implied in the fact of their having become vastly more numerous, without supposing any actual degeneracy in the nation itself. At a very popular point of M. Simond's journey, it appeared from a register which he consulted, that the proportion of travellers from different countries, was twenty-eight English to four Prussians, two Dutch, five French, one Italian, and three Americans.That some of this great crowd of emigrants might not be suitable associates for some others, may easily be conjectured-and that the better sort may not have been very willing to fraternise with those who did least honour to their common country, could scarcely be imputed to them as a fault. But these considerations, we fear, will go but a little way to explain the phenomenon; or to account for the "Morgue Aristocratique," as Bonaparte called it, of the English gentry-the sort of sulky and contemptuous reserve with which, both at home and abroad, almost all who have any pretensions to bon ton seem to think it necessary to defend those pretensions. The thing has undoubtedly been carried, of late years, to an excess that is both ludicrous and offensive-and is, in its own nature, unquestionably a blemish and a misfortune: But it does not arise, we are persuaded, from any thing intrinsically haughty or dull in our temperament-but is a natural consequence, and, it must be admitted, a considerable drawback from two very proud peculiarities in our condition-the freedom of our constitution, and the rapid progress of wealth and intelligence in the body of the nation.

In most of the other countries of Europe, if a man was not born in high and polished society, he had scarcely any other means of gaining admission to it-and honour and dignity, it was supposed, belonged, by inheritance, to a very limited class of the people. Within that circle, therefore, there could be no derogation-and, from without it, there could be no intrusion. But, in this country, persons of every condition have been long entitled to aspire to every situation-and, from the nature of our political constitution, any one who had individual influence, by talent, wealth, or activity, became at once of consequence in the community, and was classed as the open rival or necessary auxiliary of those who had the strongest hereditary claims to importance. But though the circle of Society was in this way at all times larger than in the Continental nations, and embraced more persons of dissimilar training and habits, it does not appear to have given a tone of repulsion to the manners of those who affected the superiority, till a period comparatively remote. In the days of the Tudors and Stuarts there was a wide pale of separation between the landed Aristocracy and the rest of the population; and accordingly, down at least to the end of Charles the Second's reign, there seems to have been none of this dull and frozen arrogance in the habits of good company. The true reason of this, however, was, that though the competition was constitutionally open, good education was, in fact, till

after this period, confined to the children of the gentry; and a certain parade in equipage and dress, which could not be easily assumed but by the opulent, nor naturally carried but by those who had been long accustomed to it, threw additional difficulties in the way of those who wished to push themselves forward in society, and rendered any other bulwarks unnecessary for the protection of the sanctuary of fashion.

From the time of Sir Robert Walpole, however, the communication between the higher and the lower orders became far more open and easy. Commercial wealth and enterprise were prodigiously extended-literature and intelligence spread with unprecedented rapidity among the body of the people; and the increased intercourse between the different parts of the country, naturally produced a greater mixture of the different classes of the people. This was followed by a general relaxation in those costly external observances, by which persons of condition had till then been distinguished. Ladies laid aside their hoops, trains, and elaborate head-dresses; and gentlemen their swords, periwigs, and embroidery ;-and at the same time that it thus became quite practicable for an attorney's clerk or a mercer's apprentice to assume the exterior of a nobleman, it happened also, both that many persons of that condition had the education that fitted them for a higher rankand that several had actually won their way to it by talents and activity, which had not formerly been looked for in that quarter.Their success was well merited undoubtedly, and honourable both to themselves and their country; but its occasional occurrence, even more than the discontinuance of aristocratical forms or the popular spirit of the Government, tended strongly to encourage the pretensions of others, who had little qualification for success, beyond an eager desire to obtain it.— So many persons now raised themselves by their own exertions, that every one thought himself entitled to rise; and very few proportionally were contented to remain in the rank to which they were born; and as vanity is a still more active principle than ambition, the effects of this aspiring spirit were more conspicuously seen in the invasion which it prompted on the prerogatives of polite society, than in its more serious occupations; and a herd of uncomfortable and unsuitable companions beset all the approaches to good company, and seemed determined to force all its barriers.

We think we have now stated the true causes of this phenomenon-but, at all events, the fact we believe to be incontrovertible, that within the last fifty years there has been an incredible increase of forwardness and solid impudence among the half-bred and halfeducated classes of this country and that there was consequently some apology for the assumption of more distant and forbidding manners towards strangers, on the part of those who were already satisfied with the extent of their society. It was evidently easier and more prudent to reject the overtures of

unknown acquaintances, than to shake them off after they had been once allowed to fasten themselves to repress, in short, the first attempts at familiarity, and repel, by a chilling and somewhat disdainful air, the advances of all, of whom it might any way be suspected that they might turn out discreditable or unfit associates.

