THE REFLECTOR. flying from lip to lip with his wings For the Literary Magazine. THE REFLECTOR. SIR, NO. XI. To the Reflector. I ACKNOWLEDGE I was much pleased with your 9th paper, wherein you ironically praised a certain very fashionable species of politeness. Indeed I had almost formed an opinion, that you was a tolerable clever fellow, until I discovered that you, instead of being polite yourself, had the ill manners and audacity to place the gentleman before the lady, in mentioning; here I take the liberty of telling you, you were certainly wrong, as all the world knows we (the ladies) have, and ought to have, the precedence, and are determined to maintain it. Certainly you must be some old bachelor, and think yourself too far advanced in life to make the good will of our sex an object of importance in your estimation, and therefore you care not if you affront them. Now, sir, if you are not willing to be considered as such, I pray you will mend your manners in future, and like the boy, smarting under the maternal rod, promise" to do so no more," and thereby escape the vengeance, or rather the contempt of those whom you have so much neglected. I am, sir, yours, as you behave yourself. FRANCES FASHION. P. S. As I do not wish fear to be your only motive to better manners, I inform you (as a favour) that even old bachelors, if they merit it, are sometimes honoured by being permitted to lead one of us to the altar of Hymen; consequently if you are not very old too, you may, by a proper behaviour, be yet admitted into that country where obdurate bachelors can never enter. I am sorry that the urgency of many weighty considerations, obliges me to take the field against so formidable an antagonist as a lady. Like a general of an army who fights a pitched battle, I ought to have time to chuse my ground, to prepare my arms, and to encourage my soldiers, before the "blast of war" sounds in my ears. But here I am cooped up in a small field; wherever I turn, I myself compelled to fight or surrenfind a retreat impracticable, and dee at discretion: I chuse the foras I can. mer, and will proceed as regularly ticed first, I am willing to admit That the ladies are generally no(particularly the spinsters, of which description I have my own reasons for thinking my correspondent one); but that they have a positive right to the precedence, 1 deny; it has been yielded to them by our sex (in polished nations) by way of courtesy, and, if I am not very much mistaken, only during good behaviour. pointed "lord of the creation," and, Man was created first, he was apas we are further informed by the created from one of his ribs, to be same sacred authority, woman was a "helpmate unto him," because it was not good for him to be with all possible satisfaction, believalone." To this doctrine I subscibe, ing them to be (many of them at least) very good helpmates. In what light they were viewed, or in what estimation they were held, by the very old fashioned husbands of the times in question, I cannot tellHistory informs us that in after ages they were very good helpmates inof their station in the best manner, deed, and performed all the duties serving their lords and masters with necessary I coud quote some excelgreat fidelity and affection; were it lent stories to this effect, from many good writers of those days, but they would take up too much room; I THE REFLECTOR. will therefore content myself with one or two. The first was the wife described by that wise Jew, king Solomon; another was Penelope, the mother of Telemachus; a third was the wife of Hector the Trojan prince. Here the very business which constituted one of her employments is mentioned; she is first told by her husband, whom she seems to have loved very tenderly, not to interfere in his concerns, but "Hasten to thy tasks at home, feet of my correspondent, provided she is moderately fair and comely, than kiss the most lovely squaw or negress the world can produce, yet I must acknowledge, and she likewise, that they are distant relations. I have some where read, that, in Wales, where the people are said to be white, the men chuse women to be their helpmates, for which, by their industry, they are well qualified; and as in some countries, men marry only when they have made a fortune, there, they marry to make There guide the spindle and direct the one, which, it is said, no labouring loom." This good lady seems to have been in no want of employment, and is one among the many proofs which I might offer, to show that we had the precedence in the earliest times. But the ladies may think that this picture is not a just one, and that the condition of their sex, at that time, was not the one for which nature intended them: let them then appeal to the united testimony of travellers who have visited those countries where men (and women too) live in a state approaching nearest to a natural one; there, we are told, they perform the most laborious duties. Among the aborigines of America, they carry home the game which their husbands kill; they plant and reap the corn; they dress the provisions, &c., &c., while their husbands sit calmly smoking their pipes, or, deeply intent on destruction, plan some hostile enterprise, some secret ambush, or midnight slaughter of the foes of their nation. Among the Africans the practice Welchman can do without a wife. In some instances, the established practice of my own countrymen argues an approval of my conduct. No lady marries a gentleman, but gentlemen marry ladies; our names are always mentioned first, and