Germans, Dutch, and Swiss are best suited to England. Frenchmen are continually finding fault with it, and yet manage to live and thrive in it. Of all foreigners I think Italians and Spaniards are those who find it most difficult to accustom themselves to England and English habits.

In a country so wealthy as England is, and its wealth the result of industry, it is but natural that people should attach great importance to property and money. Money is a cloak that covers a multitude, I will not say of sins, but imperfections. Yet the English, generally speaking, are far from being inclined to avarice; their disposition tends rather to the opposite fault. They do not love money for its own sake, but as the means of procuring comforts and respectability. This is reasonable to a certain degree, but, like all other human qualities, it is apt to exceed due bounds. Respect for wealth has often, I believe, too much influence upon the judgment of Englishmen; this habit has been left in great measure undisturbed by civil commotions, whilst with us, you know, my Giulio, the case is widely different; there has been so much distress amongst all classes, so much rising and falling of fortunes, that poverty has lost considerably of the disgrace attached to it. Revolutions, like earthquakes, bring men upon a level, and break down all human distinctions. When we see palaces as well as cottages falling every where around us, w have not time to think of keeping our distance, but we ush all in a crowd and endeavour to reach some safer ground where we may rest, although by the side of the tattered beggars or the loathsome sick. This is, however, but a scanty advantage, and too dearly purchased even by those who outlive the storm.

The English attach great importance to that untranslatable word comfort, which a foreigner, especially a southern man, cannot well understand; because, owing to the difference of climate and habits, he never felt the same wants. To be on a cold winter day in this country, without fire or carpet on the floor, deprived of the means of procuring substantial food, or warming beverage, must be truly miserable. In Italy it would not be half so bad. With a few soldi the poor Italian gets bread, cheese, and wine, and feels contented; he sleeps on straw, and warms himself in the sunshine. He sees with a listless smile the proud carriage rolling by, and feels perhaps more genial warmth in his veins than the care-worn possessor of the gorgeous equipage. But in England poverty brings real distress, and if not relieved, sickness and death. Therefore the Englishman is more particularly on his guard against the approaches of this terrible enemy, and not only guards himself against it, but is willing to preserve his fellow-crea

tures from the fiend he dreads. Hence the numerous charities, subscriptions, poor-rates, which, however they may be at times misapplied, still reflect high credit on the English character. Owing to all these precautions, it may be said that the people of this island, taken together, know less of real distress than any other nation. Compare the different classes with the corresponding ones on the Continent, and you find that they all have more comforts in England; it is true, as I said, that they require more. Hence they seldom form a correct idea of the wishes and wants of the lower classes on the Continent.

Ideas of wealth and comfort may be said to have an undue influence over the mind, only when they over balance other and greater advantages, such as peace, domestic happiness, intellectual pleasures, friendship, love. A certain quantum is required to live honourably in proportion to one's station in life, and this quantum is certainly much higher in this country than in any other; but beyond this, all other wishes and wants are merely the result of fancy or of false comparisons. Now, for the chimerical advantages of some additional hundreds a year, of a supernumerary servant, of a larger house, of a carriage, many and many are apt to sacrifice the happiness of their lives. There is the evil, Giulio, and this evil appears to me to be more generally spread in this country than elsewhere. It is perceivable in the discussion of that most important and much misunderstood point, the propriety of marriages, which is often argued as if marriage in itself were an indifferent object, and not a desideratum; as if its financial accessories only were worthy of consideration. I am far from being an advocate for imprudent matches, but I don't see that fictitious ideas of comfort and luxury should stand in the way of conjugal and parental enjoyments. Celibacy is not a natural nor often a moral state; it is the source of innumerable evils to individuals as well as to society at large. A little less squeamish delicacy or affectation and a little more sincerity and common sense would be very desirable in the discussion of this topic.

Man is every where a compound of contrasts. His head and his heart, his mind and his senses, are often at variance with each other, and he himself as an individual is often at variance with the mass of his fellow-creatures. This gives birth to an infinite number of incoherences, many of which, however, are only apparent, being consequences of the same principles variously modified by circumstances. Thus the English, with all their astonishing activity in matters of business, and the eagerness and perseverance with which they pursue any object good or bad in which they are engaged, yet

preserve in their social intercourse and in their demeanour an appearance of coldness which a stranger is apt to mistake for the result of a phlegmatic temperament. They appear on the stage of promiscuous society clad in an almost impenetrable mail of caution and reserve which gives them at times a considerable advantage over more hasty and susceptible people, by rendering them impassible to the shafts of the latter, while it affords them time to study the weak points of their antagonists, and watch a favourable opportunity to strike a decisive blow. This is particularly observable in any discussion in which a Frenchman and an Englishman, both of equal acquirements, happen to be engaged, The former has certainly the advantage in point of wit, quickness, fluency of words, and ruses de guerre; but all these have little effect upon his adversary, who listens coolly and with a provoking smile on his lips, keeps close to his argument, whether sound or not (the English are generally pretty acute logicians though at times sophists) until the other has wasted his strength and perhaps lost his temper, and then the advantage remains with the Englishman, It is like the battle between Argante and Tancredi, as described by our Torquato. I speak of the result de facto, for with regard to the judgment of the by-standers it depends chiefly upon the nationality of the audience. In a French company an Englishman, though victor, would probably not be acknowledged as such; he would be perhaps borne down by the general impatience of his hearers, and he could hardly expect what he calls fair play, a condition to which most Englishmen are scrupulously attached.

