PENCILLINGS BY TILE WAY.

THE Spectator was one of the first English journals which no- ticed these papers in their fugitive state; neither daunted by the

circumstance of their appearance in a Weekly American Periodical, nor waiting for the dictum of a Quarterly Review, but recog- nizing merit where it appeared, without regard to its external ac- companiments. At the time their republication was suggested, we had only seen some half-dozen letters ; and those related en- tirely to public characters or high society at home, all of which seemed to possess the fictitious charm of fashionable novels, with the certainty of truth and the identity of persons super- added. It now appears that Mr. WILLIS took his " Way " through other countries besides England ; and thus his " Pencil- lings" are divided into two distinct parts,—one relating to the Continent, the other to Britain. As regards length, the former section is by far the most important; for not above one fifth of the book concerns England, and many of the passages descriptive of fashionable society or marked personages have been running the round of the press for the last two months. .It may therefore be convenient to follow the geographical division of the work, and separate in effect the Continental from the English sketches.

The preface to this collected edition describes with frankness the origin of the work; which appears rather singular to Euro- pean, or at least to English notions of etiquette. Mr. WILLIS, it seems, has been an attache to an embassy for several years ; but having been the editor of a Monthly Review in America, before his employment in the diplomatic line, "he found it both profitable and agreeable to continue his interest in the periodical in which that Review was merged at his departure, by a miscella- neous correspondence." Thus our young negotiator had always two strings to his bow ; and if be could make nothing of " foreign courts, distinguished men, and royal entertainments, &e. &c." for the advantage of the Federal Government, they were pretty certain of yielding something for the use of the New York Mirror,—the Ambassador's bag, which announced that every thing was "barren! barren !" in the political world, doubtless conveying a goodly batch of " miscellaneous correspondence" to the profit of the joint stock, more especially in the article of post- age. Whether this new.aud skilful method of serving two mas- ters, and of turning the opportunities which his official character procured him to double account, may be considered a breach of ambassadorial propriety, we cannot tell ; but it may be assumed that a skilful negotiator will not look black upon him for the pec- cadillo. It is probable that a holy diplomate like METTERNICH, relying upon the Scriptural denunciation, would prefer dealing with "our foreign correspondent," conscious that of the two masters the Periodical would not be the hated one.

The ground over which Mr. WILLis travelled is beaten enough ; nor did he meet with any extraordinary occurrences. The in- terest of his foreign sketches arises from the impressions which new scenes made upon his mind, or from his happy mode of con- veying them to others; but chiefly from the latter. His " Pen- cillings " are in the shape of letters : he assures his readers that they owe their title to truth, and that they were frequently written in pencil, when pressed for time and accommodation ; and the series is broken without scruple, when it suits the purpose of the author to jump over time and space which afforded nothing of interest.

The book opens with Paris in the time of the Cholera ; the difficulty of realizing which, in the fetes and amusements of the city afflicted by pestilence, is capitally painted; as is the delicious beauty of the June morning, on which he started on a visit to the Cholera Hospital ; but the hospital itself is more literal, and not so good. The next subject of Mr. WILLis's pencil is the Lazaretto for Quarantine at Nice; in which he sketches his companions, and the manner in which they whiled away the time, with lightness, felicity, and character. The society and entertain- ments of Florence are then touched off. From the capital of Tuscany our attache proceeds to Rome and Naples; paint- ing the landscapes, sketching the characters, and animating the guide-book to claaeieel antiquities, as he passes along,—although when lie attempts to advance bey( nd the litera scripta of his pocket- companion, he immediately loses himself in an unknown region. Thus we find him sentimentalizing in Italics at Pompeii, in the house of Diomed—" a human dwelling occupied by its last family while our Saviour was walking the earth ;" the moralizer evi- dently not considering that Christ was crucified in the year 33, and Pompeii not overwhelmed till the year 79,—a period mere than long enough for an average generation to have passed away, and fur the " suburban villa " to have changed its master half-a- dozen times. Then again, the house of SALLUST " the histori«n" furnishes him with a theme : "I did not think," quoth the learned Theban, " when reading his beautiful Latin at school, that I should ever sit down in his parlour." The turn is so pretty, that nothing but a love of truth would compel us to dissipate the il- lusion . our American classic is misled by a coincidence of names— no European imagines that the SALLUST of Pompeii (if he ever existed) was he who wrote of the Jugurthine ‘Var. But this is nothing : the rapt WILLI$ goes on to describe the position of " the skeleton of a female (supposed to be the wife of the historian,")—as if SALLUST had not died some 11.1 years before the eruption ; and, to crown all, lie finds in the Museum at Naples, an antique chair, " brought from the home which bad doubtless been honoured by the visits of Cicero,"—as though the orator and the historian had been hand-and-glove. But enotigli Mr. WILLIS himself naïvely remarks, " one might si:eri, 1 • ' endlessly thus !"

