and let us now try and swallow a small dose.

The first objects that strike our anonymous author are the fair sex. Their numerical and moral preponderance are startling to him. In a country whose King is a Queen, he finds woman is master; she does everything; she appears everywhere. In the streets there are thirty women to ten men. In the shops women sell and women purchase. The theatres, omnibuses, railways, steamers, are crowded with them. In the museums, in the public galleries, at the Crystal Palace, in the parks, at church, they swarm. Women on foot in Hyde Park follow women in carriages to look at women on horseback. They are more numerous than the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven, or the flies of Naples. They are useful, they are ornamental, they are independent, and have wills of their own. But how about the homes and the children,-are they well cared-for? And where is the quiet modesty of Italian womenthe angelic innocence of the Italian maidens, who are brought up in simple seclusion, and to whom the very existence of evil is unknown?

Those who know aught of the life led by Italian ladies, cannot wonder at the surprise manifested by our author at the difference existing in this respect between them and their English sisters. There, all is quiet and retirement; the married women go out but little, and then only to church, the theatre, or a visit. Few are to be seen in the streets, and probably, if there are three women to one man in London, the proportion may be safely reversed in Naples, Rome, or Florence. And as for the girls there, they are educated in strict retirement; they are never allowed to go from beyond their mother's wings, and they seldom leave their father's roof until they finally quit it for a husband's. With us all is bustle, activity, and restlessness-in the above-mentioned cities

all is calm, indolence, and repose. Englishwomen are more useful, industrious, and enterprising than Romans or Neapolitans. Are they happier or purer? This is a question we should not like to undertake to solve.

According to our writer, the maidens of London are gadding about all day staring at shop-windows, and walking along with as much composure and nonchalance as an Italian damsel who proceeds from the dining-room to the bedchamber.

Ladies of the aristocracy, if young, ride on horseback, attended by a jockey, or a friend of the family; if old, they are drawn in a carriage driven and accompanied by powdered and bewigged coachman and lackeys. Ladies of the middle classes spend their mornings in warehouses, examining, turning over, choosing goods, and worrying shopmen; their days in promenading in the parks, frequenting the Crystal Palace, and paying visits; their evenings at theatres or concerts. What a happy state of things, by the way-all play and no work, and nothing to do but to spend money! We should like to inquire of a few thousands of the wives of our merchants, our doctors, our lawyers, our clergymen, whether this is the life they lead.

In the lower grades, women keep their own or other people's shops; they open and close them; they understand their business, and are agreeable in their manners. Finally, going down lower still, they are domestic servants. Clean themselves, they clean all. The consumption of soap daily is frightful. The servant washes the household linen, goes out marketing, cooks the dinner, makes love to the baker's man, takes the children for a walk, is honest and virtuous, works hard, rises early, and goes to bed late. We must, however, refer to our housekeepers to know whether their maids are usually of this type, or whether the author met with a phoenix.

The occupation of an Englishman's life, we are told, is solely business. Business in the morning, business in the afternoon, business in the evening, business in the night. In London, a man, generally speaking, is only a man of business. The hundreds of omnibuses, of railway trains, full of scores of thousands of men rushing to the City, their noses dipped in their newspapers, are a source of wonder, not unmixed with amusement, to our foreign friend. The narrow streets of the City are crowded with cabs, carts, carriages, and every description of vehicles. Countless hosts of men rush about, push against one another, with an anxious, hurried look, as if the world were coming to an end. They do not stop; they do not speak we are in business hours. One well-dressed man drives a hired carriage; another, more elegantly attired, an omnibus; a third carries a bag on his shoulders. These are not coachmen or porters: they are merely men of business.

You

According to our author, if you enter into an office, though there may be twenty clerks, not one notices you, or asks you to sit down. may cough, or look, or speak to them politely, and your existence still continues to be ignored. At last, if you succeed in inducing one of them to listen to your words, he answers you briefly without looking at you, without raising his eyes from his books or his letters. In vain you beg for more explanations; he is too busy to waste any more breath with you, and leaves you where you are, until, convinced of the utter hopelessness of your undertaking, you withdraw crestfallen. If you are a foreigner, and have come to Loudon solely on account of one important matter, and request an appointment, the inexorable diary is produced, and you are shown that every hour from morning till night on the following day, the next, the one after, &c., are fully engaged,

and you may consider yourself lucky if you succeed in obtaining half an hour, say, for Thursday week; and so on for every day, every week, every year, on the same monotonous round, until the last bell is rung, when business shall cease for ever after.

Justice to the English is done by the writer with reference to the simple elegance of their dress, and to their general good looks; but he cannot understand how Englishmen can see the prettiest women pass them by without turning to glance at them. The only exception seems to be in the case of fair equestrians; but then the object scrutinised is the horse, and not the lady. So much for our gallantry. Many of our damsels, we think, however, are very likely to challenge the statement of our author on this point.

