It is from the northern district that so many of them emigrate with their organs, cymbals, and magic lanterns, to amuse the people and children over all Europe. After an absence of eight or ten years, the greater part of them return with some little savings, which assist them to enlarge their fields, to buy cattle, and get married. Tired of a wandering and laborious life, they return to finish their days under the humble roof that gave them birth, far from the noise and tumult of towns. It is there that they relate to their children what has most attracted their attention in their travels. It might be supposed they would contract some of the vices prevalent in great towns; they retain, however, their former simplicity of manners and industry. They consider their present situation happy when they compare it with the fatiguing life they have led to attain it. Even their little vanity is gratified in being considered the richest of the hamlet, respected by all, and looked upon as the oracles of the country. These advantages turn the heads of the young peasants, and make them sigh for an organ and a magic lantern.

The inhabitants, particularly those on the coast, live very frugally a small quantity of bread (for lately the pound of twelve ounces has been sold from four to six sols), with some fruit, herbs, and vegetables, generally compose their food: sometimes they have a little salt-fish, very rarely any fresh, and still more rarely meat. The effects of this mode of living on their persons are very visible: corpulency and florid complexions are seldom to be met with the most of them, particularly near Monaco, are tawny and very thin. VOL. XXXVIII.

The forced sobriety and labour of these people recall to mind the assuetus malo Ligur of Virgil.

It is probable that the state of these unfortunate Ligurians has undergone little or no change during the lapse of two hundred years. In the greater number of the small towns and villages situated in the interior part of the country, and among the mountains, the peasants have neither clocks, sun-dials, nor barometers of any description; the crowing of the cock, and the position of the stars, regulate the hours of the night, and the course of the sun those of the day. The inhabitants, by their observations of the planets, will tell you the hour with nearly as much precision as if it were indicated by a clock. They also predict with a great degree of certainty the changes of the weather. Passing most of their time in the fields, and being endowed with a quick sight and retentive memory, they collect a number of little facts, which enable them to acquire a kind of confused foresight, that resembles in a great measure that instinctive presage of approaching changes of weather which we observe in animals. By this, and the assistance of some local circumstances, such as a fog at a certain hour, and on a certain part of the horizon, a cloud of a particular colour on the top of some mountain, or the flight or chirping of birds, they can prog nosticate the alterations of weather as well, if not better, than any meteorologist.

With respect to the persons and appearance of the Nissards, they have nothing very agreeable or interesting. The men have a very tawny complexion; their face is rather flat, and their eyes small 4Z

and dark. They are of a good stature, and well made, but for the most part thin: The women are neither ugly nor pretty; neither dark nor fair; most of them are of an intermediate complexion. Their society would be more agreeable were their understandings better cultivated, and the French language a little more familiar. There are, however, many exceptions to this in several of the towns, particularly at Nice. They dress nearly in the same manner as in other parts of France: some of them still wear fringed caps, which become them very well, and to which a stranger is soon accustomed. In their dress they appear to prefer white to other colours. I recollect going to the cathedral of Nice on a holiday, and on enter ing my eyes were quite dazzled with a display of snowy white which is rarely to be seen else where. This habit, which is expensive in large towns, is here very suitable to the climate, where they have frequently six months of the year without rain,

The language of Nice, and of that part of the department contiguous to the Var, is the dialect of Provence, mixed with a number of words derived from the Italian. This patois is not unintelligible to the inhabitants of Marseilles, though that of Monaco, at the distance of four leagues from Nice, is entirely so. The patois of Monaco differs from that of Menton; each of them is composed of the dialects of Provence, Liguria, and Piedmont; but the idioms of the two latter predominate. A few Spanish words have crept into them, which might have been ex-pected, as the Spaniards kept a garrison at Monaco, while that principality was under their pro

tection. They pronounce the final syllables in a singing tone. Before Julius Caesar, three different idioms were known in Gaul. 1. The Cantabric, of which there are yet traces in Biscay. 2. The Belgic, which is a root of the German. 3. The Celtic, which was employed from the Mediterranean to the British Channel.

The Celtic was used in Provence till the fourth century, by which time the Phocæans had generally made known the Greek language, and the Romans had introduced the Latin. The Celtic idiom became softer by this mix, ture, but less pure, The Goths, Huns, Vandals, Lombards, and other barbarians, introduced their particular idioms, so that, about the tenth century, a language composed of all these jargons took the name of Provençal. the tenth to the seventeenth centuries, the African, the Arragon, Spanish, and Italian expressions, gradually crept in. The emperor Julian said the Gauls croaked like crows, and the inhabitants of Draguinan have to this day a guttural pronunciation. At Grasse the language is cadenced.

From

The French language is not so generally used in the department of the Maritime Alps as could be wished: every where, except in that part of the country belonging to the diocese of Glandeves, the Italian is used for education: hence even some of those employed in public situations write bad French. As people go regularly to inass and sermons, it might be useful to direct the ministers of worship to deliver their instructions in French. Even at Monaco the Italian is preferred, though the French have been there upwards of one hundred and fifty

years. It is, however, probable that the French language will ultimately obtain universal reception, as all the proclamations and orders of government are now published in it.

