MY DEAR MARQUIS,

Paris.

THOUGH you are somewhat severe in your remarks on that high and mighty power, the certain set of London, your last letter has pleased me much; because, in your picture of the family of Mr. Gourville, I recognize a society in which, above all others, I wish you to pass your time; for you will find in that respectable and also numerous circle (for in London many persons of good families, large fortunes, and extensive information, live only for themselves and their friends, and decline all intercourse with what is called "the gay world") the best antidote to the follies and vices which may disgust you among the more notorious, but less virtuous members of this certain set..

Indeed, I believe that no person ought to form an opinion of national manners, unless he has been long enough in the country which he is visiting to be admitted behind the scenes, if I may be permitted to use the expression.

You tell me that already you begin to be reconciled to many customs in London, which at first appeared to you most improper and unbecoming. As my acquaintance with Paris increases, I not only find many things to admire, but, even in those which I cannot commend, much to palliate and soften their impropriety. In my last letter, I complained of the gloom which seemed to pervade the evening parties of your most distinguished houses. I have since endeavoured to account for a trait so inconsistent with the general character of the French, and, I believe, I have discovered it in that attention so generally paid to the observance of la bienséance, a word which cannot be literally translated, but which means, I believe, an outward appearance of decency and correctness, which, in the words of our celebrated Burke, "takes

from vice half its deformity in stripping it of all its grossness."

I am told that, however intimately persons of opposite sexes may have passed together the preceding hours of the day, when they afterwards meet at one of these soirées, they exchange the most formal bows, observe the strictest decorum, and address each other with all the etiquette of frigid civility. Now, though your countrymen are, as I have before observed, the best actors in the world, so unnatural a part cannot be played without much restraint on the feelings of the performers-and hence that general stiffness and dulness which have surprised me so much in these assemblies. In England, you have occasionally remarked and censured the too great familiarity with which unmarried young people converse together in public. That impropriety (if it be one), is occasioned by the difficulty which they find of meeting in private, owing to the extreme strictness of our manners. When, therefore, two persons are mutually attached, and accidentally thrown together in one of our crowded galas, it is impossible to check the ardour of youth-one speaks, and the other listens, in spite of all the dictates of prudence and propriety, and in spite too of the presence of a thousand observing and criticising lookers-on. All this is reversed in France; most of the ladies who form your society are married women; and if one of them is indiscreet enough to receive an admirer (pardon the supposition), she has so many opportunities of receiving her Lothario chez elle that both parties would be equally foolish and indecent, were they to tell their tale of love in the presence of all their acquaintance. Yet it must require no trifling command both of countenance and feeling, after spending the morning tête à tête, to meet in the evening like acquaintances newly introduced.

A propos, I must not forget to tell you of a curious discovery which I lately made in the annals of gallantry. I happened a few evenings since to be standing at one of these assemblies, near the beautiful Vicomtesse de —, when Mr.———— (whose gravity you know almost amounts to primness) approached her with the usual ceremonious bow, and spoke to her for some minutes with distant coldness. As, however, the conversation grew animated (forgetting, I suppose, where he was) in a fit of absence, he said, " Mais, ma chère-;" she coloured and frowned-the rest of the company stared, and Mr. — perceiving his mistake made a thousand apologies to the Vicomtesse, who indignantly asked him what had induced him to address her so familiarly, while, by way of excuse, he told her that he had been spending the morning with his sister in the country, and talking to her on family affairs of great importance, which so filled his head that he really thought he had been still speaking to her.

I mentioned this occurrence on the following day to a French friend well acquainted with la carte du pays, who was extremely amused, and quickly observed, "as Mr. — is the coldest and most cautious of men, I am indeed surprised at his being guilty of such a violation of les usages du monde: I never should have expected that he would call Mde. la Vicomtesse by so endearing a name in public, but all Paris knows that he has long enjoyed the privilege of doing so in private."

Indeed, though I cannot compliment you by saying that I think your morals purer than our's, I confess you set us an example as to the appearance of propriety; and I am every day more and more surprised at the external decency which the manners of all classes assume, at Paris, as the strongest proof which I can adduce of their general attention to outward decorum. I shall now beg leave to relate a circumstance which lately happened to myself.