The characteristic of each class is depicted in a few sharp words. There is great genius and patriotism among the aristocracy. A lord is an intelligent and agreeable traveller abroad; he lives apart from ordinary mortals, reposing under the shade of divine right, at home. His existence is spent in three prison houses, from which he seldom emerges-the inside of his mansion, the inside of his carriage, the inside of Parlia

ment.

The middle classes are long-headed in business, and very intelligent and enterprising. In Italy, the honeymoon of two partners ends in a civil court, and of four partners in a criminal court. In England everything is done by association, and the public wealth increases.

The class of small proprietors, innumerable in Italy, does not exist in England, where nobody is idle. Neither do we see there the genus of

dandies without occupation. Query? we presume the writer has never been inside a club-house in St. James's?

The priests possess good sense, and dress like fallible men. They

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look to their shop, like others, but they don't sell sanctity to the public. The physicians are skilful, but dear. The lawyers honest, but expensive for the law is a noble profession, and must be nobly paid. The only wrong perpetrated by judges is, that of wearing a wig, without which adjunct, it appears, justice cannot be fairly administered. Artists are worthy as men, indifferent as artists. Workmen work, and drink rum when they can get it, if not, gin. They prefer dying of hard drink, rather than of hard work. They are not lazy, but they would rather see the whole world perish before them than hammer a nail on Sunday.

The mob is mob; tolerably decent, not too rough, and never brutal.

Drunkards are numerous, and two or three days spent in a drinking. bout are followed by two or three days spent in a lock-up. Then they are compelled to work, for board and lodging are not gratuitous. Nothing is given for nothing in England -no work no dinner, even in prison. Beggars are scarce. A few old men and women, with a broom in their hands, lean against a wall, waiting to receive the charity of the soft-hearted. If it is not given, they do not send curses after the wayfarers, neither do they send more striking arguments in the shape of stones, as has been witnessed in Calabria.

Rogues are not fools, and their operations are carried on with prudence;

for there are stringent laws, and there are vigorous administrators of them. Those who are caught breaking them are carried away without ceremony, and subjected to ignominious punishment.

The institution of the Police attracts the unqualified admiration of our author; who depicts the members of "the force," in, we fear, somewhat too glowing colours. He sees in them, not only the many admirable qualities they really do

possess, but even those they ought, but do not possess.

As for the smoke of London, he cannot easily forget it; and he descants eloquently on its well-known qualities. He dwells on its denseness; its everlasting nature; its weight; its smell; its viscous greasiness which causes it to stripe the human countenance with beautiful black lines; contrary to atmospheric air, it is both ponderable and visible, and its unique virtues should be celebrated by a poet. It is like a thick veil which disguises the face of nature, but it does not heighten its charms like those of a veiled beauty. The only advantage of it is, that a man may wear a drab hat in summer, which by the time winter comes round, becomes so extensively black as to save the cost of a new purchase for the season.

Any individual who does not wish to appear a coalheaver, is bound to change linen twice daily in London. Nevertheless, thanks to the laundresses and to soap and lime, nowhere is there such a personal display of clean linen as in London.

Our author admires the streets of London: they are not disproportionately wide as those of Vienna, nor are they country roads spoilt, like the Paris Boulevards. Some of the principal London thoroughfares have a grand character similar to that of the best streets of Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Palermo. There is, however, too much family resemblance between them, and when we have seen one we have seen all. The footpaths are wide and well paved, and by dint of appealing to policemen, a foreigner can manage not to lose himself. There are no porticoes in London under which to take refuge when it rains. As for the sun, one need not run away from it, for for two hundred days in the year, it sleeps under its blankets; for a hundred more it is sick, and for the remaining sixty-five it is in a state of convalescence, being pale and weak

and constrained to rise late and to retire betimes.

In order to cross the streets one -unless able to take a flying leap across the pavement--must make up his mind to wade in mire up to the knees. The Londoners appear to possess a special liking for mud; when by chance it does not rain, tons of water are poured into the highways, rendering them all but impassable.

In Italy it is said, "Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you what you are.' In England, the first question you are asked is where you live, and from the name of the locality depends the opinion formed of you, and your reputation. If you reside in certain regions you are fashionable, and you may be invited to good houses; if you reside in any of the remaining others, however respectable you may be, your existence must be ignored. These distinctions may appear arbitrary to foreigners, but it is their own fault if they do not conform with them.

