit's sake, as the French: for abstract art we have no appreciation. We admire H. B.'s caricatures, because they are the caricatures of well-known political characters, not because they are witty; and Boz, because he writes us good palpable stories (if we may use such a word to a story); and Madame Vestris, because she has the most beautifully shaped legs;-the art of the designer, the writer, the actress (each admirable in its way), is a very minor consideration; each might have ten times the wit, and would be quite unsuccessful without their substantial points of popularity. "In France such matters are far better managed, and the love of art is a thousand times more keen; and (from this feeling, surely) how much superiority is there in French society over our own; how much better is social happiness understood; how much more manly equality is there between Frenchman and Frenchman, than between rich and poor in our own country, with all our superior wealth, instruction, and political freedom! There is, amongst the humblest, a gaiety, cheerfulness, politeness, and sobriety, to which, in England, no class can shew a parallel; and these, be it remembered, are not only qualities for holidays, but for working-days too, and add to the enjoyment of human life as much as good clothes, good beef, or good wages. If, to our freedom, we could but add a little of their happiness!-it is one, after all, of the cheapest commodities in the world, and in the power of every man (with means of gaining decent bread) who has the will or the skill to use it." cent soidisant religious manifestations in Paris, from which we extract the following: "It must be confessed that the controversialists of the present day, have an eminent advantage over their predecessors in the days of folios: it required some learning then, to write a book; and some time, at least ;-for the very labour of writing out a thousand such vast pages would demand a considerable period. But now, in the age of duodecimos, the system is reformed altogether: a male or female controversialist draws upon his imagination, and not his learning; makes a story instead of an argument, and, in the course of 150 pages (where the preacher has it all his own way) will prove or disprove you anything. And, to our shame be it said, we Protestants have set the example of this kind of proselytism-those detestable mixtures of truth, lies, false-sentiment, falsereasoning, bad grammar, correct and genuine philanthropy and piety-I mean our religious tracts, which any woman or man, be he ever so silly, can take upon himself to write, and sell for a penny, as if religious instruction were the easiest thing in the world. We, I say, have set the example in this kind of composition, and all the sects of the earth will, doubtless, speedily follow it. I can point you out blasphemies, in famous pious tracts, that are as dreadful as those above mentioned; but this is no place for snch discussions, and we had better return to Madame Sand. As Mrs. Sherwood expounds, by means of many touching histories and anecdotes of little boys and girls, her notions of church history, church catechism, church doctrine:-as the author of 'Father Clement, a Roman Catholic Story,' demolishes the stately structure of eighteen centuries, the mighty and beautiful Roman Catholic faith, in whose bosom repose so many saints and sages,-by means of a three-and-sixpenny duodecimo volume, which tumbles over the vast fabric, as David's pebble stone did Goliah; as, again, the Roman Catholic author of Geraldine,' falls foul of Luther and Calvin, and drowns the awful echoes of their tremendous protest by the sounds of her little halfcrown trumpet; in like manner, by means of pretty tales, and cheap apologues, Mrs Sand proclaims her truth-that we need a new Messiah, and that the Christian religion is no more! O awful, awful name of God! Light unbearable! Mystery unfathomable! Vastness immeasurable! -Who are these who come forward to explain the mystery, and gaze unblinking into the depths of the light, and measure the immeasurable vastness to a hair? O name, that God's people of old did fear to utter! O light, that God's prophet would have perished had he seen!-Who are these for the most part, weak women-weak in intelthat are now so familiar with it? Women, truly, lect, weak, mayhap, in spelling and grammar, but marvellously strong in faith. Women, who step down to the people with stately step and voice of authority, and deliver their two-penny tablets, as if there were some Divine authority for the wretched nonsense recorded there! But we are far exceeding our limits, and must bring these extracts to a close. The remainder of the essay, which we strongly recommend to the attention of all our readers, contains a minute and humorous account of the grand contest between Louis Philippe and the caricaturists; telling how Louis Philippe, after sundry defeats, and victories as bad as defeat, succeeded at length in driving his "With regard to the spelling and grammar, our graphic enemies from the vantage ground Parisian Pythoness stands, in the goodly fellowof politics, and restricting them or banish-ship, remarkable. Her style is a noble, and, as ing them to the wide domain of social far as a foreigner can judge, a strange tongue, beautifully rich and pure. She has a very exubeknavery, and domestic folly. rant imagination, and, with it, a very chaste style There is an amusing account of the re- of expression, She never scarcely indulges in VOL. III. NO. XVII, Q declamation, as other modern prophets, and yet her sentences