encomiums upon the former. The single man who lives extravagantly in Paris may spend four or five pounds per week, but the same kind of living would cost him twelve or fourteen pounds in London. For five pounds per week he may take his dinner at Very's, Grignon's, the Frères Provençaux, or the Rocher de Cancale, and go to the theatre every evening; but he may have luxurious living at a still lower rate. A young friend of mine, who likes to enjoy himself at a cheap rate, assures me that he has a good bed-room, takes a good breakfast and dinner, with his half bottle of Champagne or Bordeaux Lafitte, his coffee in the evening, and his amusement at the theatre, for sixty francs a week, and I believe him. There are several restaurateurs in Paris who give a very good dinner and half a bottle of vin ordinaire for two francs. There are some as low as twenty-six sous, but for two francs one has soup, four well dressed dishes, wine, desert and bread. I dined the other day at the Salon Français, which are very elegant rooms, superior in splendour, though not equal in size, to the ArgyleRooms in London. For the information of the members of the John Bull family who meditate a trip to Paris I will state the particulars of my dinner:-First, I had pea soup, which was very good; then a stew of calves head; my second dish was the wing of a fowl and cresses; the third a fried sole; the fourth a beignets de pommes, a kind of apple fritters very nicely cooked, and then a desert of preserved cherries: for this, and the wine and bread, I paid two francs; a more serviceable dinner could scarcely be had at Very's for six times the money. At the present low price of provisions in England I am sure the same dinner, with porter instead of wine, and certainly good English porter is better than bad French wine, might be given for the same money, with a profit of thirty per cent.; but unfortunately people of small income in London have no idea of living genteelly upon a little, and therefore nobody sets up such an establishment in the dread of not being encouraged. Nothing can be more disgusting in my opinion than the cook's shops in London, where one is served with slices of baked or boiled meat and nasty pudding, and yet made to pay handsomely; a Frenchman, accustomed to his silver fork and clean napkin, in an elegant room with five or six waiters at his command, must have a poor idea of English manners if he judges of them by the eating houses, taken whether as to the mode of serving the meats, the places themselves, or the manner of the attendance; the mere substance of what a man eats is less to be considered than the mode of eating, and certainly nothing tends so much to civilize a nation and polish the middling classes as genteel intercourse at table. The clerk in France who has only eighty pounds per annum, accustomed to dine in the same manner, though not with such expensive dishes, as the wealthiest nobleman in his own hotel, has all the elegance of manner and self-ease of the latter. The very mechanick, who dines for twenty sous, has his silver fork and clean napkin, and being treated like a gentleman, he behaves as such. Behind us as the French are in most things, I must confess that in this respect they are before us by centuries. This is a subject well worth the attention of persons in England who desire the improvement of the middle and lower classes. I should be the last man in the world to recommend an imitation of French vice or folly, but I think the English, instead of priding themselves upon their plainness, which too frequently approaches to coarseness and brutality, would do well to imitate the French in the habits which give them ease and elegance in society. There is another way of living economically in Paris for single persons, that of boarding and lodging in a French family; a person may be very genteelly boarded and lodged in a family where the best society is to be found for 100 francs per month to 120 francs, but as it is the custom in such places to have only two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, I, who am an advocate for the old English mode of making four meals a day, cannot recommend the French mode to my acquaint ance. SKETCHES OF POPULAR PREACHERS. (Continued from page 328.) · THE REV. GEORGE SAXBY PENFOLD, A.M. MR. PENFOLD is the Vicar of Goring, Sussex; Rector of Pulham, Dorset; and Minister of Brunswick Chapel, St Mary-le-bone. This gentleman is a plain useful preacher; and though he does not possess the talent necessary to constitute a great orator, yet the absence of gross defects, and the presence of many qualities indispensable in the Christian Teacher, render him a valuable advocate in the cause to which he is dedicated. His voice is not powerful, but very pleasing in its tones and modulations. His general deportment is not ungraceful, though it cannot claim the epithet of elegant. He is earnest and animated; far removed from lifeless monotony of manner, and equally at a distance from boisterous rant and noisy vulgarity. He gives to all he utters the additional advantage of an apparent anxiety to impart his own convictions to his hearers, the result of an unprejudiced investigation into their truth. His sermons are marked by a decided inequality in merit; the language is sometimes very indifferent, the arrangement confused, and the conceptions common-place; these defects, however, are the occasional, and not the invariable, characteristics of his discourses, which on many subjects are well calculated to operate the reformation of his hearers, by describing the various motives to virtuous conduct in a manner adapted to win their assent to the truth of the propositions he is enforcing. His sermons on the Sabbath display, in vivid colours, the mischiefs consequent on the neglect of this sacred and important institution; he describes it as the first retrogade step from the path of piety, as an almost unerring criterion by which to infer the decline of holy thought and religious attachment in the soul. He addresses his exhortations to those springs of action which usually influence the will in its decisions to hope, to fear, to interest, to benevolence; to hope, by telling the fear of conscience, and the eternal happiness promised to those who act in compliance with the admonitions of duty; to fear, by representing the punishment denounced against those who violate the declared will of their Creator; to interest, by enforcing the consideration that abstinence from a few evanescent pleasures is recompensed by perfect felicity; to benevolence, by depicting the pernicious influence of bad example, and the corruption it spreads over the circle within the reach of its infection. On the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Mr. Penfold has preached many useful discourses; he enlarges on the benefits accruing from the observation of this ordinance, its tendency to check in the mind the growth of evil inclinations, and to nurture and mature virtuous and pious dispositions; the consolation it imparts to the