business was fortunately obliged to go to Weymouth during a royal visit. About this time, coming into a small but genteel independence, I left trade, took to the study of botany and mineralogy, and got myself elected an F.S.A. It is needless to add, that these steps were followed by a tour through Wales, a visit to the lakes of Cumberland, and a six weeks inspection of the western highlands of Scotland. Thus by dint of indefatigable exertions, I put myself upon a level with the generality of domestic travellers, became a sort of English Humboldt, and was seldom out-talked in company, except by a professional traveller, or, more technically, a "bagman" or "rider." I became acquainted with the distinctive characters of all the fashionable watering-places, made a hortus siccus, a collection of epitaphs, and another of inn-window inscriptions, from "Charming Harriet Winlove," to "In questa casa troverete" inclusive; could impose upon the ignorant with such cabalistical terms as mica slate, grey wacke, transition rocks, and coal formations; could describe the interior of a Cornish tin-mine, frighten the old women with extinct volcanoes, decypher a tombstone, (and, by turning it topsy-turvy, as was lately done in Ireland, convert the stone-mason's name into that of a Pagan deity,) or explain heather and rocks, and warlocks, for the benefit of the country gentlewomen who were reading the Scottish novels. Upon the strength of these accomplishments, I began to be considered a personage in my neighbourhood, was never left out in an agreeable dinner-party, and was constantly applied to as one whose word was law, in matters of distant concernment, and who was a known contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine. But, out alas! The glories of our earthly state Are shadows, not substantial things. The expedition to Russia took place, Napoleon fell from the throne of Europe, and I was dethroned from my village supremacy, to be out-talked and out-swaggered by every attorney's clerk or milliner's apprentice, who had made a fortnight's voyage to the French metropolis. When I mentioned John-Dories at Torbay, I was silenced by the matelote d'anguilles of St. Cloud; if I alluded to the turtle-soup at the Bush at Bristol, 1 was put down with "Les Frères Very," or the "Cadran bleu." If I expatiated on a winter at Bath, I was driven out of the field by six weeks at Brussels; and my best story of the Druids on Salisburyplain was discountenanced by the narrations of some button-collector from the plains of Waterloo. Then I fell into arrears in all my accoutrements: I did not wear my watch-chain round my neck; I had neither a musical snuff-box to exhibit or describe, nor a snuff-box of another sort which admits of no description. But what was still worse, I was like one who reads history without a foundation of geography. I was for ever puzzled between the French opera, the comic opera, and the Italian opera; I had no conception of the Boulevards, knew nothing of the Rue St. Honoré; the Palais Royal ranked in my fancy with Aladdin's palace, and the Gallery of the Louvre with the paradise of Mahomet. This was a condition of things not to be endured "He is but a bastard of the time That doth not smack of observation," and the supremacy of my "piked man of countries" was to be overcome at all risks; so, learning that the Brown Bear in Piccadilly would set me down in Paris, without more trouble or expense than attend the booking my place, I determined to see with my own eyes, to enable myself to "Talk of sciences and arts, And knowledge gain of foreign parts." Then it was that I felt truly grateful to my invaluable parents, who had not neglected to give me all the advantages of a "French and English boarding-school." For being able to conjugate the most useful tenses of the verb avoir, and being quite at home in my French dialogues, I could not conceive that I should not be able to make myself perfectly understood. A short experience, however, served to undeceive me: for not only did my fluency depend upon the catenation of sentences as they stand in the grammar; but "on a changé tout ça," the system of conventional phraseology is totally altered since the days of Chambaud. No sooner had I landed at Calais, than, eager to shew my knowledge of the language, I addressed Monsieur Messe Meurice with a familiar " Bon jour!" He replied with his habitual politeness, adding, "Monsieur parle François." Now this was to begin with the beginning; and I readily answered, as directed, "Je le parle un peu." Meurice then very naturally asked me, "Monsieur veut-il diner? Monsieur veut manger quelque chose." But here the influence of association was too much; the dialogue alone ran in my head, and I stammered out unconsciously, "Les Anglois mangent la plus part des mots François." "Plait-il ?" said Mons. Meurice, whose excellent bill of fare exhibits much more substantial eating. "Plait-il ?" said Mons. Meurice, and completely threw me out, who knew not that plait-il is an idiomatical phrase for "I don't understand a single word you say." I had sent My next adventure was of a more serious nature. for a tailor, determined to dress myself à la Française, in order not to be taken for an Englishman. On his arrival, (having just shut up my French dialogues with that artisan) I commenced with the first phrase, "Maitre Henri, j'ai un habit à faire." "Monsieur," he replied, "je ne m'appelle pas Henri, et on ne dit pas Maitre à un homme comme moi." "God d, ce n'est pas- that's not it," I exclaimed; "Il faut-you should have said, Je suis toujours prêt à vous servir, (for so it stands in the book.)" The poor man opened both his eyes, endeavoured, as well as he could, to comprehend me, for a Frenchman is ingenious where money is to be had; but a scene of qui pro quos began, which ended in my convincing him that I was little better than a raging madman; and when, descending very particularly into details, I took the dialogues as a model not only of my language but my dress, and desired him to "Doubler le juste au corps d'une étoffe des Indes, et la culotte des peaux bien passés," he snatched up his hat, and ran out of the room, exclaiming, "Le pauvre homme! Le pauvre homme! il est fou comme un Anglois." A thin pale gentleman in black, who was passing at the time, and overheard the tailor, and saw my laborious gesticulations to make myself understood, immediately took hold of my wrist, informed me he was a physician, and with a bow added that he had a maison de santé at my service. Here the dialogue