worthlessness, and all that can lower the rational being, its Parisian model. There, night is turned into day, and health is sacrificed at the shrine of folly. Time is thrown away as a valueless bauble not worth the preservation. Character is sometimes compromised, or tarnished; and the fine gloss of virtuous sensibility is worn off. O, is there no voice of just indignation to warn the young from this vortex of fashionable ruin, in which soul and body are both destroyed? Is there no finger of friendly warning to point to the premature graves of the companions of their folly?

What has England gained from France by the wonderful intimacy that exists? Let us examine it quietly, item by item. She has gained a fashionable tailor and milliner, and the numerous consequences which flow from them. She has improved her taste for the gamingtable; this is a debt of no small magnitude. She has enhanced her zest for a life of fashionable dissipation, in its various branches of dejeuner a la fourchette, la fête champêtre, la thè dansante, le bal costume, &c. She has acquired fresh strength for the pursuit of theatrical amusements. She has imbibed a discerning relish for the opera, with all its thrilling accompaniments. She has been initiated into the mysteries of that respectable character, la danseuse. These, and such as these, are items on the list of her gains, which, doubtless, she considers of vast importance, and deserving of proportionate gratitude. But this is not all, nor even the greatest of her profits.

England has, besides, gained from France a flexibility in morals which she had not before; a lax interpretation of right and wrong; a facility of "putting evil for good, and good for evil-bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." She has acquired a softened tone, a marvellous indulgence and liberality towards the errors of Popery; and is even suspected of having, in certain high quarters, a vast leaning towards the same. She has learned to shrink with instinctive horror (as I have said) from

the word "Reformation," and some others which were in high repute in the most glorious period of her history. She has learned to think that these words savour too much of bigotry, and should not be used by an enlightened, enfranchised mind. She has been taught to look with a calm philosophic indifference upon all creeds of religion, or no creed at all. And what more admirable school for infidelity than France! which formerly attempted (and how far are we from a new attempt in the present time?) to establish universal liberty and equality, the imprescriptible rights of man. And 66 as a necessary preparation for this (according to a clever writer), they intended to root out all religion and ordinary morality; and even to break the bonds of domestic life, by destroying the veneration for marriagevows, and by taking the education of the children out of the hands of the parents. This is all that Infidelity could teach, and this is precisely what France once attempted, and may (God knows how soon) attempt again."

I must now, for one moment, pause to ask, how is it that England should, invariably, in all her history, yield thus to France, so as to condescend to borrow her manners, her habits, or her fashions? Laudable ambition is always good, and the stronger may be proud to borrow from the weaker, whatever is praiseworthy and valuable. But, in the name of common sense, what is there, in the positions of England and France to justify this? Why should such a country as England deign to borrow from a country like France its empty frivolities and unmeaning fashions? As in 1815, our country gained the superiority in war, why has she not endeavoured to maintain it in the arts of peace? Why should a nation, so indisputably superior to her neighbour in every point of real value, in all that makes life comfortable, and honourable, and useful, stoop to be indebted for the little adventitious circumstances, that are of no intrinsic worth? Must we still go back, and enact over

again and again what we read in the history of our school-boy days?

"Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes

Intulit agresti Latio."

"When conquered' France' brought in her captive arts,
She triumph'd o'er her savage conquerors' hearts;
Taught our rough 'sons' their manners to refine,
And our rude style with elegance to shine."

I have myself been present at a representation in the French theatre, while the whole object of the piece was to hold up the entire English nation to ridicule and contempt!

If England, instead of being the disciple, would become the teacher, she would but maintain the place she is entitled to, and which she is doing all in her power at present to relinquish. If she could but know and feel the moral position which she holds, and determine to support it, what a different rank she might have in the estimation of the world! The sacred deposit of the Bible is committed to her keeping; O that she would value, as she ought, this inestimable privilege: the true faith is professed by her children; O that she were wise, and resolved to watch over it with a godly jealousy, and to guard it as the most precious jewel in her possession. She is superior to France in science and the arts, need I add, in morality and religion; why then become a servile imitator? Why barter her advantages for a worthless imposition? In her simplicity, she is too often imposed upon, and becomes the dupe of the knave and the hypocrite.

"A gross of green spectacles!" repeated my wife, in a faint voice. "And you have parted with the colt, and brought us back nothing but a gross of green paltry spectacles !" "Dear mother," cried the boy, "why won't you listen to reason? I had them a dead bargain, or I should not have bought them. The silver rims alone

will sell for double the money." "A fig for the silver rims!" cried my wife, in a passion. "You need be under no uneasiness," cried I, "about selling the rims, for they are not worth sixpence; for I perceive they are only copper varnished over." "What!" cried my wife, "not silver! the rims not silver!" "No," cried I, no more silver than your saucepan." "And so,"

returned she, "we have parted with the colt, and have only got a gross of green spectacles, with copper rims and shagreen cases! A murrain take such trumpery! The blockhead has been imposed upon, and should have known his company better." "There, my dear," cried I, you are wrong: he should not have known them at all." Poor England! many a bargain hast thou made, and many a gross of green spectacles hast thou brought home!

66

"Illustrious Edward! from the realms of day,
The land of heroes, and of saints survey;
Nor hope the British lineaments to trace,
The rustic grandeur, or the surly grace;
But lost in thoughtless ease, and empty shew,
Behold the warrior dwindled to a beau :

Sense, freedom, piety, refin'd away,

Of France the mimic, and of knaves' the prey."

CHAPTER IX.

DYING DIRECTIONS OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.

"I die in all humility, knowing well that we are all alike before the throne of God, and request, therefore, that my mortal remains be conveyed to the grave without any pomp or state. They are to be removed to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where I request to have as private and quiet a funeral as possible. I particularly desire not to be laid out in state, and the funeral to take place by daylight: no procession the coffin to be carried by sailors to the chapel. All those of my friends and relations, to a limited number, who wish to attend, may do so. My nephew, Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar, Lords Howe and Denbigh, the Hon. William Ashley, Mr. Wood, Sir Andrew Barnard, and Sir D. Davies, with my dressers, and those of my ladies who may wish to attend. I die in peace, and wish to be carried to the tomb in peace, and free from the vanities and pomp of this world. I request not to be dissected, nor embalmed: and desire to give as little trouble as possible.

I CONFESS I could not read these directions of this distinguished lady on her death-bed, without being much affected. They bring us with a pathetic simplicity to the very portals of the grave. The thoughts of death are always unwelcome, and, with a studious anxiety, we push away from our minds the contemplation of the inevitable hour. But of late, let us use what ingenuity we could, none, perhaps, has been so insensate, as to have effectually excluded the thought. The wrath of an Almighty God has been visiting the nations, and the dreadful messenger of that wrath has smitten down thousands and tens of thousands. All classes, ranks, ages, conditions, have had their victims. A great part of the daily papers of late been filled with nothing but bills of mortality. We have "supped full of horrors." Death, death, nothing

has