heart, which has sorrow alone for its inmate, and which turns from a world where disappointment has crushed the latest spark of joy to that religion which has peace for its companion here, and the hope of an immortality of bliss, to support the spirit which droops beneath the evils that oppress it. Mr. Penfold's charity sermons are animated, pathetic, and sometimes powerful appeals to the compassionate sympathies of the soul; he awakens the dormant feelings of pity, which but for him might have slumbered unnoticed beneath the selfishness that encrusted them. He pleads the cause of the afflicted with the zeal of a man deeply interested in the success of his endeavours, and labours to turn the stream of philanthropy into the channel most productive of utility. Mr. Penfold illustrates what he reads by pointed and judicious emphasis; this, united to apparent seriousness and devotion, distinct enunciation and a melodious voice, render his labours in the desk a source of gratification and instruction to those who hear him. The subject of this article can prefer no claim to the character of a great argumentative preacher, neither is his intellect formed for the discussion of the abstruse points of divinity; he is chiefly admirable as the inculcator of the great moral truths of Christianity; as the expounder of the duties which man owes to himself, to society, and to the Being who created him. He never in any of his ser mons rises to the highest scale of excellence, nor sinks to so low a point as to excite dissatisfaction or disgust, they are distinguished by a pleasing mediocrity, which, combined with the interest and importance of the subjects he is called upon to discuss, renders them, I have no doubt, salutary and useful admonitions to those to whom they are addressed. CRITICUS. LETTER RELATIVE TO THE STRICTURES ON POPULAR · PREACHERS. MR. EDITOR, I AM one among the numerous readers of your well-conducted Miscellany, who participate most amply in the general satisfaction expressed respecting your Strictures upon those Preachers of the National Church, whom you have selected as the most popular advocates of her doctrines; and I beg to add my humble testimony to the talent displayed in this article; more especially as it is shown in the judicious discrimination with which the characteristics of each Reverend Gentleman are marked, the accuracy and truth of delineation, the manly tone supported throughout, the correctness of style, and its perfect appropriation to the subject. It happens, Sir, that I have an opportunity of hearing the opinions of many of the Clergy upon this article, and it gives me pleasure to add that, with very slight exceptions, it meets with considerable approbation. At its first appearance, indeed, some needless apprehensions were manifested that the cause of the National Church might be, in some degree, deteriorated by the nature of those Strictures; and by a few individuals they were regarded as altogether gratuitous and uncalled for. Such impressions, however, I conceive to be erroneous, since within the pale of the Ecclesiastical Establishment of our country, and particularly in the Metropolitan part of it, there is a sufficient number of able and eloquent divines to vindicate its pretensions to superiority, and to maintain the balance of public opinion in its favour; and this they are well aware can be done, Eur. Mag. May, 1823. independently of that spurious po pularity, which some of its members so assiduously seek to obtain by a character of effort that does not consult, so scrupulously as it ought, that dignified elevation of mind and strict consistency of expression and delivery, which give to pulpit oratory all its impressive power of eloquence and usefulness. The object of the article alluded to appears to be the designation of this excellence in those preachers who possess it; and the manifestation of the want of it in those who factitiously pretend to it. The claims of both are exposed to publicity of acknowledgment or rejection; and public effort must be subjected to public judgment, by whatever class of men it be put forth. What harm then is to be dreaded from the plan which you have adopted? As in a well-executed picture the true contrast of light and shade gives effect to the whole; so, by a just disposal of descriptive traits in such portraitures of the popular Clergy, the keeping of their general character is preserved. Paul, Apollas and Cephas were all preachers of the gospel, and each effective according to the peculiar excellence which he possessed; yet can it be supposed that the sacred cause, which they upheld, was endangered because among their hearers one was of Paul, another of Apollas, and another of Cephas? Or because their individual efforts were characterized according to the qualifications by which each was distinguished? And if in this distinction it appeared that the depth of learning, which Paul evinced, and the argumentative skill with F which he elucidated his subject were not found in Apollas and Cephas; or the peculiar properties of eloquence which the two latter pos'sessed were not discoverable in Paul, would the followers of any of them have considered the great object of all three as placed in a state of jeopardy, because a particular excellence or defect was attributable to one which was not so prominent in another? Truly I think not Surely then there is no reason for the apprehensions indulged by those who are averse from such a plan as you have adopted; and there can be less cause for offence at the impartial descriptions (for impartial they certainly are) that it contains of the various pretensions which the preachers, whom it has hitherto comprehended in its disquisitions, appear anxious to substantiate in the estimation of their hearers. Allow me, therefore, to urge your perseverance in this plan, and to recommend to your consideration when the task, which in this instance of your labours you have prescribed to yourself, shall be accomplished, the republication of these Strictures in small volume, for which I have no hesitation in anticipating a favourable reception on the part of the public. I am, Sir, with much respect, THE SHIPWRECK. While memory dictates, this sad shipwreck tell : FALCONER. LIGHTLY the breezes o'er the waters flew, That spreads her snowy bosom to the gale; Oh! many a wish, and many a rising care, And, while they mock the white and rushing foam, Their thoughts are busy, and their hearts are home. The moon arises in majestic grace, And o'er the waves she flings a path of light; From Northern waves, or in far Southern skies, Wherever thought can soar on fancy's wing, How doubly dear that lovely light to view, Such thoughts are in the ship and many more That checks the rising hope, and turns it into fear- With eyes upturn'd, his arms upon his breast, An anxious lover takes his silent stand, And now he views the moon, and now the distant land- And now big drops descend-and, gathering fast, "Breakers a head!" Oh! what a cry is there! All is confusion, horror and despair. |