pence a mile, including all expenses. On the other hand, you have not the advantage of taking an outside place at half-price, as a very trifling difference is made in this respect.

The Diligence itself cuts a very awkward figure, compared with our stage-coaches. There is much the same difference as between a barge and a pleasureboat; but then it is roomy and airy, and remarkably easy in its motion. In the common mechanic arts the French attend to the essential only; we are so fond of elegance and compactness, that we sacrifice ease to show and finish. The harness of the horses is made of ropes or rusty leather, and it is wonderful how they get along so well as they do, three, or sometimes four a-breast. The apples of the orchards hang over the road-side, which speaks well for the honesty of the inhabitants, or the plenty of the country. The women appear to work a good deal out of doors. Some of the older ones have strangely distorted visages, and those horrid Albert-Durer chins and noses, that have been coming together for half a century. The younger ones are handsome, healthylooking, animated; a better sort of English country girls. The character of French coquetry prevails even here, and you see a young peasant-girl, broiling in the sun, with a blue paper cap on her head, that glitters like the smoothest satin, and that answers the purpose of finery just as well. I observed that one man frequently holds the plough and guides the horses without

any one else to assist him, as they do in Scotland, and which in England they hold to be an agricultural heresy. In Surrey, where an English gentleman had hired a Scotch servant to try this method, the boors actually collected round the man in the church-yard on Sunday, and pointed at him, crying, "That's he who ploughs and drives the horses himself!" Our prejudices are no less on the alert, and quite as obstinate against what is right as what is wrong. I cannot say I was quite pleased with my barber at Dieppe, who inserted a drop of citron juice in the lather I was to shave with, and converted it into a most agreeable perfume. It was an association of ideas, a false refinement, to which I had not been accustomed, and to which I was averse. The best excuse

I could find for my reluctance to be pleased, was that at the next place where the same thing was attempted, the operator, by some villainous mixture, almost stunk me to death!

The entrance into Rouen, through extensive archways of tall trees, planted along the margin of the Seine, is certainly delectable. Here the genius of civilized France first began to display itself. Companies of men and women were sitting in the open air, enjoying the cool of the evening, and the serene moonlight, under Chinese lamps, with fruit and confectionery. We arrived rather late, but were well received and accommodated at the Hotel Vatel. My bad French by no means, however, conciliates the regard or in

creases the civility of the people on the road. They pay particular attention, and are particularly delighted with the English, who speak French well, or with tolerable fluency and correctness, for they think it a compliment to themselves and to the language; whereas, besides their dislike to all difficulty and uncertainty of communication, they resent an obvious neglect on this point as an affront, and an unwarrantable assumption of superiority, as if it were enough for an Englishman to shew himself among them to be well received, without so much as deigning to make himself intelligible. A person, who passes through a country in sullen silence, must appear very much in the character of a spy. Many things (a native is conscious) will seem strange to a foreigner, who can neither ask the meaning, nor understand the explanation of them; and on the other hand, if in these circumstances you are loquacious and inquisitive, you become proportionably troublesome. It would have been better (such is the natural feeling, the dictate at once of self-love and common sense) to have learned the language before you visited the country. An accent, an occasional blunder, a certain degree of hesitation are amusing, and indirectly flatter the pride of foreigners; but a total ignorance or wilful reluctance in speaking shews both a contempt for the people, and an inattention to good manners. neglect to make one's self master of a language tacitly implies, that in travelling through a country we have

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neither wants nor wishes to gratify; that we are quite independent, and have no ambition to give pleasure, or to receive instruction.

At Rouen the walls of our apartment were bare, being mere lath and plaster, a huge cobweb hung in the window, the curtains were shabby and dirty, and the floor without carpetting or matting; but our table was well-furnished, and in the English taste. French cooking comprehends English, and easily condescends to it; so that an Englishman finds himself better off in France than a Frenchman does in England. They complain that our cookery is dry, and our solid, unsavoury morsels, beef-steaks, and mutton chops, must stick in their throats as well as be repulsive to their imaginations; nor can we supply the additional sauces or disguises which are necessary to set them off. On the other hand, we had a dinner at the Hotel Vatel, a roast fowl, greens, and bacon, as plain, as sweet, and wholesome, as we could get at an English farm-house. We had also pigeons, partridges, and other game, in excellent preservation, and kept quite clear of French receipts and odious ragouts. Game or poultry is the half-way house, a sort of middle point, between French and English cookery. The bread here is excellent, the butter admirable, the milk and coffee superior to what we meet with at home. The wine and fruit, too, are delightful, but real French dishes are an abomination to an English palate. Unless a man means to stay all

his life abroad, let him beware of making the experiment, or get near enough to the door to make his exit suddenly. The common charges at the inns are much the same as in England; we paid twenty-pence for breakfast, and half a crown, or three shillings, for dinner. The best Burgundy is only three shillings and four-pence a bottle. A green parrot hung in a cage, in a small court under our window, and received the compliments and caresses of every one who passed. It is wonderful how fond the French are of holding conversation with animals of all descriptions, parrots, dogs, monkeys. Is it that they choose to have all the talk to themselves, to make propositions, and fancy the answers; that they like this discourse by signs, by jabbering, and gesticulation, or that the manifestation of the principle of life without thought delights them above all things? The sociableness of the French seems to expand itself beyond the level of humanity, and to be unconscious of any descent. Two boys in the kitchen appeared to have nothing to do but to beat up the white of eggs into froth for salads. The labour of the French costs them nothing, so that they readily throw it away doing nothing or the merest trifles. A nice-looking girl who officiated as chamber-maid, brought in a ripe melon after dinner, and offering it with much grace and good humour as "un petit cadeau" (a trifling present) was rather hurt we did not accept of it.

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