A kind English friend has taught anxious countenances and rapid me, “By dint of hand and eye, How to obtain a perfect tie." Indeed I am so metamorphosed, that you would scarcely recognize me.— I can now pass unquizzed through a crowd of dandies; and I had even, a few days since, the glory of overhearing one of the most renowned of these heroes express his approbation of the brilliant polish which my boots displayed. In respect to hours, I was at first guilty of some most ante-diluvian mistakes, by knocking at the doors of those, to whom I had letters of introduction, at a part of the day when the only persons expected were the milkman, the baker, or the butcher. After having had my patience exhausted in waiting at several houses for admission, I found it was uniformly denied me, while many a yawning footman, as he answered my enquiries from the area, said his master would not be visible for at least four hours. I have therefore found it necessary on this point also to conform to your usages. Being, however, habitually an early riser, it was essential to my comfort that the mornings should not be thrown away, and I have found a delightful resource in devoting that portion of my time to the sights of London. In this manner I have already been enabled to visit St. Paul's, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum, without interfering with my other pursuits. By this arrangement (for which I have, as a precedent, the high authority of the imperial Alexander) I vary and multiply my enjoyments, and take care never to appear in the purlieus of haut ton, till, to use the phrase of one of your most celebrated elegantes, "the day is properly aired." Indeed it appears to me that the British capital is inhabited by two distinct classes of people, one of whom might take for its emblem the bee, and the other the drone. If at nine o'clock I go into your courts of law, I find the learned judges of the land attended by a numerous and respectable bar, and by juries, witnesses, and attornies in the full exercise of their important functions. If I extend my walk to the city, I read in the paces of all I meet, the activity of men of business; while carriages and waggons of every description, loaded with merchandize, shew, that in this division of the town the value of time is properly appreciated; and if at the dawn of day I take an aquatic excursion on your beautiful Thames, I find it already enlivened by the animating sight of innumerable vessels in full sail, carrying the fruits of your industry to the most distant corners of the earth, or bringing home the wealth of the world. I often smile, and enjoy a moment of self-approbation, when, after an interesting survey of this kind, which has busily filled up six or seven hours, I direct my steps to Bond-street, and find the fashiona ble morning just beginning. 66 It seems, that in the western part of London “ il ne fait pas jour,” as we say in France, till about three o'clock of the natural afternoon; and though from thence till seven or eight o'clock constitutes the whole period between breakfast and dinner, yet even that short interval is too long for the tedium of idleness. What vigilant ingenuity has been exercised in devising new methods of destroying time and resisting ennui. Yet what languor and apathy mark the features of the most cele brated votaries of pleasure. What sauntering indifference is displayed in the steps of the well-dressed pedestrians, who, at the accustomed moment, commence their daily pilgrimage from the top of Bond-street to the end of Pall Mall. Some stop at the fruit-shops, and, careless of consequences, run up a bill for early strawberries, forced peaches, and pine-apple ices, which becomes not unfrequently the cause of their ending their days within the walls of the King's Bench prison. Some empty their purses in bidding for useless baubles at the splendid auction rooms of Philips and Christie. Some are attracted by the grotesque prints exhibited at the windows of the caricature sellers, and while staring at them pay dearly for their amusement in losing their money and watches, which become the prey of surrounding pickpockets. Some are persuaded to try their fortune at the gaming tables or billiard rooms, and among the vast crowd of loungers, scarcely any can resist the varied temptations which shops of every possible kind hold out to the vanity or the wants of the passers by. The ladies who occupy the splendid equipages which so thickly fill the same streets, at the same time, seem to be not much better amused than the humble loiterers on foot; and not less anxious than they to have recourse to every possible stimulus which novelty offers, no matter at what expense, to dissipate the gloom of unoccupied folly. At the panoramas, bazaars', milliners', perfumers', and above all, at the jewellers' shops, what strings of these carriages are seen, and how beautiful, yet how lifeless, do the women appear whom they contain. Hither they come, not to purchase necessaries or even ornaments want ed for any particular occasion, but in the vain hope, by lavishing money, to get rid of the load of ennui. Indeed, I am told, this favourite recreation, which your ladies call shopping, is often the cause of serious injury to the fortunes of their husbands. And a gentleman, who resides here, tells me that he was under the necessity of laying down his carriage, because he ascertained, by dire experience, that while his wife possessed an equipage, she could not resist the inclination of shewing it in Bond-street; and when there, she daily wasted such sums in the acquisition of trinkets and other costly play-things, as at the end of the year amounted to a much larger total than his whole income afforded. I am conscious, however, that as a Frenchman, I am not very patriotic in criticizing this habit of your English belles, for I am told that French China, French gowns, French pocket handkerchiefs, French bijoux, and above all, French rouge, are the articles which form the principal alJurements. From five till seven