We return to the tour. After exhausting the sights of Naples, and (on a second visit) those of Rome,—in the descriplion of the most intellectual of which, by the by, be suffers fearfully from a (necessary) comparison with JOHN BELL,--our author is invited to make a trip on board an American frigate; and complies, with what COOPER calls " Republican simplicity." Visiting Sicily and Elba, and sailing about the Adriatic, lie lands at Trieste, and makes a rapid journey in an " eil-wagon " through Cambia and Styria to Vienna. Of the little time allowed him at the Austrian capital he makes the best use, by dint of activity and a valet de place ; and then returns to Trieste ; whence he sails for Greece, Constantinople, awl Smyrna. Here there oecurs a great chasm in the letters. Our diplomatic traveller next pencils from Lombardy and its capital ; and thence crosses the Alps to Switzerland ; of which he gives

some charming pictures, especially of Lake Leman and its banks. After lingering a while at Geneva, he returns to Paris, remains

there three days, during which he secs LAFAYETTE'S funeral and Dr. BOWRING; and closes his Continental Pencillings at Calais, on his way to England.

The book, as before observed, is one of impressions; and, like all such productions, must flag a little, from the unsubstantial nature of its matter, and the want of a connected narrative, un-

less where particular scenes or individuals give it something of a personal interest. It is, however, a delightful work of its kind,—

notwithstanding the occasional appearance of a "correspondent's"

disposition to make up an article. The manner of the writer is brisk and animated ; his descriptions are often elegantly graphic, although objects are tinged in passing through his mind, and ap- pear with a 1Villisean instead of a natural atmosphere; he pos- sesses, moreover, a sparkling, easy, and flowing style, which car- ries the reader pleasantly along even when nothing extraordinary is to be told. Whether he ever read the Letters of BECKFORD before their publication, we know not ; but he appears to have taken the authors of Vathek and Pelham for his model,—although he has succeeded better in attaining the brilliant points and glit- ter of the latter than the airy lightness of the former.

All this is our opinion; but a few extracts will enable the reader to form his own. Here is a smart picture of

A FIRST IMPRESSION OF ROME.

Two miles over the Via Flaminia, between garden-walls that were ornamented with sculpture and inscription in the time of Augustus, brought us to the Porta del Pupal. The square within this noble gate is modern, but very imposing. Two streets diverge before you, as far away as you can see into the heart of the city; a magnificent fountain sends up its waters in the centre; the façades of two handsome churches face you as you enter; and on the right and left arc gardens and palaces of princely splendour. Gay and sumptuous equi- pages cross it in every direction, driving out to the Villa Borghese, and up to the Pincian Mount; the splendid troops of the Pope are on guard; and the busy and stirring population of modern Rome swell out to its limit like the ebb and flow of the sea. All this disappoints while it impresses the stranger. He has come to Rome, but it was old Rome that lie had pictured to his fancy. The FOIMIII—the ruins of her temples—the palaces of her emperors—the homes of her orators, poets, and patriots—the majestic relics of the once mistress of the world—are the features in his anticipation. But he enters by a modern gate to a modern square, and pays his modern coin to a whiskered officer of customs; and in the place of a venerable Belisarius begging an ob■dus in classic Latin, he is beset by a troop of lusty and filthy lazzaroni entreating for a baioc/u in the name of the Madonna and in effeminate Italian. He drives down the Corso, and reads nothing but French signs and sees all the familiar wares of his own country exposed for sale; and every other person on the eat:" is an Englishman, with a narrow-rimmed hat and whalebone stick ; and within an hour, at the Dogana, where his baggage is turned inside out by a snuffy old man who speaks French, and a reception at an hotel where the porter addresses him in his own language whatever it may be, he pea to bed under Parisian curtains, and tries to dream of the Rome he could not realize while awake.

