tinct from what we call his Attributes, would be a refine'ment so absurd, that, under the appearance of more accurate 'knowledge, it would betray our ignorance the more*. Where the Divine attributes inhere, there,-if we may be allowed the expression, or-that is God. If the Son of God be, as touching his Essence, my Creator, preserver, regenerator, lord, and judge-the cause by whom (per quem) I am, the Source from whom I receive all things, the Dispenser of my final happiness, the Almighty, the All-sufficient, whose glory is the light of heaven and the joy of all its blessed inhabitants,—then, whatever metaphysical difficulties may be raised respecting the properties of the Divine Essence,-my faith cannot mistake its object. Thy name Henceforth, and never shall my heart thy praise Art. II. Voyage en Angleterre et en Russie.-Travels in England and in Russia, during the Years 1821, 1822, and 1823. By Edouard de Montulé. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 674. Paris, 1825. IF F we may judge of the impression made on the minds of foreigners by our printed travels in their countries, from the effects which the speculations of their voyageurs concerning England, produce on our feelings, we must seem a very absurd and laughter-moving people. It is really marvellous, and pretty considerably' provoking, to read the whimsicalities, not to say the malignancies, which some of our foreign visiters will broach as fearlessly as if a six weeks' tour had been a six years' domiciliation. There was a General Pillet, some years back, who, in revenge for a captivity on parole of no very long duration, amused himself with venting all manner of gross and calumnious fabrications against our national character. And there has been, recently, a Dr. Pichot, who has published some very amusing letters about England, much, no doubt, to the edification of his correspondents, but tending much more to the illustration of certain sufficiently disadvantageous peculiarities in the excellent Doctor's own intellectual and moral constitution. The temperament of a publishing traveller ought to be very equable. He should by no means be a humorist, and his * Works, Vol. IV. p. 344. pulse should always beat healthful time. He should have much charity, both natural and cultivated, towards both blockheads and bigots, since they are a breed that he will encounter in all countries, not excepting his own. Many things must cross his path that he will not like, more that he cannot understand; and he should be prepared either to investigate or to forget the one, and quietly to tolerate the other. If all nations thought and felt and lived alike, the zest of travelling would be gone, and the spell of our own fire-side, with its hovering influences of home-felt delight, would lose of its intensity. It is the faculty of identifying himself with all the varieties of national character and custom, not less than that of detecting them with keen and discriminating glance, that distinguishes the successful tourist; and, all other qualities of curiosity, acquisition, activity being equal, the best natured and most accommodating traveller will secure the largest and ripest harvest of facts and illustrations. No representation can be trust-worthy, when the original has been seen through an impure medium. A mist has the effect of enlarging masses, obscuring outlines, neutralising colours, and confounding shadows. Now, what a fog is to the picturesque, prejudice is to every object that comes under the cognizance of the mind. If we set out on our travels with an exclusive prepossession in favour of our own habits, national and personal, we shall be sufferers at every stage, and resolute grumblers in the mass; but if we take up the more philosophical principle of— something to commend in each, and all things to be tolerated in all-we shall both journey more comfortably on the way, and bring home the larger stock of information in the end. To take our own feelings and habits with us, as the unvarying scale of comparison, is to assume, instead of proving the right; it is, moreover, to deprive ourselves of the great practical benefit of knowledge, the improvement of what is defective in our own system. There are two ways of looking at every subject, the smiling and the vinegar aspect.' An Englishman of fashion will quarrel with the Vetturini of Italy, because they are not dressed in scarlet and gold like the post-boys of Salt-Hill:an artist is delighted with their effect as figures in the landscape. If one of our commercial travellers, on a holiday trip to Brussels and Waterloo, chances to get imprisoned in a treckschuyt, he gets fidgety at the stoppages and slow movements, wonders at the odd people that surround him, meets with a Monsieur Kaniferstane' at every turn, and thinks every moment an hour till he gets back to his lodgings at Pentonville. A differently gifted person admires the different scene that greets his eye, watches the shiftings of the landscape, is entertained with the strange costume of the natives, and gratified by their civility; the unusual mode of conveyance is rather amusing from its novelty and the means which it affords of leisurely observation, than annoying from its tardiness and bustle; he is content, in short, to become for a season, an interested sharer in the general movement, and to postpone, until a happier, though scarcely a more pleasant hour, the attachments of country and the emotions of home. The same cast of observation will apply to the multifarious cargo of a Paris Diligence. Here, the man with uncombed hair and dirty neckcloth, climbs to the roof, unless on a rainy day he should have dexterity enough to make interest with the guard, and then with his shaggy coat, like a great wet water-dog, he takes his seat by your side, and dries himself at leisure. There, the gentleman with foul linen and unwashen hands, takes place beside you, and exhausts himself in efforts to make the agreeable. What is to be done in this case?-Put on the sullens or affect drowsiness?