are exquisitely melodious and full. She seldom runs a thought to death (after the manner of some prophets, who, when they catch a little one, toy with it until they kill it), but she leaves you at the end of one of her brief, rich, melancholy sentences, with plenty of food for future cogitation. I can't express to you the charm of them; they seem to me like the sound of country bells-provoking I don't know what vein of musing and meditation, and falling sweetly and sadly on the ear." The essay on the trial and condemnation of Peytel, for the murder of his wife, and on the defects of the French judicial proceedings, is well worth reading, and illustrates many distinctive peculiarities of the national character, but we can only refer our readers to it. The following, taken from the paper headed "French Dramas and Melodramas" is worthy of attention, and shows the writer in a favourable light, as a tolerant and good natured anti-humbuggist. "The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom they are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an opinion, there is, in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind of rude moral. The Boulevard writers don't pretend to tabernacles and divine gifts, like Madame Sand and Dumas, before mentioned. If they take a story from the sacred books, they garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with the text; but they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably wicked, or ask pity and admiration for tenderhearted criminals and philanthropic murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the Boulevard; and it's fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars out cruel sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life of her child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene. 'Ah, le gredin' growls an indignant countryman: 'Quel monstre !' says a grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies; and, like babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and audience enter warmly into the illusion of the piece, and so especially are the former affected, that, at Franconi's, where the battles of the empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks of the mimic army, as in the real imperial legions. After a man has served, with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he is promoted to be an officer-an acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may rise to be a Colonel, or a General of Division; if ill, he is degraded to the ranks again; or, worse degradation of all, drafted into a regiment of Cossacks, or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth, however; nay, it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts receive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They will not consent to be beaten every night, even in play; to be pursued in hundreds by a handful of French, to fight against their beloved Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue in this, and pleasant child-like simplicity. So, that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the enlightened classes, | is profoundly immoral and absurd, the drama of the common people is absurd, if you will, but good and right-hearted.". The last essay in the second volume, "Meditations at Versailles," is a lay homily on the littleness of Louis le Grand, very proper to be read by court chaplains, and other admonishers of the powers that be. And now that we have, under Mr. Titmarsh's guidance, and through this or the other of his favourite spy-holes, taken a peep at this wondrous Paris-now comes the question-was it after all the author or the publisher that made the book? For the amusing papers from which we have so largely extracted, occupy hardly half the work, and the other half is, we lament to say, of far inferior quality. Interspersed with those keen and lively essays, are tales of obsolete diablerie, and stories of modern society, so slightly illustrative of life in Paris, or indeed of any thing else, that we are puzzled, except on the book-making principle, to account for their appearance in the "Paris Sketch Book." It is possible, however, that the writer had some purpose in them, though he has not taken pains enough to make it clear. We can trace here and there a vein of allegorical satire, which indicates a deeper meaning, were we willing to search for it; but, not having time or inclination to do so, we deem it most charitable to surmise that they were published for the sake of the etchings which accompany them, Mr. Titmarsh being his own artist, and apparently taking pride in, or making a hobby thereof. There is one short tale, however, "Beatrice Merger," of a different stamp, and worth reading; it shows that in this department as well as in others, the author has capabilities beyond his performances. But bidding adieu to guesses, and moving the previous question, we may be permitted to remark that it would save the critics a world of trouble, and be no doubt a consolation to the authors, if publishers would occasionally shame the devil, and put at the corner of their title pages, somewhat in the fashion of an old print, the truthful intimation :— Cooper commentus est....Colburn coëmpsit. Titmarsh scripsit.... Macrone conglomeravit. and so on; that is when the books have any thing in them; otherwise it does not signify. But where a poor scribbler has any brains, and has disposed of his right and title to a part vintage thereof, for sundry mutton chops and pots of porter, it is rather an annoyance to have the ruthless |