The next is forcible: we wonder if the facts relating to strangers are true ?

VALISE OF LIFE AT NAPLES.

I have been struck repeatedly. with the little value attached to human life in Italy. I have seen several of these houseless lazzaroni literally dying in the streets, and no one curious enough to look at them. The most dreadful suf- ferings, the most despairing cries, in the open squares, are passed as unnoticed as the howling of a dog. The day before yesterday, a woman fell in the Toledo, in a fit, frothing at the mouth, and livid with pain; and though the street Was so crowded that uue could make his way with difficulty-, three or four rag- ged children were the only prams even losLing at her. Never a night passes without one or more murders; and it is only heard of because the victims selected are English, and they are missed at their hotels. No such thing is permitted to be published, lest it should frighten away the strangers, upon whom half the city lives; and the assassination of an Italian is really a less circumstance than the losing of a house dog in America. When I passed through Home, the frequency of the rohbories and murders in the public streets kept the boldest men at hones A friend of mine, an Englishman, was robbed but a few steps front the hoist in which we bothlived, at eight o'clock in the evening ; and the master of the hotel was knocked down and robbed the night after : and this in a country, ism, where confession of a crime to a priest is certain, anti where, of course, abselution and secrecy must be as certain ! A distinguished refugee nobleman, whiaii I met at At.wseilles, told me truly that his country was " a paradise of nattse and a hell of inhabitants," M. WILLIS in generally the most satisfied of travellers ; meet- ing difficulties or privations in a spirit of gayety, and compliment- ing all that admits of compliment. However, he reserves his best, as in duty bound, for his own paymaster. No European courtier

can go beyond •

A BEPUBLICAN's ESTIMATE OF THE PRESIDENT's IMPRESSIVENESS.

Of the three reigning monarchs of Europe to whom I have now been pre- sented, there is not one whose natural dignity and personal fitness for his station have impressed me in any degree like that of one Own venerable President. 1 have approached the former thorough guards and masters of ceremony, with all the splendid paraphernalia of reg d palaees around, themselves in the im- posing dress of monarchs, standing in the sanctuaries of history and association. I called upon the latter without even sending up my name, introduced by the sea of one of his friends, in the scarce finished gavernment-house of a new re- public, and found him in the midst of his family, hardly recovered front a severe Illness The circumstances were all in favour of the flumes, but I think the most bigoted follower of kings would find something in the simple manners and stern dignity of the grey old " chieftain " that would impress him far more than the state of all the monarchs of Christetalom.

LAKE LEMAN.

From Martigny the scenery began to ,grow richer ; and, after passing the celebrated Fall of Pissevache (which springs from the top of a high Alp almost into the road, and is really a splendid cascade), we approached Lake Leman in a gorgeous sunset. We rose a slight hill, and over the broad sheet of water on the opposite shore, reflected with all its towers in a mirror ofgold, lay the Castle of Chilton. A bold green mountain rose steeply behind; the sparkling village of Vevey lay further down on the water's edge ; and away toward the sinking sun stretched the long chain of the Jura, tinted with all the hues of a dolphin. Never was such a lake of beauty, or it never sat so pointedly for its picture. Mountains and water, chateaus and shallops, vineyards and verdure, could do no more. We left the carriage, and walked three or four miles along the southern bank under the " Hocks of Meillerie ;" and the spirit of St. Preux's Julie, if she haunt the scene where site caught her death of a sunset in May, is the most enviable of ghosts. I do not wonder at the prating in albums of Lake Leman. For me, it is (after Val d'Arno from Fiesole) the ne plus ultra of a scenery Paradise. • • My companion, who has travelled all over Europe on foot, confirms my opi- nion that there is no drive on the Continent equal to the forty miles between the rocks of Meillerie and Geneva, on the southern bank of the Leman. The lake is not often much broader than the Hudson : the shores are the noble mountains sung so gloriously by Childe Ilarold Vevey, Lausanne, Copet, and a string of smaller villages, all famous in poetry and story, fringe the opposite water's edge with cottages and villages, while you wind for ever along a green lane, followitrs" the bend of the shore, the road as level as your hall pavement, and green hills massed up with trees and verdure, overshadowing you conti- nually. The world has a great many sweet spots in it, and I have found many a one which would make fitting scenery for the brightest act of life's changeful drama : but here is one where it seems to me as difficult not to feel genial and kindly, as for Taglioni to keep front floating away like a smoke-curl when she is dancing in La Bayadere.