Our author seems to have made a special study of the streets of London. He was struck at the, to him, unaccountably strange habit of the late opening and early closing of the shops. From his chamber at the Langham Hotel, he walked, at seven o'clock in the morning, on the 1st July, towards the Victoria Station, vainly seeking for a cab. He met four drunken men and two women, but at eight o'clock he could not procure a cup of coffee for love or money; and even at a large foreign establishment just opening, he was answered by a surprised countryman of his, "What! coffee at this hour." On the other hand, like Charles Lamb, who made up for his late arrivals at the East India House by his early departures, so the London shops are in a hurry to close at night, leaving the principal thoroughfares gloomy and deserted. Any one who knows the Continent must contrast Regent or Oxford Streets

with the Boulevards in Paris, the Toledo at Naples, the Corso at Milan, the Via di Po at Turin, or the Via Calzajuoli at Florence. Our foreign friend did not know of the early-closing movement, nor did he pause to inquire into its causes. He described effects with more or less accuracy, and that was all he intended.

The sights of the milkman's cans left at the doors; of men rushing frantically with black bags in their hands towards the City; of others running after omnibuses and then climbing on the roofs, by a feat of gymnastics requiring considerable practice; the curioushabit of coachmen driving to the left instead of the right, as is done everywhere else excepting Rome, where everything was done the wrong way; the number of children drawn about in the footpaths singly or in couples, in diminutive carriages by nursery maids; the plurality of ladies gaily dressed, with artificial smiles, dealing doubtfully enticing looks, and words, and pinches, to wondering strangers-all these strange spectacles afforded him amusement, or at least food for much reflection.

At all events, he did not contemplate what he had often contemplated in his own country. He did not see heaps of filth, or newly-washed linen, hanging from the windows; or ragged and tattered tramps sleeping over the footpaths; or lazy and insolent beggars importuning wayfarers for alms; or bold flower-girls forcing their stale commodity on strangers; or dirty coachmen driving dirtier vehicles than themselves, and torturing poor starving horses; or lottery ticket offices, encouraging the worst spirit of gambling in the multitude.

After giving a lively account of our shops and our gin-palaces, the author makes his comments on our public gardens and squares, which he most unfavourably contrasts with those in his own land. The squares

are wildernesses with grass and trees; the gardens and parks are larger squares with a vast expanse of grass and gigantic trees. As for ornamental gardens with marble fountain, cascades, grottoes, basins of water, fish ponds, groves, mazes, hot houses, flower-walks, belvederes, vineries, alleys rendered delighful to the ear by the melodious song of birds, to the nostrils by the sweet fragrance of luxurious flowers, and to the eye by their lovely variegated forms, they are only conspicuous for their absence in London. Kew, evidently he did not know; the Crystal Palace was the nearest approach to his ideas, and on this subject more will be said anon.

Let us hear his opinions on public buildings. They are so numerous in London, that could only one half of them be gathered in one spot, they would suffice to form by themselves an entire city of monuments. But they are utterly lost, for they are scattered and disposed among miles of dingy, mean, and utterly tasteless houses, and they are moreover spoilt by the effects of the smoke which darkens their exterior, and gives them a gloomy and forbidding appearance. Further, most of the splendid edifices of London are so hemmed in, and surrounded by paltry constructions, that their effect is quite marred. It is a wonder that so intelligent and enterprising a nation as the English, should not have invented some plan for counteracting the ill effects of smoke, and thus changing London from an oppressively dismal and dreary city, into one lively and gay.

As for the architecture, it is very much like the coat of Harlequin, being made up of patches, and it is by no means infrequent to observe Corinthian columns with Tuscan bases, Egyptian capitals, Doric cornices; the whole surmounted by a roof in the Rennaissance Greek style. Thus, at least, London can show specimens of every style of

architecture; and, anyhow, it is always better to imitate good examples than to originate bad ones.

The churches of London are really fine temples, and, blasphemy though it may seem, the exterior of St. Paul's--the exterior only be it understood-is more architecturally perfect in its proportions and general outlines than St. Peter's of Rome; whilst Westminster Abbey is superior in beauty, both externally and internally, to the Church of Notre Dame of Paris. The church steeples are remarkably curious, being frequently like inverted cones ending in a point; and it must be noticed that there are churches that have the appearance of private residences, and private residences that have the appearance of churches. The royal palaces are not fairy habitations, like that whence the Bourbons of Naples were expelled, still they are worthy of being the seats of a great monarch. The Houses of Parliament are a handsome and immense Gothic edifice, having an imposing appearance from the river; but it contains many faults of detail. The salient parts throw the rest out of proportion; the towers are too lofty; the gilding on their top resemble so many looking-glass frames, and has an ineffective and meretricious look; whilst the cropped grass and balloon lights on the frontage, give that space the aspect of a rural churchyard. The clubs are sumptuous mansions,-and the Athenæum-which was frequented by the writer-contains among its vast saloons, an excellent restaurant, a choice library, and a luxurious smoking-room. The hotels are small cities-witness the Langham, where you are carried up to your chamber in a travelling apartment, where you wander among grand halls, magnificent staircases, and wide galleries; where you have a post-office and a telegraph-station, and where every traveller is mulcted pretty heavily, to contribute, it may be supposed,