"

The Nissards are fervent in their devotion; and though not altogether exempt from superstition, are less credulous than the inhabitants of other places in the same department. I extract from the author of a Tour through the Maritime Alps, the following account of the devotion of the inhabitants of Monaco. Having witnessed their religious ceremonies during the whole day, which were performed with great fervour, after vespers there was a grand procession round the square which is before the church. Two beings, sick with the palsy, were dragged about by their friends and relations; and, beside the fatigues of a long journey, they were exposed with their heads bare to the scorching rays of the sun, which occasioned the most violent perspiration. They continued this excessive exercise for a long time, in confident expectation of a miracle being worked. However, the Holy Virgin was not pleased to use her intercession, though I am far from disputing her influence; nor, what was still more singular, did these extreme measures produce any favourable or unfavourable crisis. While some accompanied the procession, others in the church were imploring the Virgin women and children were seen prostrated before the altar, stretching forth their supplicating hands, and rending heaven with their cries. This scene being as disgusting to the philosophic eye of reason as the wretches dragged about at the procession, I retreated

under the shade of a wild fig-tree, and meditated on the weakness and infirmities of the human race.

'Several towns and villages in this department have a saint cclebrated for the cure of some disease. The inhabitants of Monaco possess St. Roman, who cures quartan fevers; other fevers are not under his controul. St. Devote is the patron of the town, and in truth his name, and the fame of his miracles, have not a little contributed to its welfare. An orator composes an annual panegyric. I was present at that delivered last year. It would be difficult to form an idea of the absurd fictions delivered from the pulpit. These halidays are not always appropriated to devotion. While some are praying, others are seeking less holy amusements, not forgetting dancing, without which these people could not exist. In general they have not much religion; but this is not the only instruction in which they are deficient. Whether it proceeds from a want of taste for the sciences, literature, and the arts, or whether they have not the means of procuring instruction, I cannot determine; though I imagine that both of these causes operate. All branches of knowledge are here in their infancy. Their favourite study is jurisprudence, which, before the conquest, opened the way to places of emolument.'

Before I take leave of this subject I ought to observe, in justice to the Nissards, that I never witnessed any thing in their worship deviating from the strictest decency and most fervid devotion. All the religious ceremonies commonly performed in other Catho hic countries are scrupulously ob served at Nice; and though the

-author of a Tour through the Department of the Maritime Alps has justly rallied the inhabitants of some parts of the country upon the absurdity of their devotion, his remarks do not, nor could they, with the least truth apply to the Nissards.

The beau monde at Nice gene rally ride or walk out in the morning, and content themselves with an airing along the coast of the Mediterranean, upon the road leading to the Var, or by the banks of the Paglion, near which runs the great road to Turin. Such was, at least, the custom of the inhabitants previously to the revolution, whose society proved an agreeable change for strangers, who came thither from most parts of Europe. It must be confessed that these roads are not now much frequented by the Nissards, except on a Sunday: the revolution having ruined the richest families, there remain but few whose circumstances or education put them a footing to keep company with strangers. No roads but those just mentioned are practicable for carriages; the curious, however, may find an infinite variety of agreeable walks and rides between the inclosures of the country, and in the various vallies which intersect the mountains in almost every direction.

on

Balls are frequent in the winter, to which the English and other strangers of rank are invited. It was formerly usual to give one or two in return, but, to the best of my recollection, that custom was omitted in 1802.

The carnival is of all festivals the most celebrated and gay; and is here, as in all Roman catholic countries, observed very scrupu Lously. Scenes of festive mirth

are very general among the better classes of society, and prove source of pleasure and entertainment to the stranger.

The amusements of the lower classes are ridiculous enough, though they can scarcely surpass the motley assemblage of every rank and every description at a masquerade. It is an interesting scene to witness the gaiety of the peasant and their families at wakes, which are held in several villages at certain periods of the year. The diversions of all, young and old, consist, for the most part, in dancing, singing, and in music. Buffoons perform to the gaping spectators, and entertain them highly by their burlesque gestures.

The respectable families assemble alternately at each other's houses, and pass the evening at cards, in concerts, and in dancing, when a party to the play is not made up.

With respect to the customs which obtain in the general intercourse of the society of the Nis sards, the traveller will find little or no difference from those which prevail generally throughout the neighbouring districts of France.

There is something very pleasing in the contemplation of a farmer's fire-side in winter; such a fire-side as Bloomfield describes in his Farmer's Boy, where the master and his servants sit in comfortable equality together: not like too many of our modern farmers, who from adventitious cireumstances have become gentlemen, and in consequence have

turned their old farm-houses into splendid mansions, where the gay parlour and the soft rug have succeeded to plain neat kitchen and ample fire-sides of their ancestors. These things are not real benefits to society, nor may they be eventually to themselves; for should the adventitious circumstances abovementioned cease to operate in their favour, (and they have already in some measure) I fear they will discover too late, that they have not, as the homely proverb has it, 'provided against a rainy day;' no comfort will then await them in the condolence of their ancient servants, whose minde will have been wholly estranged by their