HOW TO TELL AN aantalcax.

I was sitting by my English companion on a sledge in front of the hotel, enjoying the sunshine, when the diligence drove up, and six or eight young

men alighted. One of them walking up and down the road to get the cramp

of a confined seat out of his legs, addressed a remark to its in English. We had neither of us seen him before, but we exclaimed simultaneously, as he turned away, " That's au American." " How did you know he was not an Englishman?" I asked. " Because," said my friend, " he spoke to us 'without an introduction and without a reason, as Englishmen are not in the habit of doing ; and because he ended his sentence with ' Sir,' as no English- man does except he is talking to an inferior, or wishes to insult you." " And how did you know it?" asked he. " Partly by instinct," I answered ; " but more because, though a traveller, he wears a new hat that cost him ten dol- lars, and a new cloak that cost him fifty (a peculiarly American extrava- gance); because her-made no inclination of his body either in addressing or leaving us, though "his intention was to be civil ; and because he used-fine dictionary words to express a common idea,—which, by the way, too, betrays his Southern breeding. And, if you want other evidence, he has just asked the gentleman near him to ask the conducteur something about his breakfast ; and an American is the only man in the world that ventures to come abroad without at least French enough to keep himself from starsiug." It may appear ill-natured to write down such criticisms on one's own countryman ; but the national peculiarities by which we are distinguished from foreigners seemed so well defined in this instance, that I thought it worth mentioning. We found afterward that our conjecture was right. His Haute and country were on the brass plate of his portmanteau in most legible letters; and I recog• nized it directly as the address of an amiable and excellent man, of whom I had once or twice heard in Italy, though I had never before happened to meet him. Three of the faults oftenest charged upon our countrymen are over-fine clothes, over-fine words, and over-fine or over-free manners.

The Pencillings from the Egean and the East appear to us the least effective portion of the whole. Mr. WILLIS indeed gives some graphic sketches of Constantinople, and raves a good deal about Greece, in a style which be intends to be classical, though in reality it is little better than the grandiloquence of a theme ; but the whole is something trite. For this falling-off various reasons may be alleged. His specimen of the Sall ustian chronology shows him nut to be exactly the sort of man to treat of classicalities with efiect; and sailing hither and thither in a man-of-war did not afford him time or opportunity to paint those things in which he excels. The greater part of Constantinople has been described usque ad nauseam ; and our author knew nothing of the language, to enable him to add much of novelty. But perhaps the chief

cause of the comparative flatness was the change in his position : in civilized Europe, his observations have a necessary freshness, as coming from an American ; in Turkey, every thing is as strange to John Bull as to Jonathan. From this part we shall take only one extract—a sort of summing-up.

• EUROPE AND TILE EAST.

I certainly would not live in the East ; and when I sum up its inconveniences and the deprivations to which the traveller from Europe, with his refined wants, is subjected, I marvel at the heart-ache with which I turn my back upon it and the deep dye it has infused into my imagination. Its few peculiar luxuries do not compensate for the total absence of comfort ; its lovely scenery cannot reconcile sell to wretched lodging:; its picturesque costumes and poetical people and golden sky, fine food fn. a summer's fancy as they are, cannot make you forget the civilized pleasures you abandon for them—the fresh literature, the arts and music, the refined society, lite elegant pursuits, and the stirring in- tellectual collision of the cities of Europe. Yet the Ism Id contains nothing like Constantinople. If we could compel all our senses into one, and live by the pleasure of the eye, it were it Paradise un-

transcended. The Bosphorus—the superb, peculiar, incomparable Bosphorus ! the dream-like, fairy-built Seraglio! the sights within the city so richly strange, and the wallies and streams around it so exquisitely fair ! the voluptuous soft- ness of the dark eyes haunting your every step on shore, and the spirit-like swiftness and elegance of your darting clique upon the waters ! In what lamd is the priceless sight such a treasure ? where is the fancy so delicately and divinely pampered ?