This, we have no doubt, is the true history of that awful tone, of gloomy indifference and stupid arrogance, which has unfortunately become so striking a characteristic of English mauners. At its best, and when most justified by the circumstance of the parties, it has, we must allow, but an ungracious and disobliging air: But the extravagant height to which it is now frequently carried, and the extraordinary occasions on which it is sometimes displayed, deserve all the ridicule and reprobation they meet with. We should not quarrel much with a man of family and breeding being a little distant and cold to the many very affable people he may meet with, either in his travels, or in places of public resort at home. But the provoking thing is, to see the same frigid and unsociable manner adopted in private society, and towards persons of the highest character, if they happen not to belong to the same set, or to be occupied with the same pursuits with those fastidious mortals-who, while their dignity forbids them to be affable to men of another club, or women of another assembly, yet admit to the familiarity of their most private hours, a whole gang of led captains, or led parsons, fiddlers, boxers, or parasitical buffoons. But the most remarkable extravagance in the modern practice of this repulsive system, is, that the most outrageous examples of it are to be met with among those who have the least occasion for its protection,-persons whose society nobody would think of courting, and who yet receive the slightest and most ordinary civilities,being all that the most courteous would ever dream of offering them, with airs of as vehement disdain as if they were really in danger of having their intimacy taken by storm! Such manners, in such people, are no doubt in the very extreme of absurdity.But it is the mischief of all cheap fashions, that they are immediately pirated by the vulgar; and certainly there is none that can be assumed with so little cost, either of industry or understanding as this. As the whole of it consists in being silent, stupid, and sulky, it is quite level to the meanest capacity-and, we have no doubt, has enabled many to pass for persons of some consideration, who could never have done so on any other terms; or has permitted them at least to think that they were shunning the society of many by whom they would certainly have been shunned.

We trust, therefore, that this fashion of mock stateliness and sullen reserve will soon pass away. The extreme facility with which it may be copied by the lowest and dullest of mankind, the caricatures which are daily exhibited of it in every disgusting variety,and the restraints it must impose upon the good nature and sociality which, after all, do

really form a part of our national character. must concur, we think, with the alienation it produces in others, speedily to consign it to the tomb of other forgotten affectations. The duties that we owe to strangers that come casually into our society, certainly are not very weighty-and a man is no doubt entitled to consult his own ease, and even his indolence, at the hazard of being unpopular among such persons. But, after all, atiability and complaisance are still a kind of duties, in their degree; and of all duties, we should really think are those that are repaid, not only with the largest share of gratitude, but with the greatest internal satisfaction. All we ask is that they, and the pleasure which naturally accompanies their exercise, should not be sacrificed to a vain notion of dignity, which the person assuming it knows all the while to be false and hollow-or to a still vainer assump tion of fashion, which does not impose upon one in a thousand; and subjects its unhappy victim to the ridicule of his very competitors in the practice. All studied manners are assumed, of course, for the sake of the effect they are to produce on the beholders: And if a man have a particularly favourable opinion of the wisdom and dignity of his physiognomy, and, at the same time, a perfect consciousness of the folly and vulgarity of his discourse, there is no denying that such a man, when he is fortunate enough to be where he is not known, will do well to keep his own secret, and sit as silent, and look as repulsive among strangers as possible. But, under any other circumstances, we really cannot admit it to be a reasonable, any more than an amiable demeanour. To return, however, to M. Simond.

If he is somewhat severe upon our national character, it must be confessed that he deals still harder measure to his own countrymen. There is one passage in which he distinctly states that no man in France now pretends to any principle, either personal or political. What follows is less atrocious, and probably nearer the truth. It is the sequel of an encomium on the domestic and studious occupations of the well-informed society of Zurich.

would tempt few strangers, and in France particu larly, it would appear quite intolerable. Yet I doubt whether these contemners of domestic dulness are not generally the dullest of the two. Walking oc casionally the whole length of the interior Boulevards of Paris, on a summer evening, I have geneseveral hours, the very same figures sitting just rally observed on my return, at the interval of where I had left them; mostly isolated middle-aged men, established for the evening on three chairs, one for the elbow, another for the extended leg, a third for the centre of gravity; with vacant looks and a muddy complexion, appearing discontented with themselves and others, and profoundly tired. A fauteuil in a salon, for the passive hearer of the talk of others, is still worse, I take it, than the three chairs on the Boulevard. The theatre, seen again and again, can have no great charm; nor is it every one who has money to spare for the one, or free access to the other; therefore, an immense number

'Probably a mode of life so entirely domestic

of people are driven to the Boulevard as a last resource. As to home, it is no resource at all. No one thinks of the possibility of employing his time,

