more than a century of common existence would have done. There has been more advancement of every kind in England since the year 1790, than from the reign of King William up to that time. And what is the consequence? Why, precisely what has been pointed out by the writer in the Edinburgh Review, in the admirable critique of which I have made mention that the self-privileged, finding their kibes closely trodden on by the clouted shoe, intrench themselves behind the barrier, or rather the stagnant moat of sulkiness and silence, and affect to disdain that talent and acquirement at which they find it easy to sneer, but beyond their powers to attain. To use a very happy expression which I have somewhere seen, "they are silent because they have nothing to say, and look stupid because they are so." Now I cannot in any way perceive how English travellers are less pleasing and intellectual from their being no longer exclusively confined to a class which was the first to lead the way, and is still distinguished by this identical sin of manners, against which M. Simond with justice exclaims. But, in point of fact, the main accusation which he brings against them is, that poorer and less noble men travel than heretofore. As to their lack of nobility, it is, I hope, at this time of day, unnecessary to speak. The times, I thank Heaven, are long past when a man's merit is judged by the number of his quarterings. The aristocracy of mind is the only one which now gains respect in England. A man need no longer, like Gil Blas, pull his patent of nobility from his bureau, as a preliminary to attention. A stupid peer and a clever plebeian will soon see which attracts, as which deserves, the most notice and esteem. No man of rank in England, with a common understanding, rests his pretensions now-a-days on that claim. He would be ashamed to do so. He knows and feels that it is the "gowd," not the "guinea-stamp" which is of value. He piques himself on being a gentleman of cultivated mind, not on his fifty descents. But M. Simond talks of men under the rank of 10,000l. a-year travelling, in a tone much more conformable to the ideas and calibre of M. Déjeans, at whose house I am writing, than of a man who pretends to reasoning and liberal feeling. Forsooth, the English will no longer submit to be plundered, to be robbed in fact; and therefore they are les Anglais pour rire! When our countrymen on the Continent consisted solely of raw lads from college, with a large allowance from the old lord, and of priggish tutors, who thought their importance was proportionate with the quantity of money spent by their élèves, it was quite natural that the English should acquire a character of being rich and lavish, in other words, of being cheated through the nose. But when other classes of men came to travel, who could not afford to pay for the privilege of being laughed at, they made a stout battle against the doctrine of Englishmen being charged double for every thing, which has partly, and partly only, succeeded. This, of course, is by no means relished by innkeepers, couriers, and postilions; but even with them I question strongly whether it has in any degree lessened their respect for our country. No one ever respects the man he has cheated; on the contrary, he is inclined to hold him in contempt. Formerly when a French or Italian shopkeeper asked one of his country

The rank is but the guinea-stamp,

The man's the gowd, for a' that.-BURNS.

men an extravagant price, the answer was, "Do you take me for an Englishman?" that is, "Do you take me for a purse-proud fool, who is weak enough to be pleased with the miserable consideration that is gained by paying twice as much for a thing as it is worth?" But, as an Italian courier said the other day to a friend of mine, "Quello non si dice più." Now, for the life of me, I cannot see the ridicule of no longer submitting to knavery and extortion.

But there is another question besides that of our being changed, namely that of the Genevans not having changed at all. If, as I think, I may undeniably lay down, we are advanced and improved, it is quite natural that we should no longer be very strongly delighted with the company of people who still remain at our forsaken point. Two children of ten years' old are very good company for each other, but, if one were to remain at ten years old, while the other continued to grow up, I think at twenty he would find his former associate, in a considerable degree, insipid. In the first place, the Genevans do not do that for which M. Simond blames us, they do not travel-and consequently their ideas remain as strictly confined as their town, shut in as it is by gates closed scrupulously at eleven o'clock every night. I am far from saying that it is incumbent on every man to travel; but if none do, there will be no influx of enlarged opinions to carry off the stagnation of a confined state of existence. The Genevans are wedded closely to their old customs, and are content to repose under the shade of their former intellectual laurels. They rest upon their oars, confiding in the force of their previous strokes, forgetting that, if they remain unrenewed, the boat will soon cease to have way through the water. Genevans of old times were, perhaps, much on a par with the Englishthe Genevans of the present day are far and far behind them, and are consequently voted bores-Can any thing be more simple?