why? because they promise us obedience. Whether they perform their promise or not, does not concern a bachelor, but would the ladies have one name the servant before the master? Certainly not; this would be a species of ill manners not very common. There are some exceptions to every general rule, and this is not without them. Some men have found to their cost, that they were not masters, and in these cases I am willing to allow, that as the wife has the precedence in reality, she should also have it in form. When, or by whom the precedence was given to the ladies, I know not, nor does it make a material difference. I am not one of those who would hinder them from swaying a pleasing and powerless sceptre, but I only wish to convince miss Fashion, that it is through favour, and not by right, they are entitled to "bachelor," it. I am, in truth, a but not a "very" old one. However, I mean (to use my correspondent's own words) "to do so no more," as I am not without the hope of leading one of the sisterhood to the altar myself, but there, I tell them candidly, I will have the precedence. VALVERDI. September 15th, 1806. For the Literary Magazine. DECLINE OF WIT IN FRANCE. By Mr. Pinkerton. A FEW years before the revolution, the marquis de Bievre, and other very ingenious gentlemen, began to taint the French language and conversation with the most miserable puns called calembourgs. The ancient puns, and those of the English language, turn on the identity of the word, in sound and orthography, but difference of meaning. The French, on the contrary, are even worse if possible, as they ring on the mere sound of one or more words, though the orthography may be extremely different. Thus cinque louis are made to jingle with St. Louis; selle with sel; de l'onguent gris with de longs gants gris. M de Boufflée, who was capable of better things, made the following verses, which unaccountably retain great vogue at Paris : Vous savez bien, mes chers amis, lettes ; Vous savez bien qu'il faut des nids, Or, de ce nids de ces coqs, de ces lacs, Voltaire, on his last visit to Paris, was quite astonished at the deluge of false wit, and regarded the calembourg as the bane of conversation and good sense. Yet it still continues to retain some degree of favour, especially as the new rich have no great pretensions to taste, and the art of making calembourgs is easily acquired, the only secret being to attend to the sound of the words and forget the sense. It is not a little remarkable, that the latter part of the reign of James I, and the beginning of that of his successor, form the chosen period of puns in England. Orators punned in parliament, preachers in the pulpit, and counsellors at the bar. These trifling meteors have, therefore, in both countries, preceded violent tempests; and one might almost imagine that there is a moral atmosphere, the changes of which have certain auguries, like those of the physical. There are even studied ramifications of false wit; the jeu des mots, equivoque, pointe, quolibet, logal'ane, amphigouli, &c., all distinguished with metaphysical exactness: but these may be regarded as species, while calembourg forms the genus. Some derive the word from the Italian calamajo burlare, to play with the pen; but this seems a forced and unnatural etymology, as the effect is, on the contrary, produced by the mere effect of sound, and in many instances can scarcely be represented by the pen. The more natural derivation seems to be from the town of Calembourg, in Flanders, of which either the curate published bad jests, or the lord made them. Nor need it be mentioned that men of talents have never stoop, ed to this buffoonery, which is chiefly to be found among the women and the petits-maîtres, who amuse themselves with it as they used to do with bilboquet, or cup and ball. For the Literary Magazine. GEOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. GEOGRAPHY is a singular word, inasmuch as the meaning is the most capricious and anomalous that can be conceived. It seems to comprehend every thing, as it is usually employed, and, if stripped of all those adjuncts which properly belong to other sciences, it is left naked and contemptible. In those works which are commonly called geographical systems, we find a medley of all kinds of knowledge. A little of civil history, of natural his GEOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS. tory, of politics, of morals, of philo logy, of all the arts, and of all the branches of natural philosophy; a hotch-potch of all these makes up a system of geography, in which the principal geographical circumstance All these is the arrangement. scraps and sketches being placed in the order of countries, as they stand upon the globe, serve as an excuse for the title. The truth is, that geography, which, in a strict sense, means no more than an account of the dimensions, shapes, and relative positions of the various lands and waters on the surface of this our globe, would be, singly and by itself, extremely uninteresting and unprofitable. This species of knowledge is only attractive and only useful as the handmaid and auxiliary of other sciences. It is particularly the companion and guide of history, all whose details are dark, confused, and unintelligible without its assistance: but this appears to be no sufficient reason why geography and history should be mixed together in the same work. The writer's plan confining him to certain limits, his historical and philosophical details only encroach upon the space that ought to be devoted to knowledge