The same distinction applies to the mimicry, if it may be so called, of an author's style and manner of writing. To copy his peculiar phrases or turns of expression-to borrow the grammatical structure of his sentences, or the metrical balance of his lines or to crowd and string together all the pedantic or affected words which he has become remarkable for using-applying, or misapplying all these without the least regard to the character of his genius, or the spirit of his compositions, is to imitate an author only as a monkey might imitate a man-or, at best, to support a masquerade character on the strength of the Dress only; and at all events, requires as little talent, and deserves as little praise, as the mimetic exhibitions in the neighbourhood of Port-Sydney. It is another matter, however, to be able to borrow the diction and manner of a celebrated writer to express sentiments like his own-to write as he would have written on the subject proposed to his imitator-to think his thoughts, in short, as well as to use his words--and to make the revival of his style appear but a consequence of the strong conception of his peculiar ideas. To do this in all the perfection of which it is capable, requires talents, perhaps, not inferior to those of the original on whom they are employed-together with a faculty of observation, and a dexterity of application, which that original might not always possess; and should not only afford nearly as great pleasure to the reader, as a piece of composition, but may teach him some lessons, or open up to him some views, which could not have been otherwise disclosed. The exact imitation of a good thing, it must be admitted, promises fair to be a pretty good thing in itself; but if the resemblance be very striking, it commonly has the additional advantage of letting us more completely into the secret of the original author, and enabling us to understand far more clearly in what the peculiarity of his manner consists, than most of us should ever have done without this assistance. The resemblance, it is obvious, can only be rendered striking by exaggerating a little, and bringing more conspicuously forward, all that is peculiar and characteristic in the model: And the marking features, which were somewhat shaded and confused in their natural presentment, being thus magnified and disengaged in the copy, are more easily observed and comprehended, and their effect traced with infinitely more ease and assurance; just as the course of a river, or a range of mountains, is more distinctly understood when laid down on a map or plan, than when studied in their natural proportions. Thus, in Burke's imitation of Bolingbroke (the most perfect specimen, perhaps, which ever will exist of the art of which we are speaking), we have all the qualities which distinguish the style, or we may indeed say the genius, of that noble writer, as it were, concentrated and brought at once before us; so that an ordinary reader, who, in perusing his genuine works, merely felt himself dazzled and disappointed -delighted and wearied he could not tell why, is now enabled to form a definite and

precise conception of the causes of those opposite sensations,--and to trace to the nobleness of the diction and the inaccuracy of the reasoning-the boldness of the propositions and the rashness of the inductions-the magnificence of the pretensions and the feebleness of the performance, those contradictory judgments, with the confused result of which he had been perplexed in the study of the original. The same thing may be said of the imitation of Darwin, contained in the Loves of the Triangles, though confessedly of a satirical or ludicrous character. All the peculiarities of the original poet are there brought together, and crowded into a little space; where they can be compared and estimated with ease. His essence in short, is extracted, and separated in a good degree from what is common to him with the rest of his species;-and while he is recognised at once as the original from whom all these characteristic traits have been borrowed, that original itself is far better understood-because the copy presents no traits but such as are characteristic.

This highest species of imitation, therefore, we conceive to be of no slight value in fixing the taste and judgment of the public, even with regard to the great standard and original authors who naturally become its subjects. The pieces before us, indeed, do not fall correctly under this denomination: the subject to which they are confined, and the occasion on which they are supposed to have been produced, having necessarily given them a certain ludicrous and light air, not quite suitable to the gravity of some of the originals, and imparted to some of them a sort of mongrel character in which we may discern the features both of burlesque and of imitation. There is enough, however, of the latter to answer the purposes we have indicated above; while the tone of levity and ridicule may answer the farther purpose of admonishing the authors who are personated in this exhibition, in what directions they trespass on the borders of absurdity, and from what peculiarities they are in danger of becoming ridiculous. A mere parody or travestie, indeed, is commonly made, with the greatest success, upon the tenderest and most sublime passages in poetry-the whole secret of such performances consisting in the substitution of a mean, ludicrous, or disgusting subject, for a touching or noble one. But where this is not the case, and where the passages imitated are conversant with objects nearly as familiar, and names and actions almost as undignified, as those in the imitation, the author may be assured, that what a moderate degree of exaggeration has thus made eminently laughable, could never have been worthy of a place in serious and lofty poetry. But we are falling, we perceive, into our old trick of dissertation, and forgetting our benevolent intention to dedicate this article to the amusement of our readers.-We break off therefore, abruptly, and turn without farther preamble to the book.

The first piece, under the name of the loyal Mr. Fitzgerald, though as good, we suppose, as the original, is not very interesting. Whether