again served only to lead me astray. Beginning with the first sentence of the dialogue with a physician, I replied, "Un medecin doit être soigneux et ponctuel." "Ah!" said the doctor, "il est bien malade! Qu'avez vous, Monsieur? Comment vous trouvez vous?" "Monsieur le Medecin," I continued, "j'ai la fièvre, j'ai mal à la tête, mon estomac est foible, je suis pulmonique, mon mal est sans resource, il me faut mourir." "Voila un Anglois passablement melancholique," said the Doctor, shaking his head; and stepping to the window, he beckoned into the street. Four men immediately came up, and bound me hand and foot, while the doctor, taking out his lancet, was on the point of performing a copious venesection, when the valet de place entered, and was bail for my sanity. It would be an endless task to recapitulate the steps by which I passed from my boarding-school dialect, to a sufficient knowledge of conversational French to make my own purchases; to know that "foulard" is a silk handkerchief; "potage au lait" no soup, but simple boiled milk; and a dress "bien historie," a many-flounced petticoat. As the business of a traveller is to become acquainted with men and manners, I did not fail to visit the royal court, where I saw an infinity of things worthy of observation. Nothing, however, struck me more than the revolutionary innovation which has banished the hoop, and substituted an endless elongation of train, as the distinctive character of full-dress. This interesting and impressive fact suggested many profound reflections on the chances and changes of sublunary things; and on those incongruities in French politics, which render the restored government neither fish nor flesh, neither acceptable to ultras nor liberals; and I acknowledged the full force of a loyal and patriotic country woman's exclamation, and, like her, thanked God that I was "born in a country where ladies still go to court in hoops." Little indeed did I then dream of the revolution which was so soon to take place at home, and which was to reduce the British fair to the unhooped level of Parisian courtiers. Foreign travel is vastly superior, in every point of view, to those domestic tours which formerly were the object of my utmost ambition. At every moment something turns up to elevate and surprise; and novelty and variety keep the senses in a constant state of ecstatic excitement. One might go from Johnny Groat's house to the Land's End, without meeting a tithe of the extraordinary things that occur between the Palais Royal and the Passage du Panorama. But then, on the other hand, numerous are the disappointments and vexations which await the unpractised traveller when dismissed from the friendly guidance of Monsieur Le Conducteur, and left in the middle of the Messagerie, that wilderness of stage-coaches, to find a lodging when or how he can. Not however that, like a friend of mine, who has a quick eye to the main chance, I ever called for a bottle of Port to save the expense of French wine, and made myself sick at a greater price than would have purchased Champagne; but I must needs own, that I was on the brink of starvation before I could compass the ordering of a dinner. On one occasion, tempted by the remarkable cheapness of price, and by a tender recollection of mutton-chops stewed with carrots and turnips, I called for des haricots, and was taught that nothing can be less like our own honest English mutton haricot, than the blanched horsebeans which in France bear that seducing appellation. Repeatedly did I encounter the most disagreeable disappointments in mistaking fish for flesh, sweet things for vegetables, and so reversing the whole economy of the table; and I was thus almost daily reminded of a worthy Londoner, who, in total ignorance of the language, lived at the discretion of the garçon; till, accidentally learning that dindon was French for a turkey, he contrived to make the cook understand he would have a "dingdong every day," and so at least secured one substantial dish. In the course however of a few months, I was enabled to fling off the Johnny-raw, to do the honours, and shew my own superiority in local knowledge to my less experienced countrymen. I had already got into very good (English) society, was well known in the English newspaper-room, had made my rounds of the theatres and restaurateurs, could distinguish an omelette soufflé from a pancake, could tell that crême d'absynthe was not a custard, and knew Fanny Bias from Mademoiselle Bourgoin; had lost some money at the Salon, and lent more to obliging Englishmen who had forced themselves on my acquaintance; and had seen all the sights between the Elephant and the Barrière de Clichi, and from the Catacombs to the windmills on Montmartre; when, towards the end of the spring, a sudden flight of English returning from Rome and Naples, reduced me once more to play secondfiddle, and rendered me unworthy to be a member of the Traveller's club. For what, alas! is Rubens to Raphael! Le Brun to Domenichino! St. Sulpice to San Paolo fuori le mura! or a Parisian cabriolet to a Venetian gondola! Then there is no Pope in Paris; and however stormy the debates in the Chambers, they hold no comparison with a volcano; nor is there in all France so romantic and interesting an establishment as the Neapolitan banditti. Nothing, therefore, was left but, like Michael Cassio, to "put money in my purse" and cross the Alps. d It would be a long story to relate my numerous adventures in this journey. Here it was that I experienced what before I had learned from the mouth of a travelling cockney, that, passing through a country without speaking the language, is "d good fun." Suffice it at present to say, that the ambitious ubiquity of my countrymen still kept the start of my utmost endeavours. At Naples I encountered travellers returning from Sicily; from Sicily I was in like manner driven to the isles of Greece: and had it not been for the fate of Mungo Park, I believe I should have explored the centre of Africa, in order to outstrip the dandy tourists and travelling belles, who have divided among them the public ear, and rule over converzationes and dinner-tables, discoursing of all they have seen between "St. Mary the Major and St. John's latterend"-(Il Santa Maria Maggiore e San Giovanni Laterano); mistaking Pius the Seventh's PM (the initials of Pontifex Maximus) for a Member of Parliament; and the Venus de' Medici for a sister of Mr. Roscoe's Lorenzo. M. LINES WRITTEN IN THE COUNTRY. DEAR Ashurst! again thy loved scenes I revisit, Φ. |