The

As for the little slap at the English, for being "grown gentlemen taught to dance," it is, as a generality, not a caricature but a fiction. That there may be some heavy-headed, light-heeled blockheads, who cause the kit to squeak and the floor to shake, is very possible; but I fear, that the great majority of our countrymen retain the bad eminence' of being the worst dancers in Europe.

With reference to our numbers, I again see any thing but the ridiculous in that. They are a proof not only of our teeming population and national wealth*, but of the thirst of knowledge and instruction which pervade all ranks of the people. They are a proof, moreover, of the immense body, even in what are called the middling classes of society, who have gained that instruction, or rather perhaps that dégourdissement and expansion of idea which are to be acquired only by going abroad. It is said that every attorney's clerk during the long vacation-that every city apprentice during the dead months of the year,-runs over to Paris, if not to Switzerland. I answer, at once, so much the better. If they do not acquire much actual knowledge, they at all events shake off that contraction and exclusiveness which are the necessary results of living only in one scene and among one set of people. They discover that the world is not bounded by Westminster Bridge, or the Straits of

* It is surely unnecessary for me to point out the distinction of the credit to be assumed for personal and national riches.

Dover-that there are more things than were "dreamt of in their philosophy." And will it be denied, that this custom gives as its result a vast addition of enlightenment and expansion to the national mind?— Ought we not to encourage, rather than to repress, that which lessens the intensity of self with which English judgments and conclusions are so justly reproached? The higher, and consequently the idler, classes of all countries, will always have a due degree of foreign intercourse; but, for the middling ranks-ever the most important body of society -to acquire knowledge, or at least freedom and liberality of opinion by these means, is a thing which is, perhaps, now for the first time, beginning to exist in the instance of our countrymen-and which, I again and again repeat, ought in every way to be promoted and fostered, instead of impeded and sneered down.

I am very well aware, that among a body like this, there must be a great number of very ridiculous persons, whose ignorance of foreign habits, and even languages, will lead them into scrapes sufficiently absurd. It is very well to laugh at these things when they occur, but why record them as the characteristics of the race, and attempt to deter others by insinuating, if not asserting, that this must infallibly be their lot also? Now, that these things are not frequent and usual, is evident from their being so caught up and repeated when they do happen; and at all events, if one or two such circumstances were to befall each traveller at first, his rapidly increasing familiarity with the Continent would soon prevent their recurrence. And, at the worst, what feathers are they in the scale against the sterling advantages by which they are repaid!

M. Simond has been in England, and has written one of the fullest accounts of it ever published. But I am greatly surprised at its author seeming to regret the days when les milords Anglais were the only English travellers in Europe. He has the reputation-of doubtful justice as it seems to me-of holding liberal sentiments, and possessing feelings of political generosity. I cannot at all reconcile this with the passages of his work which I have transcribed. The rapid advance (and I again say it cannot be denied) which England has made during the last thirty years, has been mainly, if not entirely, owing to the increase of popular knowledge and exertion. There has been, not a political, but a moral revolution in England during that period; we are essentially less aristocratic in society, both in its broad and its confined sense, if we are not in institutions. At the time of which M. Simond writes, our lords, though nobles, were neither éclairés nor liberaux; at least, there did not exist then, as now, a sort of necessity for them to be, to a certain extent, the one, and a good proportion of them to be, at least, in some degree, the other. It is true, that among some of the higher orders in England, the aristocratic spirit was never so strong, may say so virulent, as it is at this moment, and that exactly for the reason that it is less generally of force. They feel that the prestige of their rank is slipping, like an eel, from their hold, and they consequently grasp it the tighter. But the mere circumstance of a man being milord, will not now, as it almost always did then, suffice for his wel

I have since read this book, and much of my surprise at the passage on which I have been commenting, has, in consequence, evaporated.

I

come reception in society. Society is now a pic-nic, and the man who does not bring his share of the feast will not be admitted as a member, whether noble or plebeian. How is it then that M. Simond regrets the exclusiveness, the prejudice, the reliance upon mere rank and wealth, which distinguished the days to which he reverts with such fondness? I cannot but rejoice, on my country's account, as well as on every other, that they no longer exist. As in other cases, the good old times" is a most complete misnomer.

