a napkin, a large loaf, and a wine for each. This .oom is ado.. with paintings of the towns taken, in 1672. In the soldiers' room the cloth was not yet laid; it had paintings of merely the plans of the fortifications taken in 1667. The great kitchen is high and cleanly, but apparently not very large for such an establishment. There is a separate kitchen for the apothecary, The chapel has nothing very particular; but the greatest attention and expense has been bestowed. Apon that part which is under the dome, and upon the dome itself. The architecture of this part, in the form of a cross, is beautiful; the floor of the rotunda and of the adjoining chapels is of marble, adorned with fleurs de lis Here is a monument to Vauban, erected, as the inscription says, par S. Li, l'Empereur et Roi, 1807: -another monument for Turenne, who is represented dying in the arms of victory, with the battle of Turkheim in 1675, in has relief. The interior of the cupola and the ceilings are adorned with beautiful paintings set in richly gilt franes. This hospital was originally erected by Louis XIV. While I was in th's hospital, a large body of foreign roops, returning from exercise in the Champs de Murs, marched by with drums and music playing, and colours flying: what effect this must have upon the feelings of these veterans in their retreat may be easily imagined.

The

The Foundling Hospital, which I had often heard mentioned as an institution more extensive than any other of the kind, I did not find, as I expected, to be a building upon a scale of extraordinary magnitude. It is near the Observatory and the Boulevard du Parnasse. The whole institution is now placed under what they call la Maternité. building just mentioned contained only one hundred beds, or rather iron cradles, in one large room, besides an infirmary for the sick infants; these cradles had white coverings, and the room seemed to be sufficiently spacious for that number of infants under the age of two years; for when arrived at that age they are sent to other houses, called Hospices des Orphelins. The hundred cradles in this room were not now filled by about thirty, though sometimes they are not sufficient. Whilst I was surprized at the small number of these infants in the house, I was much more surprised, when I was told, that the number with the nurses in the country, amounted to fourteen thousar Each infant, on being received,

this day (16th

[Aug. 1,

its cap with a eginning every new cr'one: the number of September) was 3,600 and a few more. In the infirmary there were many infants; there was a fire and scveral nurses. The woman attending me uncovered and showed to me many pitiable-looking babies; at last coming to one cradle, she said: "I fear this poor thing is dead." She uncovered it, and sure enough it was dead, cold, and stiff, and its mouth covered with froth. The woman "ppeared quite indifferent about it. Whilst the principal object of this institution seems to be, to prevent infanticide, for which it is well calculated, I cannot help entertaining doubts of the expediency of carrying it to such extent, as will invite the idle and profligate to leave their offspring to the care and charge of the public, and deprive thousands of infants of the fostering care of their parents, who, though poor, would still have found means to bring up these children, if this easy resource were not held eat to them.

are

Othe Hospices des Orphelins, to which the foundlings are sent, when past two years old, I visited one in the rue St. Antone. It is a very good building, inclosing a large square planted with trees, and a large chapel. The rooms airy and clean, and the utensils properly scowered. The children appeared decently clean, though not like what you are accustomed to in England. Their appearance was also healthy, considering the general complexion of French children. The girls make the linen for themselves and for the boys, when these are sent out to employment. The nurses seemed, by their dress, to belong to a religious order, and had a very respectable appearance.

Several of the hospitals bear the inscription: Hospice d'Incurables, which does not allude to lunatics, but to crip. ples, superannuated, and sick past recovery. A large hospital of this kind is in the rue Recollet, formerly a monastery of the Recollets. It is a fine large stone building, with an open ground along the whole front, containing about five hundred patients. In this neighbourhood is also the large hospital of St. Louis, which is now said to be restricted to diseases of an eruptive nature; I was told that it contained at present about twelve hundred patients. The lower bedrooms were vaulted and white-washed, and contained three rows of beds each, without curtains, and open to a thorough

1816.]

A Trip to Paris in August and September 15.

air. A pretty large church is attached to it. The patients, who were walking about, had a dirty appearance. Val de Grace, another hospital, was formerly a Dursery-a fine building, and one of the ornamental objects in a view of Paris. There are in front of several houses in Paris, inscriptions of Bureau de Beneficence, which evidently alludes to a charitable institution, the nature of which I have not yet had explained to me. In one of the churches here you may still see a board, on which is inscribed a decree of the Emperor of the year 1805, whereby the churchwardens are authorized to make a collection for the poor, at eleven o'clock at high mass, on Sundays only.

I have already had many political disputes with French politicians, and should have had more, if a long suspension of practice had not deprived me of that facility of speaking French,without which such controversies cannot be carried on with proper spirit. In a company where a portrait of Blücher was exhibited, a Frenchman exclaimed: "That man has done us a deal of mischief!"-" But consider, Sir, what misery the French had before inflicted on the Prussians!""Mais!" replied the Frenchnian, "apres avoir eu tant de tems a y reflechir !"