One meets here with many of those people whom we used in Italy to call cattedratici (ex cathedra), I believe the natives here call them prosers, men who know a few subjects well, and are apt to be very diffuse upon them; although it must be confessed they do it in general logically enough, but with a tedious minuteness. They will not allow you to grasp the subject at once, to foresee an unavoidable consequence and to take it for granted, to suppose certain unimportant accessories, no you must have not only the truth, but the whole truth, without omitting a jot. I am unfortunately subject to be absent on such occasions, although I feel it is very wrong, for there is always information to be derived from a prolix dissertation, were it even on the best way of rearing cabbages and turnips, of brewing some particular sort of beer, or upon some obsolete custom of a remote country.

I have often heard foreigners remark as a striking peculiarity of this country, that hardly any one in the street is seen to smile, much less to laugh. The latter appears to be, at least in public, a sin against bon ton, a word which, as I have Į

believe observed to you before, holds a powerful sway over these free people. To be, or rather, I should say, to appear calm and impassible, and superior to the frailties, whether mental or physical, of human nature, is the great rule of the land. could exemplify this by some ludicrous instances, but I shall content myself with repeating an expressive sentence of one of my continental friends, who says that en Angleterre on est corps glorieux. Now this rule holds good with regard to that muscular convulsion called laughter, to which people are very prone on the Continent. The non-risibility of the English, however, is confined to public places, for among intimate acquaintances I have seen them laugh heartily and loudly too. But they certainly smile much less and in a less expressive manner (sarcasm apart) than the French or Italians. There is a rigid immoveableness, a sort of eternal statu quo in the muscles of their faces which scares away gaiety. The worst of it is that it proves contagious; I certainly laugh much less here than I used to do on the other side of the channel. Often when in company with other foreigners at some of the restaurateurs, I have felt myself suddenly checked in the midst of a cachinnous fit, by looking up, and seeing a grave individual sitting opposite to me, his organs of vision in direct line with mine, looking straight forward without blinking, as if in reproach of my unseasonable mirth. It was like the sight of the head of Medusa. You know I have but a scanty flow of spirits in general, but on that very account a hearty laugh now and then, with or without cause, is greatly beneficial. Cela fait du bien à la rate, as the French say, and it is after all a very innocent relaxation.

There are many peculiar forms of etiquette in the social intercourse of the English to which they are tenaciously attached, and which it requires a long and constant attention in a foreigner to learn. There is a sort of state in every thing that is done, whether at the dinner-table, or in the drawingroom, from the knocking at the door to the making your retiring bow. Every thing is regulated by customs almost as immutable as those of the Chinese. These forms accompany the natives abroad; the English are always surrounded by an atmosphere of their own; this is perceivable at the theatres, coffee-houses, public walks, and even at church. I must say, that most of these forms, strange as they appear at first to a foreigner, prove, upon closer examination, to be founded on reason, and become at last by habit, familiar and even agreeable. They have the effect however to make society appear uniform; for, as every class in this country is constantly striving to imitate its betters, you meet with people who have no pretensions to superior education, or to elegance

of manners and polish of the mind, but who, being wealthy, are encircled by a degree of splendour, which we are not accustomed to meet on the Continent, except among the highest ranks; and whose appearance, therefore, is apt to deceive a stranger. These persons thus surrounded by a little court of dependants, their eyes constantly resting upon objects of luxury and grandeur, imbibe also a false idea of their own situation; when mixing with strangers they hardly know how to take their proper footing, how to draw the distinction between dependants and acquaintances; they are apt to be either too supercilious or too familiar; and this perhaps without any real pride, but merely from a necessary effect of their mode of living. There are of course here, the same as in every other country, minds who rise with their fortunes, and they may be said to grace wealth more than wealth graces them; but this happy ductility, which must be the combined effect of a natural delicacy of tact and an intelligent mind nurtured by experience, is not to be acquired by, and therefore not to be expected in, every one. In a country so rich and commercial as this, individuals thus risen, are very numerous, and form a very considerable and important part of society. Most of them are highly respectable in their principles, and make an excellent use of their wealth; they give the best education to their children, who, brought up in a different manner from their parents, become thus by right, as well as by fact, members of the upper classes; in other words, patricians, in the essential sense of the name.

The real English gentleman, that is to say, the man born to a landed property and having received a liberal education, is, generally speaking, a noble being. This class constitute the pride and the strength of the country. They feel their independence and their importance, and their ideas are therefore, generally speaking, elevated and generous. Even their faults partake of their lofty nature. This is, and must always be, the result of birth and education. I do not allude here to noble birth particularly, but to what may be termed gentle lineage. The class I am speaking of is not numerous with us; most of our proprietors being either new men or noblemen of the old cast, the two extremes between which, the gentlemen of England form a happy medium, and a very useful link. Many of these country gentlemen have princely fortunes and magnificent residences, without any titles to their names; some of them have even refused titles, preferring the dignity of their ancient family name, which has passed to them unspotted through many generations.

The two aristocracies of birth and wealth, the landed and the commercial classes, furnish members for the third aristo