λ.

BRING FLOWERS..

BRING flowers, young flowers, for the festal board,
To wreathe the cup ere the wine is pour'd :
Bring flowers! they are springing in wood and vale,
Their breath floats out on the southern gale,

And the touch of the sunbeam hath waked the rose,
To deck the hall where the bright wine flows.
Bring flowers to strew in the Conqueror's path-
He hath shaken thrones with his stormy wrath!
He comes with the spoils of nations back,
The vines lie crush'd in his chariot's track,
The turf looks red where he won the day-
Bring flowers to die in the Conqueror's way!
Bring flowers to the Captive's lonely cell,
They have tales of the joyous woods to tell;
Of the free blue streams, and the glowing sky,
And the bright world shut from his languid eye;
They will bear him a thought of the sunny hours,

And a dream of his youth-Bring him flowers, wild flowers.
Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the Bride to wear!
They were born to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childish mirth,
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth,
Her place is now by another's side-

Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young Bride!

Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed,
A crown for the brow of the early Dead!

For this through its leaves hath the white-rose burst,
For this in the woods was the violet nurst.

Though they smile in vain for what once was ours,
They are Love's last gift-Bring ye flowers, pale flowers!

Bring flowers to the shrine where we kneel in prayer,
They are Nature's offering, their place is there!

They speak of hope to the fainting heart,

With a voice of promise they come and part,
They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,

They break forth in glory-Bring flowers, bright flowers!

F. H.

BOOK-MAKERS.

"An endless band

Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land-
Glory and gain th' industrious tribe provoke."

POPE.

NOTHING is more common than an inclination to over-rate the importance of the age which is honoured by our presence, and of the events which are passing under our own eyes. When we observe, in the writings of the centuries that are gone, the tone of exaggerated admiration in which contemporary transactions and discoveries are alluded to, we cannot refrain from a smile, and bestow on our forefathers the self-complacent "Poor things! they knew no better," which we give to the shrewd but puny contrivances of children, who do the best they can with the blunted tools and coarse instruments with which we trust them. We find it, however, difficult to believe that posterity will glance over our achievements and improvements with the same contemptuous pity; and we fancy, in opposition to both reason and experience, that the light of our fame can never wax dim, and that "our study's godlike recompense" will be the marvelling admiration of all succeeding ages, even though man should continue to be born and to die for the thousand million of years which the Persians attribute to their Iy-anian dynasty. Yet we ourselves outlive our own wonder, stare no longer at gas-lights or Waterloo-bridge, forget our danger from Bonaparte, and our safety from Davy's lamp; balloons surprise us as little as umbrellas; were it not for repeated broad hints we should cease to remember the efficacy of Macassar oil; and we can sometimes scarcely believe that shoes were ever made not right and left, or shirts with plaited frills; that fires had once no guards, and Westminster Abbey no garden; that country dances were ever patronized by the fashionable, or waltzing ever objected to by the modest. Still less will our descendants, dazzled in their turn by their own merits and improvements, keep a constant and steady gaze upon ours: forgotten, sooner or later, will be the Breakwater and the Pavilion, Scotch novels and English hexameters, Congreve's rockets and Gill's copper caps, the splendour of our military fame and the brightness of Warren's blacking. The generations to come will wonder at our mistakes in the ologies, pity our ignorance of the Niger and the North Pole, and kindly commiserate those for not living later, who are themselves glorying that they live just when they do. But there is one point on which the Englishman of to-day may proudly take his stand, almost as secure of equality with the future, as he is certain of preeminence over the past. Our posterity may, indeed, apply the powers of steam to paying the national debt; they may light and watch Dartmoor, and Macadamize roads in the Moon; they may excel us in every various science and every art but one :-in that of making and multiplying books we must ever hold our superiority, here we must still exceed belief, and put competition at defiance. In the land of literature we are like locusts; we seem resolved to gather every twig of laurel from Parnassus, and to drain the fountains of the Muses dry; and we labour with selfish eagerness to prevent any author of a future age from boasting, like Ariosto, that his book contains, "Cosa non detta in prosa mai nè in rima," or, as Milton translates it, "Things unat