morning visit, reports the most injurious to female honour, of divers ladies, and yet meet those very persons, in the most fashionable society at night, as well received as if no such rumours had ever existed. In candour, I ought to add, that such examples are, I believe, wholly confined to the exclusive, or ultra-fashionable circle; for it is generally admitted, that there is to be found among the English aristocracy some of the brightest models of female purity and decorum. But these mix rarely with the clique self-named exclusive, who are for the most part composed of the impoverished noblesse, coquettes of doubtful, or, rather, not doubtful, reputations, silly aspirants to notoriety, imagining that unflattering distinction to be a species of celebrity.

Such are the persons who assume to give the tone to society in London : judge, then,

what that tone must be! It has all the frivolity and légèreté of the Parisian circles; but not the esprit, vivacity, and ease, that characterise them and, above all, not that attention to les bienséances, which, in France, precludes a woman from violating les convenances de société, however she may in private be deficient in morality.

I should like to have an opportunity of judging all the various classes of society here, being, as you are aware, un peu philosophe; and rather given to study the bipeds that compose the different grades.

Madame de Staël compared the English to the favourite beverage of the lower order porter: the top all froth, the middle good, and the bottom dregs. This simile contains, I believe, more truth than is to be found in many of the paradoxical comparisons of that

highly gifted woman, who sometimes played with her genius, as our favourite Malibran does with her voice, more to surprise than please.

The middle class here possess, I am told, all the advantages of education and refinement, exempt from the demoralisation that, but too frequently, accompany and sully them an exemption which even I, with all my philosophy, think is to be attributed to the influence of religious principles, and to the habits of discipline and decorum which they never fail to engender. Yes, reflexion faite, I am compelled to acknowledge, that all I have seen of other countries and this, has led to the conviction, that religion is the best guarantee for the prosperity and stability of a nation.

Literature and the fine arts are, I understand, generally and successfully cultivated by the class to which I refer; and their humanising effect no one can doubt, who has

witnessed the charms they diffuse over the monotony of the domestic circle. Accomplishments are not sought by this section of society for the purpose of display; they are acquired as furnishing sources of occupation and enjoyment, and yield both. There is one folly, however, which I hear ascribed as peculiarly appertaining to them; and that is, an assumption of belonging to the upper class. Each grade cherishes a similar belief, which causes subdivisions of society more gratifying to the puerile vanity of the individuals who compose them, than conducive to general habits of agreeable intercourse.

Each hour that I spend in London presents to me some new feature in society, totally different from what I have witnessed in other countries. Among the most remarkable, is an inordinate love of scandal, that induces its votaries to give credence to any report,

however exaggerated or improbable. Scandal reigns here unbridled; and unredeemed by the wit which renders it so piquant with you in France, that, in listening to some on dit plein de malice, one is self-excused for the smile it excites. Here there is no such varnish to the crude ebullitions of illnature and and envy, that render fashionable. society as disagreeable as it is dangerous. Every one seems disposed to put the very worst interpretation on the actions of his or her acquaintance; and never to be more amused than when listening to, or detailing, the errors attributed to them.

This peculiar taste for scandal in my compatriots is so well known, that it has become a staple commodity of traffic: journals have been established to retail it; and the more pungent the satire they contain, the more extensive is their sale. Who could resist

VOL. II.

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