to recruit his shattered fortunes.. He goes, casting many a longing, lingering look behind, at the haunts and companions of his youth, with whom he leaves a portion of his heart. He returns with his dearly bought gold, purchased with his best years, and no inconsiderable portion of his liver, impatient to mingle again with those from whom he sighed to part. He has forgotten the characteristic coldness of manner of his countrymen, and ap proaches each remembered face, with gladness and warmth; when he is chilled by a careless "How are you?" accompanied by an extension of the fore-finger of the right hand, and followed by a nonchalant demand of, "How long have you been in town? I have not seen you for some time."

He encounters the same reception from all his old associates, who, reminded by the change in his face of the possibility of a nearly similar one in their own visages, conceive a dislike to him; and, unless he is supposed to possess countless lacs of rupees, and to be fond of play, he is voted a bore, and condemned to seek for society among the golden visaged members of the Asiatic club, who can sympathise in his loss of liver, and expatiate on the comforts of curry and sangaree.

A good cook is the most infallible essential towards the acquisition of popularity in London; and he who allows a dozen guests to judge of the talents of his chef de cuisine, once a week, is certain of being considered a person of importance. The stomach is so near the heart, that he who gratifies the one, will be sure to make an agreeable impression on the other: hence, a giver of good dinners is always popular. He may be a man suspected of having perpetrated many evil deeds, and convicted of some; but if he stops the mouths of a certain set of gourmands with fillets de volaille aux truffes, he may defy censure.

A modern Lucullus, whose fame was less approved than his dinners, was once nearly cut by his friends be

cause he refused to submit to the extravagant demands of his cook, who asked for double the usual wages; and it was not until he had satisfied them, by positive proof, that the successor was quite as good an artiste, that they renewed the bond of union.

You, who have seen society in Italy, Germany, and France, can form no idea of its incongruities in England. Its laws-if laws they may be called-are at once the most absurd and partial; the most lax in the general principles, and unjust in their individual punishments.

Yet this country, which we on the Continent were led to believe was the land, par excellence, where female propriety was the most indispensable essential for ensuring a good reception; and the want of it a barrier which neither rank, wealth, nor genius, could enable their possessor to surmount,-every day's experience proves to be precisely that where its absence is the least severely punished.

Nothing is more usual than to hear, in a 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 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 selfnamed 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 remark. able, 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 ill-nature 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 reading an attack on some dear friend, some "poor dear Lady This, or Mrs. That, so horribly shown up on Sundays!" The men gloat over the papers in their clubs, consoled for the censure on themselves by that on their associates; and the women peruse them in the privacy of their boudoirs, or dressing-rooms, disclaiming, among their acquaintances, "ever having seen the abominable paper."

In London, any woman in a brilliant position may lose her reputation in a week, without having even imagined a dereliction from honour. There is so much médisance continually going on; people are, at once, so idle and malicious, that they seize with avidity on every new

subject of scandal; and repeat it so often, that they end by, not only making others believe, but by believing it themselves.

A gentleman being seen thrice with a lady in public, and as many times with her husband, is sufficient to lay the foundation of a superstructure of scandal that will defy the possibility of refutation.

Each individual of the idle and malicious persons who love to propagate such tales, will repeat, wherever they go, "Have you seen Lord D- and Lady E- ? How they are showing themselves up! they are never asunder."

This slander circulated at three or four clubs, where female reputations are lost with as much facility as fortunes, and retailed at half-a-dozen fashionable parties, sets the whole town talking; and poor Lady E- finds herself the general topic, because she was thrice attended by Lord D in public, though perhaps in private they

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had never met once. Lord E is then held up either as a dupe or as an accomplice in his wife's guilt; for guilt is immediately presumed. He is pitied by one, blamed by another, and laughed at by nearly all; for even the pitiers cannot resist a laugh at a dishonoured husband. Lady Ecried up, or rather cried down, as a most vile and vicious woman, though an idea of vice had probably never entered her head; or else she is compassionated as a victim to the carelessness of a husband, who was so wicked as to permit her to be thrice attended in public by Lord D; and who had himself been seen twice arm-inarm with that nobleman, an occurrence which is received as a proof of his cognisance of the liaison.

The lady's reputation is gone, the husband's character suspected, the supposed lover is envied by his contemporary beaux; and the affair furnishes conversation until some other reputation is offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of scandal.