23 AUGUST 1828, Page 11

LITERARY SPECTATOR.

TIIE author of the work on the Social Life of France and Eng- land* is said to be a lady: indeed we can collect the fact front indications in the volume itself: male or female, the writer belongs to a better school of authors than prevails at the present day. First of all, the subject of national manners and morals, and next the historical reading displayed, both show a better direction of taste than is now fashionable: the style is moreover composed and considered, complete and precise ; the sentiment mature and well defined ; the argument deliberate and candid. Contrast this de- scription with the hasty sketches of the present day, vilhi their shallowness of information, their negligence of language, where half is left to be understood, and \here a dash — is made to indicate all that the writer is in too great a hurry td unfold; their eternal repetitions and recommeneements of a sentence, each one containing in itself half a dozen members signifying pretty nearly the same thing, but which the author, when he was not able to satisfy himself at a stroke, chose to leave as a puzzle to the reader. It would really seem that modern writers considered the work of their pen as too precious to erase, and that while, as in speaking., blundering or inadequate phrases will occasionally drop out, it was as little worth while to correct and replace them in writing as in conversation. This slovenly manner came in, we believe, with the present practice of review-writing, and has doubtless been encouraged by the absurd system of paying writers by the /pug& of their compositions. Be this as it may, the com- parative treatise on Social Life is wholly in the manner of works which seem now to be driven out of the field by the incursion of the novelist, or the reviewer.

It will be allowed by all whose tastes are not entirely vitiated by fiction, that there are few more interesting inquiries than the history of manners ; that the manners of England and France, which distinguish the period between the Restoration in the former country and the Revolution in the latter, peculiarly concern us ; that most important and instructive deductions are to be made from them, affecting the wellbeing of society ; and that it depends wholly on the writer, xvhether the conduct of his investigation is not as curious and entertaining as it is useful.

The author of the view before us possesses a fund of hist orieal anee. dote, is well read in the memoirs of the time, is remarkably gifted with good sense and intelligence, has a nice sense amoral obliquity, and contrives to tell her story or point her condi-lent in elegant and pleasing language. We read her NVOrk viIhipleasure and interest. We must, on the contrary side of the account, state,. that though the stream of anecdote and observation is carried along smoothly enough, and though a chapter on France is nicely balanced

by another chapter on England, the com i

parison s by no means drawn very close ; and that in short we come to the end of the book, without having- formed any very exact notions ef the subjects compared. The conduct of the work is not very scientific or methodical, and the research though considerable is not alto- gether in the right direction, or if so, it ought to have been greatly extended. We have here, in fact, a comparative view of the manners of the two COWIN of England and France—a pleasant subject enough : but an essay upon it, however agreeable, utast be very far from giving any accurate comparative view of the social state of either people.

But putting criticism aside, we will employ the remainder of our space in the more agreeable task of collecting together some of the points of information which are brought out by the author to mark the state of manners; regretting at the same time that we must do it so briefly as will oblige us to abandon the elegant style of the author.

Henrietta, the queen of Charles I., came over to England with a numerous train of attendants and companions : it is said that they introduced the practice of suppers in society ; Avhich, says Cla- rendon, became universal wit Ii the court party during their troubles. At this period it was the practice for wealthy men to keep their money by them in specie. When the King was at Nottingham, during the civil war, he applied for money to two misers, who each separately denounced the other as the one having twenty thousand pounds always by him, and the ether as having a trunk full of coin, which both advised the King to take, although they would give nothing of their own. The Parliament soon after took five thousand pounds from another gentleman of the same county, which he always kept in his bedchamber.

The great Lord Clarendon spoke no language but English, and learned to read French only late in life. In a journal kept during the civil war, by a Yorkshire 'squire, who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of Marston Moor, there is a memorandum of his going out hunting on the very day of that memorable engagement, which mentions every particular of the chase, without a single allusion either to the battle or the state of the country.

Ninety-o:ght persons were exceid :A for state dances during the reign of the " merry monarch," Charles II.

The first Lady Burlington, in a MS. journal, men1ions the King and Queen Dowager supping with her one night, and time Duke and Duchess of York another, at her house in White Friars. The Duke of Buckingham (1660) lived in Dozegate.

Sir John Reresby tells us, that in 1686, at a dinner at Alderman

* A Comparative View of the social Life of England and France, from the Re- storation of Charles the second to the French ReVOIEtiOn. By the Editor of Ina. dame du uctinacr* Idetters, Oro, .14and9u1 lif, ,I.onimp,o, gad Co. Duncombe's, Lord Chancellor Jefferies and the Lord Trea- surer (Rochester) got so drunk, that they stripped themselves to their shirts, and had not an accident prevented them they had got upon a sign-post to drink the King's health. The biographer of Lady Falkland (1683) tells us that she first spent some hours every day in her private devotions : these were called by those of her family her busy hours. Then her maids came into her chamber early every morning, and ordinarily she passed about an hour with them in praying, catechising- and in- structing them. To these secret and private prayers, the public morning and evening prayers of the church, before .dinner and supper, and another form, together with reading scriptures and singing psalms before bed-time, were daily added. In the time of Charles II., on the first night of a new play, ladies went masked, lest it should prove indecent. Ombre and bassette were the fashionable games of the Court of Charles II. Ombre is derived from the Spanish Hombre a tres, the man among three.

The Marechal D'Estries, in 1740, when in 'command of the French army, was accompanied by twenty-eight private secretaries at head-quarters; and when the heavy baggage of the army was left behind, it took three hours to defile at every march.

When Marshal Bassompierre was afraid he should be arrested (1631) and his papers seized, he burnt six thousand love letters, re- ceived from various persons. (Journal de ma Vie, Vol. II. p. 630.) The following is the portrait of the famous Duchess de Longue- ville—the heroine of the war of the Fronde, and a thousand other follies.

"Elie avoit la taille admirable, et l'air de sa personne avoit un agr6- 'pent dont le pouvoir s'Rendoit meme sur noire sex. II taoit impossible de la volt sans l'aimer, et sans de:sirer de lui plaire. Sa beautt:i ri&nmoins consistoit plus dans les couleurs de son visage, que dans la perfection de ses traits. Sea yeux n'6toicnt pas grands, mais beaux, doux, et brillants, Ic bleu en 6toit admirable, il 6toit pareil àcelui des turquoises. Les poetes ne pouvoient jamais comparer aux lys et aux roses, le Wane et l'incarnat qu'on voyoit sur son visage, et ses cheveux blonds et argentels, et qui accompagnoient tant do choses merveilleuses, faisoit qu'elle ressembloit beaucoup plus it un ange, tel que In faiblesse de notre nature nous les fait imaginer, qu'it une femme."—Mariume de IllonteTille, tom. ii. p. 16.

When Gaston, Duke of Orleans, after a thousand fluctuations between the Court and the Fronde, at last allowed his daughter to go to Orleans and shut its gates on the King's troops, seeing her depart, he said, " Cette chevalerie seroit bien ridicule, si le bon sens de Mesdames de Fiesque et de Frontenac ne la soutenoit." He afterwards addressed his letters to them "fi Mesdames les Comtesses, Aides-de-Camps dans rArmee de mantle."

We find, however, that there is an end of our space before we have got half through our budget. It will be necessary, therefore, to resume our points next week.