o'clock a migration takes place, and I see the same well-dressed crowds assembled in Hyde Park. Here I again admire the charms of the women, the beauty of the horses, and the neat assortment of the numerous carriagesbut while I confess that it is impossible for wealth and magnificence to make a prouder display, I must be permitted to remark, that I observe but few " merry faces," that every body seems to come hither "to see and to be seen," and that in performing a task enjoined by vanity and fashion, pleasure is rarely enjoyed. Nor can I dismiss this part of my subject without expressing my surprize that, with the whole range of so fine a park at their command, the frequenters of this favourite promenade confine themselves to the limited and ill-chosen space between Piccadilly and Cumberland gates, where they are subject not only to the smoke of the adjoining houses, but also to the annoyance of city fogs, whenever an easterly wind prevails; and, in writing to an old inhabitant of London, I need not remind him how often that occurs. For such inconveniencies, however, I suppose they think themselves indemnified, by being drawn into a smaller circle, for I observe, that crowds form so material an ingredient in an Englishman's ideas of enjoyment, that every opportunity is taken of collecting them. Nothing on this occasion has surprised me more, than to see ladies, as well as gentlemen, piloting their way on horseback between the closedrawn ranks of carriages which parade up and down.-Is it not strange that your wives and daughters should thus at once expose themselves to considerable risk, and make an exhibition so very inconsistent with that delicacy, which is generally believed to form one of the most amiable characteristics of Englishwomen? I am told, indeed, that the fashion is a new one, and that it is only within these few years, that female equestrians of character have made their appearance in this cavalcade. If so, let us hope, that it is only one of those accidental whims, in which the most faultless of the sex will occasionally indulge; and that, after this season, the belles of Britain will disdain to enter the lists with coachmen and barouche-drivers. Having presumed in this letter to censure freely, where I though censure deserved, I shall not conclude it without performing a more agreeable task, in telling you, that take it for all in all, I am delighted with London. The pleasing contrasts (as I have already had occasion to ob serve) presented in the two distinct characters and different habits of the commercial and idle parts of the population of this great city, afford a vast and amusing variety of objects. Indeed, I have so many present, that my only difficulty consists in selecting between things equally interesting. In my early excursions, I hesitate between a walk to Ken sington-Gardens, which, though deserted, are delightful in fine weather, or a visit of curiosity to the WetDocks, the British Museum, the Courts of Law, or the Exhibition at Somerset-House. When the protracted morning of fashion begins, I find it no less difficult to determine, whether I will join the gay promenaders in St. James's-street spend two or three hours in examin- And believe me ever your's, TO CLARA. My Clara! when each summer flow'r Tho' here, when friends around I see, For when my life's fair prospect seem'd Which, when all other flow'rs depart, Still bloometh in its ruin'd bow'r, Thou bloomest in my lonely heart. And shall I, then, the rose forget, Which seem'd in hope's wreath braided; And, like a spirit, lingers yet, Oh, no! the heart, which is the seat It is eternal as the soul, And lives and blooms beyond the grave. A never-ending token, Whose Justre and whose strength remain, When all, save that, are broken. AZAR, THE DEATH OF AN ATHEIST. LADY SELDON was weeping, and the violent efforts, she used to restrain her grief, only rendered it the more hysterical-her husband was dying but she wept not that the friend of her youth was departing from her-that he who soothed her in sickness and in sorrow, and who brightened her hour of gaiety, was leaving her to waste her lone hours in widowhood. No-all these re collections were lost in the overwhelming grief, that their separation would be eternal. She could have borne his death without an apparent pang-her sense of duty had, through life, so governed her feelings, that they appeared almost extinct but they were the more concentrated from the restraint and now that she had suffered them to overcome her, they mocked her endeavours to stifle them. Yet, for worlds, she would not have suffered her children to witness her weaknes; and, at length, her exhausted frame, worn with contending emotions, found relief in slumber. It would have been curious to an observer of nature, to have compared the agitated sleep of Lady Seldon, her convulsive start that threatened every instant to awaken her, with the placid and gentle repose of her lord, the unconscious cause of her sufferings. Lord Seldon was an atheist-he was dying his physicians doubted if he could live throughout the ensuing week; and his lady, who had been brought up in the strictest tenets of the Christian religion, feared he would die an unbeliever. Was there any hope she could now effect that, which for the space of eighteen years had been the aim and busines of her life? Daily had she urged the topic, and was always answered by her husband with exquisite good humour. She felt the delusive hope, that the morrow would prove more propitious than to-day. Once, and once only, when she urged him beyond his strength, having exhausted all her eloquence in favour of Christianity, and finding him still regardless, she could no longer restrain her anger, but with clasped hands and raised eyes, she exclaimed aloud,-"Behold, Oh Lord, the worm that dares deny thy existence and authority!"-then, bending her eyes on her husband with a look of desperation, she continued," And I had fixed my heart on a confirmed atheist-a man on whom the breath of heaven should not wander." Lord Seldon was now evidently displeased.