An old duchess observed: "We are told that the English and Prussians believe in the Gospel, (l'Evangile,) which commands us to forgive our enemies.""Ah, Madam! the French armies have published such a new version of this sacred text, by their cannon and bayonets in other countries, that it were not to be wondered at if the inhabitants of those countries should in some degree be infected by it."-"These are evasions," said the duchess: respect forbade any further reply.

"Well!" said a French gentleman to me," the English will be masters of Europe till they choose to give it up."It is curious to hear these men make up the account of profit and loss for the powers concerned in the war. England," they say, "has gained every thing: she having by her trade deprived the continental powers of the greatest part of their cash, returns them a small part of it, after they have expended all they had left, to enable them-certainly to recover their independence-but finally to accomplish the purposes of England; that is, to destroy her great political rival; whilst England at the same time knows how to repay herself. Prussia must give up East Friesland to Ilano

ver, which is England; the latter gaining thereby an undisturbed inlet into the continent for her trade and manufactures: Hildesheim is added to it upon Buonaparte's principle of arrondissement. A great increase of territory is procured for the King of Belgium, who is but a viceroy of England; who admits her manufactures for a small duty, which is easily evaded. She has taken the most eligible colonies from the Dutch, and probably will obtain still more at the final settlement of affairs; whilst she allows nobody to take notice of her immense Asiatic acquisitions."

"England," they exclaim, " pays all the nations of the Continent!" "But France," was my reply, "has robbed and plundered them all." This they seem to admit by an exclamation of "Ah!" and a shrug of the shoulders." The English have beaten us by finance only," said a Frenchiman. "By finance also, à la bonheur!" I answered; "for they have not acted as you have done, in imitation of those Indians who cut down the tree to get at the fruit.”—“ C'est beau!” exclaimed a French lady, understanding the application; "quand on vient l'année prochaine, il n'y a rien."—" Why," they will exclaim, "make the whole nation suffer for the crimes of a chief and his adherents?" "But who will draw the line? When this chief was successful, you were all eager to partake of the glory, and hailed him with acclamations. You are like the trumpeter in the fable, who, when the enemy took him in battle, and were going to put him to death, cried: Why punish me? I killed nobody: I only sounded the trumpet."-" If the other allies were to leave France," said a French officer," not a Prussian should get out of it alive. I wonder why these Prussians should treat us so much worse than the English do?" "It is perhaps because you have never been in the kitchens and cellars of the English.""Have not the Allied Sovereigns declared that their hostility is directed against Buonaparte only: that individual is expelled; why continue to treat us hostilely?" "The declaration was certainly made by the allies when they entered the French territory for the first time, and was ever declaration more religiously adhered to? Does history furnish a parallel to such generosity and magnanimity, as that with which the French nation was treated by those who had suffered from them years of misery and insult? No contribution, nor any restitution of booty, was demanded of them;

4

A Trip to Paris in August and September 1815.

and when, after so short a space as a few months, you spurn at this clemency, nay, treat it as the effect of fear, and array yourselves again under the standard of the obnoxious chief, have you a right again to appeal to a declaration of the Allied Sovereigns, by which, in the first instance, they were desirous to make a distinction in favour of the greater part of your nation, as having been in a state of coercion under a military chief and his army?" But why," they say, "raise such a cry against us and our military conquests? have not the Allied Sovereigns or their predecessors done the same when they had the opportunity? Look at Poland-look at Finland-taken by force of arms, without any provocation, (we will admit by compulsion,) from a king for being the last who persevered in the field against the man and the cause held in abhorrence by the monarch who overwhelmed and despoiled this last champion that stood up against it on the Continent: and when the compulsion ceases, Finland is still retained, and another power despoiled of an aucient part of its dominious to serve as an equivalent."

These are strong points. As to the conduct of the three neighbours of Poland, it is to be hoped that the extreme humiliation to which they have felt themselves reduced, will be considered by them as an evidence that there is a Supreme Governor over kings and nations, who will sooner or later take vengeance for such flagrant infractions of the immutable laws of justice between men and between nations. As to the seizing, and more particularly the retaining, of Finland, pudet hæc opprobria dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli. That accursed measure of transferring even ancient and integral parts of a country to another sovereign, may in some cases be called for by necessity, but ought never to be resorted to except in a case of manifest necessity. What reason, what right, have sovereigns over such new, and even changing acquisitions, to expect a cordial loyalty and affection from such new subjects, whilst even a dog requires some time to wean him from his attachment to his former master?

The observation of the Frenchmen, however, amounts to no more than that other sovereigns have made, and may still make, encroachments upon their neighbours, but that is not the present question. The question is, of a chief who made it his system to overturn the

[Aug. I,

governments of all his neighbours, and exercise bis dominion over all of them; and whenever any potentate, either in the south or in the north, shall appear to have adopted that system, it will be the right and the duty of all the rest to unite, and to hunt him down like a beast of prey.