—No, a wise man will listen with attention, repay courtesy with courtesy, and will thus gain a lesson, if in nothing else, at least in sçavoir vivre. But, in truth, however disagreeable these rencontres may be in our own country, in foreign lands their inconvenience is materially diminished by the valuable information they convey. There are some chapters in human life, some phases in human character, that are not to be learned in Grosvenor-square or the Rue de la Paix, and we would rather acquire their theory in a stage-coach, than go to St. Giles's or the Fauxbourg St. Antoine in quest of reality. Englishmen are, after all, we guess, the least tolerant of travellers, and the most easily irritated by those little inconveniences and perversenesses with which the only way of dealing is, to meet them with a smile, and dismiss them with a jest. We cannot always have cushions and a travellingcarriage, cringing landlords and servile waiters, patent springs and M'Adamised roads, down beds and blood-horses. But we can always carry with us the recollection that these are but the luxuries of life; that they are at once the enjoyment and the scourge of the voluptuary; that although great hardships are injurious, minor ones are invigorating; that in some climates, a curtained couch is less refreshing than the bivouac ; and that the sensualist to whom Turkey carpets and elastic Ottomans are become necessaries of existence, goes out of his proper circle when he seeks the wild magnificence of Alpine scenery, the luxuriant beauty of cultivated nature, and the various aspects of society in foreign climes. But now for M. Montulé, and his Voyage en Angleterre. ، Perhaps, he remarks ، there is no country of which such different descriptions have been given. Jealousy or enthusiasm has dictated almost every page that has been written respecting Eng land. I now perfectly understand the exaggeration, favourable or otherwise, that I have remarked in a multitude of works; the French in particular, in consequence of their nearly incessant hostility with England, have rarely been able to judge of its inhabitants with impartiality. This country is so far advanced in civilization, that, as character or opinion sways, it will be regarded and estimated in a manner essentially different. 'When a man has always lived amid French disorder, confusion, I might almost say, negligence; and when he still retains the love of order and cleanliness, he must be filled with admiration in this country, where every thing is arranged in prescribed regularity, where nature itself seems to be adorned in its purest and freshest colours. For myself, I should be exclusively enchanted with England, if I had not previously seen Germany and the United States. Imagine, in the cities, the utmost regard to cleanliness, and the best possible taste in the ، set-out' of the shops; inns where every thing is ready, and every thing is good (!) The landlord complaisantly opens the door of the coach, presents his arm to assist you in getting out; the waiters endeavour to read your wants in your looks, and all these persons are so well dressed, that you feel yourself the more gratified by their obliging servility. Represent to yourself, if possible, roads not so wide as ours, not paved, nor adorned by regular ranges of trees, but winding easily in a country of shaded hills, of cultivated valleys, of bright-green turf; roads without ruts, gravelled like garden-walks, bordered by a causeway; add to this, a precocious verdure, cottages where the agreeable embellishes the useful, mansions in which every thing is made to yield to elegance and to perspective effect. All this passes rapidly before your eyes, for the diligences are not, as in France, slowly and laboriously dragged through the successive stages. The horses go over their ground at a swift and steady pace; the coachman's whip, always hanging over them, is seldom applied in a more serious manner. All this gives you but a faint idea of the mode of travelling in this country, and of the rich aspect which it presents. 'My admiration for our rival had been nearly arrested at a very early period of its excitement. When we stopped at Rochester to dinner, I asked for some water to wash. A handsome and elegant chambermaid shewed me into a chamber on the first floor, and after bringing the necessary apparatus, approached me and held out her hand. I confess that I at first interpreted this gesture in too favourable a manner; but it soon appeared that she was only asking me for a gratuity. From this time I discovered that in England the slightest service is rated at a shilling, or at least at sixpence. 'At ten o'clock we were in the suburbs of London. Every thing seemed illuminated; hydrogen gas shone from both sides of the streets in elegant lamps, and gushed in large flames in an infinity of shops.' M. de Montulé admits the superiority of London in the competition with Paris. The Parisian, from his characteristic urbanity, will appear as an individual to have greatly the advantage over the London citizen; but when the general aspect of the two cities in point of civilisation is compared, Paris cannot sustain the trial. The contrasts and approximations of that capital are strikingly unfavourable. Splendid monuments, palaces close to the neglected habitations of misery, displease the eye. In London, order, regularity, the width of the streets, a general bustle among a population of respectable appearance, all is in harmony: you are satisfied with all. The Frenchman dislikes the restraint of neatness, but he is gratified with it when it comes in his way; and London, in this point of view, excites his admiration.' Our Author excepts, however, the city, and the neighbourhood of the Doks, and is shrewd enough to find out that commerce will always be confined to the eastern parts of the great capital, because ships cannot pass London Bridge. His admiration is unbounded at the splendid establishments, dans l'Ouest, of the principal merchants, and he expatiates with much satisfaction, on the powder, silk stockings, and well-blacked shoes of their servants. He is mightily puzzled with the difference in this respect, that is to be found in their Countings,' and appears to be amazingly scandalized, that in a land of liberty' a merchant's valet should be better dressed than his clerk. Liberty seems to have about as much to do with the matter as 'heaven and earth' with the Frenchman's torn nether garments; but, if the goddess be at all concerned, it is in favour of the clerk, who dresses to please himself, while the lacquey figures in the livery of his master. M. de Montulé sneers at the common phrase shewing the lions, as a spirituelle enigme. The fact is, that he does not understand the joke, and as we can have no doubt of his being among our continental readers, we shall punish him for his sarcasm by leaving him in his ignorance. The parks—he cannot comprehend how a park can be a lion-delight him; and he talks very rationally on the subject of that piquant assemblage of oddities, uglinesses, common-places, and beauties, Regent Street. I cannot,' he says, 'describe its effect; it satisfied me; I am partial to novelties. The English study regularity in the Arts less than we do, but they display more boldness in their architecture, and build sometimes in a capricious style; but they often produce striking combinations, and this street will be, not only the most extraordinary, but one of the finest in the world.' He finds that soda-water is principally sold by the apothe |