-"Emily," said he, "when I see that religion, whose merits you are always asserting, cannot even teach you to command your temper, you will not blame my humility, when, I fear, its salutary effects might be equally lost upon myself."-He then hastily left the room, and his Countess internally vowed never more to name religion in his presence.-Lady Seldon, however, descanted daily, nay hourly, on its merits to her two children; and she never failed to set forth, in glowing colours, the horrors of atheism, and the certain fate that awaited it-perhaps an indefined hope, that she might reach the father's heart through the medium of his children, mingled itself with her exertions; but surely she was mistaken in the means she took to obtain this end. Her children, George and Laura, well remembered, that their Sunday pastimes had always been disturbed and prevented by their mother, but they vainly tasked their memories for the recollection of a single unkind word from their father. A falsehood, a theft however trivial, an unkindness to each other, he would not easily have pardoned; but they were amiable, kind-tempered children, and had never so offended to deserve his reproof. Lady Seldon, on the contrary, had often found them remiss in their religious duties; and though, at first, in early youth, their little inattentions were easily pardoned, yet now they were of an age to understand their duties, and to fulfil them; they found her harsh and unrelenting. Her temper was not naturally bad, but her religious feelings had received a wound from the continued infidelity of her husband, that could not be healed; and this gave added asperity to her opinions, and severity towards her children. It was, therefore, in vain she assured them, Atheists were the worst of human beings; that they were condemned to condign and eternal punishment. They well knew their father's opinions, and would not believe one they loved so well could be denied a resting-place in heaven.It was, perhaps, unfortunate for her purpose, that Lord Seldon's life had been exemplary; he had fulfilled every duty, public and private. He was so rich in intellectual knowledge, that he could afford to pay its tribute wherever he found it; his temper and disposition, naturally good, had been so well regulated, that he cast a sunshine over all with whom he associated; her endeavours, therefore, to inspire her children with horror of their father's opinions were unavailing, and they had this bad effect; they led them to make invidious comparisons, disadvantageous both to herself and to her religious tenets; they began to doubt the truth of what their mother told them, and to doubt, they say, is to be lost. Had Lady Seldon, instead of dwelling on the inflexible justice, shewed the unlimited mercy of her God, she had conquered. Christianity would have acquired new beauty in their eyes, from its clemency in pardoning even those who denied its power and authority. She disdained, however, to use this advantage; she would rather govern by fear than love; and as she never addressed herself to -God without fear and trembling at her own comparative insignificance, in the same degree she felt her superiority, and the degradation of those whose faith was not so firmly founded as her own.-She shuddered, on discovering the wavering opinions of her children, who were too artless to conceal them; and she forgot her love for her husband, when she considered him the original cause of her children's apostacy. A great change had lately taken place in Lord Seldon, an hereditary malady was fast destroying the seeds of life-his wife now thought it her duty to renew every endeavour for his conversion, for once she appealed eloquently, for she appealed to the heart, she descanted long on the immeasurable power of the Almighty -she told him that even yet it was not too late, "Repent-believe-have Eur. Mag. Vol. 82. you faith," said she, her heart upon her lips, as she turned to the dying sufferer. "If there be a God," said he, "good works will be more acceptable in his eyes, than blind faith, pronounced on the threshold of existence; and those benefits my station, my own wishes, have enabled me to confer upon others, will be my propitiation with the Eternal." If," murmured his wife-but he had sunk from excessive debility on his pillow, and was totally unequal to further conversation. Lady Seldon left his apartment to indulge her sorrow freely, and it was after this unsatisfactory attempt she had sunk into the agitated slumber we before mentioned. She awoke from a long sleep unrefreshed, but with renewed composure, she then descended to the drawing-room, where her children were weeping for their father. "Dry your tears, Laura-George, I am ashamed of this weakness, when you ought, both of you, to rouse all your energies to save your father's soul from eternal punishment, you are mourning over his mere bodily ailments. Come with me, and save him, or take warning by beholding the death-bed of an Atheist." George put his hands to his forehead, his body was convulsed; Laura threw her arms around him. "Dear brother," whispered she, "if he should die unbelieving, our prayers, and his virtues, will secure him an asylum in heaven." Lady Seldon led the way to his apartment-they stepp'd softly so softly that the dying man did not hear them-A sad change had taken place in his appearance within the last few hours his dissolution was rapidly approaching→→→ one damp cold hand supported his head above the pillow, the other hung listlessly by the side of his couch-It was a warm autumnal evening the sun was sinking in unclouded glory, amid burnished clouds below the horizon-the soft south breeze, that played gently through the open window, wayed the clustering curls of his dark brown hair, darker from being contrasted with the livid paleness of his cheek-he had not observed the entrance of his family, and was thinking aloud"Spirit of nature," said he, "how divine are thy works, how delightful their effects, bear me gently into futu2 D |