An English friend well acquainted with your manners offered to take me to a ball about to be given by a female acquaintance of his, and brought me an invitation in the usual form. At the appointed time

he called for me in his carriage, and we drove to a splendid hotel in one of the best streets of this city. The mansion, containing a numerous suite of rooms, was scarcely less in dimensions than the palace of Carlton-House; and the furniture, decorations, and attendance, all bore the appearance of the establishment of a person of the highest rank. We were received by a middle aged lady of polished manners.

Among the company assembled, I observed several gentlemen decorated with stars and other badges of French and foreign orders; and the female members of the society, whose dresses were both correct and elegant, were seated as usual, side by side, in two rows of armed chairs. When the musicians, consisting of an entire band, struck up a favourite air, the dancers selected their partners, led them with due ceremony to the centre of the room, and, at the conclusion of the quadrille, reconducted them to their places.

Nothing could be more decorous than the conduct of all the persons who formed the party. Not a word was said at which the coldest prude could have taken offence, nor was even a meretricious look exchanged between any of the company. Yet after I had given my friend and introducer a fair opportunity of enjoying his joke, by commending on this occasion (as I had often done before) the superior decency of French manners, he informed me that, in spite of all this display of exterior correctness, the place we were at was a common gaming house (such as we call in London a Hell), and was part of the establishment of the too-well known Salon: that the elegant lady who presided was the celebrated Madame de N, (whom, in a report of the gaities of Paris, our Morning Post thought fit to call a Duchess ;) that the ladies, whose proper conduct I had so much commended, were either kept girls or public women, belonging to the PalaisRoyal; and that the elegant dresses which they wore on the occasion were hired from an adjoining masquerade warehouse.

After this example of attention to appearances, even in the most profligate, it must be acknowledged

that, if you are not votaries of vir tue, you involuntarily show your respect for it by assuming its garb. Whether the boasted bienséance operates in the way which the words of Mr. Burke already quoted express; or whether, in decorating vice with

the attributes of propriety, we hide its disgusting form, and thereby assist its progress, is a question in morals which I shall not stop to discuss. Adieu.

C. DARNLEY.

AGREEABLY to the promise with which I concluded my last letter, I now resume the subject of that certain set who appear to me the dictators of London society, and who yet are no less implicitly obeyed than if they received the most legitimate authority for their usurped omnipotence. To be thought a person of fashion, or, in other words, to move in this magical circle, is the grand object of the vain; and in what assemblage do not the vain form the majority? For this pur, pose, ruinous expenses are incurred, debts contracted, friends, neglected, and the most abandoned characters not only received, but courted and admired. The consequence of this prevailing weakness is no less fatal to rational conversation, than to morals and dignified independence.

Not only are costly entertainments given, often with great inconvenience to the donors, for the sole purpose of exhibiting in the number of their guests a galaxy of K. C. B.'s, lords, ambassadors, and cabinet ministers, but the topics discussed at these tables are all chosen with a view of displaying an intimate acquaintance with what is called the great world; but which is, in fact, a very little and very contemptible one. The mistress of the house asks, perhaps, the duke who sits next her, whether his Grace is going to the Almack's Wednesday ball, or the Friday's French play at the Argyle-street Rooms. The mention of these places sets the whole party on the tip-toe of expectation. Some few of the company, more favoured than the rest, are members of this all-ennobling society, and greedily join in the conversation, in

order to prove to their less fortunate and envying neighbours that they possess that advantage. Some who, after various attemps, had proved unsuccessful candidates, maintain a gloomy silence, and tremble every moment lest an awkward question addressed to them should force a reply which might betray their disappointment. Others again of humbler pretensions, hut equally tinctured with vanity, listen with painful attention; and, treasuring up every word which falls on the important subject, lay up a borrowed fund of useful information, by the aid of which, when invited to a city or a country party, they too may be enabled to talk of the dear Argylestreet Rooms; and, shining with lustre not their own, may hope to give themselves all the importance of initiated members.

And now, my dear Darnley, allow me to express to you my surprise that, at a moment when the general diffusion of science and useful knowledge of all kinds is rapidly overturning, on the Continent, those hateful distinctions by which one portion of the same people is marked and separated from the other, that England, viewed by all the world as presenting the model on which all other national improvements must be made, should suffer in its capital the establishment of a society, the foundation of which can be directed but to one object; namely, to draw an insuperable barrier between the nobility (carrying in their train a few of their servile satellites) and the rest of their equally well born, equally well educated, equally well mannered, and equally independent country

men.

If I may be permitted to paraphrase the well known expression