strictly geographical, and thus, though he swells himself out to two bulky volumes, his description of countries is extremely vague and superficial, and never satisfies a curiosity that wishes to go beyond half a dozen general facts. For the Literary Magazine. L. IMPROVEMENTS IN PARIS SINCE By Mr. Pinkerton. BESIDES the two new bridges, for the Pont Rouge is only a restitution, the improvements which have taken place at Paris, since Bonaparte seized the reins of government, have been not a little numerous and im- To begin with the palace of the The great square of the Carousal had been wholly new paved, with great subterraneous sewers, which in winter was singularly inconvenient, in the very front of the palace. The iron railing, and the bronze horses had long since supplanted with great advantage the blind wall and paltry shops which formerly disgraced the chief front of this edifice. On the other side of the square, the Hotel Longueville, has been chipped and repaired, so as to assume the appearance of a new building, and is converted into barracks, with an inscription in golden characters over the gate, Ecuries del empereur et roy. On the right hand, the open arcades under the gallery of the Louvre have been begun.On the other side, the street of St. Nicaise, of which many houses had been injured by the explosion of the infernal machine, has been demolished, so as to increase the extent and beauty of this noble square. The street north of the Thuilleries has been new paved, and the descent considerably lessened : several mean houses have here been pulled down, and a noble arcade or portico is actually begun, and is intended to be carried as far as the Garde Meuble, or whole length of the garden of the Thuilleries. From this new and grand street, two others have been opened into the street Honoré and Place Vendome, the effect of the latter being particularly grand. In order to open this street along the north side of the garden, it was necessary to demolish, among other buildings, the famous hall of the convention, formerly the king's ridinghouse, only a few niches of which remain in the garden wall If curiosity lead a traveller to the Hotel de Ville to view the chamber where Robespierre was shot, he will be disappointed by the changes which have taken place in the interior of that mansion, since the prefecteur of Paris has been lately transferred thither from the Place Vendome. On the other side of the garden next the Seine, the noble terrace has been lengthened one third, with the sole sacrifice of some insignificant nurseries and hovels for gardeners, together with a miserable image of Rousseau in plaster, placed by the hand of philosophic fanaticism, in defiance of every rule of taste or elegance. The high dome of the Assumption is permitted to stand, as presenting, though with some defects, a grand object on one side of the gardens, while the dome of the Invalids is seen on the others. But men were employed in demolishing the church, and, I believe, the portico, for some supposed that it would have been permitted to stand as a neat piece of architecture. On the opposite side of the river a noble quay has been conducted from the bridge of the Thuilleries to that of Concord, and is called the quay Bonaparte. This part of the embankment had been singularly neglected, and was disgraced by an enormous gutter, which during rains or thaws was extremely troublesome even to carriages. An arch is now thrown over it: and the beauty of this quay, constructed with freestone, is equal to the expedition of its accomplishment. Here are some capital hotels, among others that of Salm, now that of the Legion of Honour; and it is supposed that others will be constructed instead of the large chantiers, or yards for timber used as fuel, several of which still exist upon this noble quay, in situa→ tions which command the finest views of the river, gardens of Thuilleries, and Elysian fields. In front of the Invalids, the large lion of St. Mark, brought from Venice, has been recently erected on a high and decorated pedestal, with an inscription in honour of the emperor. The fountain in the street Grenelle has been beautified; but with the usual mixture of magnificence and littleness, paltry signs of milksellers, &c., disgrace the architecture, as large white stockings, and other signs disfigure the turrets of the Pont Neuf. A great number of houses has been taken down, in order to open a square before the noble vestibule of St. Sulpice. But as no new erection has here taken place, the disfigured ends of the standing houses do not present agreeable objects. The numerous demolitions were certainly more easy to accomplish, than at any other period, as property had become insecure; and I have not been able to learn distinctly in what manner the citizens were recompensed, but have been told, with a sneer, that the government paid its own price. At the same time, all these boasted improvements are rather objects of beauty than utility. It is true that shows are perhaps as necessary for the people, especially the Parisian people, as bread; and even the poor must have their amusements.. This is the apology for the frequent exhibition of fire-works; and it has been doubted, whether the mob would not prefer the feast of their eyes to any other. Yet a wise government will certainly prefer utili ty to any other consideration; and if the millions squandered on Versailles had been expended in widen⚫ ing every street in Paris, and in making foot-paths along them, the name of Louis XIV would have been |