"Your English ministers," observed another Frenchman, "ought to erect on the highest mountain in Scotland a temple to the God of Frost and Snow, to whom they are indebted for their success more than to their own abilities."Non nobis Domine! ought certainly to be sung with a most cordial feeling and conviction on the present occasion by the successful Allies; who, however great the merit of their exertions to profit by the favourable crisis, will no doubt ascribe all their success to the great Author of Nature, who alone could produce this crisis; and if the French, on their side, would seek in the justice of that same Being the cause of their overthrow, it would perhaps form the best basis of a cordiai union among all the parties.— Some future historian will perhaps discover and trace a resemblance in the features of the present times to those of the Reformation. At that period religious interests had, as political interests the minds of men, producing a crisis at the present day, long fermented in by which, as the physical body is affected by a fever, so the body politic becomes violently convulsed.

(To be concluded in our next.)

MR. EDITOR,

THE subjoined account of the concluding scenes of the life of Thonias Paine was read at a public meeting some weeks ago by a very respectable member of the Society of Friends, in my hearing. From his brother I procured this copy of the account. I rather think that Wm. Dilwyn, his daughter, and the young person who visited Paine and gave the account to Dilwyn's daughter are of the same society. As almost the whole world was injured by Paine's pernicious principles, I hope you will not refuse to increase the circulation as widely as possible of his recantation. Wishing you increasing and continued success, I remain, &c. A. B.

The following is an extract of a letter received by Mr. William Dilwyn, of Walthamstow, Essex, from his daughter in America. The writer is of the most unquestionable respectability, and ap

1816.] Some l'articulars of the last Illness of Thomas Paine.

pears recently to have received the information stated in it from a person equally entitled to credit. The latter had resided in a family in the near neighbourhood of the celebrated Thomas Paine, who resided at Greenwich, near New York, and during his last illness had contributed to his comfort by occasionally preparing and sending him food and refreshments more adapted to his situation than he usually enjoyed. These the informant chose to be the bearer of (although his personal circumstances were so deplorable that the air of his chamber could scarcely be endured) to his bedside. In performing this humane office she had the opportunities of conversation with him which authorise the writer's belief that he exhibited another proof of Dr. Young's assertion, that Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die." The letter proceeds to say, that she found him frequently writing, and believed from what she saw and heard that, when his pain permitted, he was almost always so engaged, or in prayer, in the attitude of which she more

than once saw him when he thought himself alone. One day he enquired if she had ever read the "Age of Reason," and on being answered in the affirmative desired to know her opinion of that book. She replied, she was but a child when she read it, and probably he would not like to know what she thought of it. Upon which he said, if old enough to read, she was capable of forming some opinion, and from her he expected a candid statement of what that opinion had been. She then said, she thought it the most dangerous and insinuating book she had ever seen; that the more she read the more she wished to read, and the more she found her mind estranged from all that is good; and that from a conviction of its evil tendency she had burnt it, without knowing to whom it belonged. Paine replied to this, that he wished all who had read it had been as wise as she; and added, "If ever the devil had an agent on earth I have been one." At another time when she was in his chamber, and the master of her family was sitting by his bed-side, one of Paine's former companions came in; but seeing them with him, hastily went out, drawing the door after him with violence, and saying, "Mr. Paine, you have lived like a man; I hope you will die like one." Upon which, Paine, turning to his principal visitor, said, "You see what miserable comforters I have." An unhappy female, who had accompa

5

nied him from France, lamented her sad fate, observing, "For this man I have given up my family and friends, my property and religion; judge, then, of my distress, when he tells me that the principles he has taught me will not bear me out!"

MR. EDITOR,

BY giving publicity to the following Address and Resolutions, you will essentially promote the best interests of humanity, your uniform attention to which has already merited and obtained to your miscellany so large a portion of the public favour.

I hope in a future number to report progress, and at no distant period to record the triumph of good sense and benevolence over cruelty and oppression, by the substitution of mechanical power for infant torture. WM. TOOKE.

Bedford Row, June 17, 1816.

London, June 8, 1816. ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC.

Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys, by encouraging a new Method of sweeping Chimneys, and for improving the Condition of Children and others employed by Chimney Sweepers.

This society originated in February, 1803, in a spontaneous expression of the public commiseration in favour of a depressed class of their fellow-creatures, on the anonymous summons of a humble individual (since deceased) for a general meeting, when a very liberal subscription was raised, and the institution duly organized.

The miserable condition of climbing boys had not escaped the attention of many benevolent individuals at a previous period, as in 1773 inquiries were instituted, and in 1788 Jonas Hanway associated with other philanthropic characters in promoting a bill in Parliament, admirably calculated for the protection of chimney sweepers' apprentices, and which passed the House of Commons; but, unfortunately, the most important and efficient clauses were omitted in the House of Lords, and the Act of the 28th George III. c. 48, as it now stands, is altogether inadequate to the object which it professes to

effect.

In addition to the above may be stated, that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Conimerce, from time to ume proposed premiums for the invention of mechanical means of sweeping chimneys; but such premiums being either purely honorary, or small in pecuniary amount, appear not to have induced any generally practicable plan, although several

6 Society for improving the Condition of Infant Chimney Sweepers. [Aug. 1,