Enough of foreign scenes: let us came with our traveller to Dover, where his pleasures begin,—to cease not till his last letter descriptive of Luelt Katrine and Ellen's Isle. The Ship Inn at Dover delights him ; the turn-out of the stage-coach and horses, the excellence of the roads, and the beauties of the country, enrapture him; but London and its sights bewilder the literary diplomate. He is overwhelmed by the effects of Regent Street; charmed with Lady BLEssiNGro:s and Mr. E. L. BULWER ; admires—rather critically—Mr. TirOliAs MOORE ; and seems still better pleased with the comforts of a Scotch steam-boat. Of the "balmy days" at the Duke of GoanoN's he has already spoken fur himself in our columns; and—but why particularize his panegyrics upon Scotch

hospitality during his Highland tour His compliments to the tight little island beat those to his own " venerable President :'' he was enchanted with all he saw and all he heard of, excepting Mr. LOCKHART'S character, and a half-drunken Highlander's shout when he "screamed" to the echo at Ellen's Isle.

It is but fair to warn the reader who is partial to " high life," and who may have relied upon our conjectural recommendation, that he will meet little more in the volumes than he has seen already. In the country, Lord DALitousis's and the Duke of GORDON'S were the only "places " he appears to have visited. In London he does not seem to have ever got into the best society,— meaning by that phrase, a select combination of persons of the first eminence fur rank, public position, inherited wealth, intellect, talent, professional ability, and—if not high moral worth—external propriety of conduct. He visited Lady BLESSINGTONS thrice, (viz. to dinner, tea, and a soirée) ; where he met some men of letters, the Messrs. BULWER, Count D'ORSAY, and "a German Prince with a star on his breast ;" and this was the extent of his acquaintance with metropolitan greatness. In his account of the dinner, however, he gives a very capital picture of MOORE ; show- ing off distinctly, but with infinite delicacy, the petted genius and the refined artificial worldling. But this is somewhat stale, and is moreover too long to quote : instead of it, we will take a passage which exhibits the author of Pelham in a better light than the last week's sketch of the Gallery gentleman, in Random Recol- lections of the House of Commons. The contrast is certainly great between Mr. E. BULWER in the House and ME. E. BULWER AT LADY BLESSINGTON'S Toward twelve o'clock, " Mr. L— B—" was announced, and enter the author of Pelham. I had made up my mind how he should look, and between prints and descriptions thought I could scarcely be mistaken in my idea of his person. No two things could be more unlike, however, than the ideal Mr. B— in my mind, and the real Mr. B— who followed the announcement. I liked his manners extremely. lie ran up to Lady B— with the joyous heartiness of a boy let out of school ; and the " How d'ye, II— ? ' went round as he shook hands with everybody, in the style of welcome usually given to " the best fellow in the world." As I had brought a letter of introduction to him from a friend in Italy, Lady B— introduced me particularly ; and we had a long conversation about Naples and its pleasant society.

B—'s head is phrennlOgleally a fine one. His forehead retreats very much, but is very broad and well marked, and the whole air is that of decided mental superiority. His nose is aquiline. His complexion is fair, his hair profuse, curly, and of a light auburn. A more good-natured, habitually-smiling ex- pression could hardly be imagined. Perhaps my impression is an imperfect one, as he was in the highest spirits, and was not serious the whole evening for a minute, but it is strictly and faithfully my impression.

I can imagine no style of conversation calculated to be more agreeable than B—'s. Gay, quick, various, half-satirical, and always fresh and different from everybody else, be seemed to talk because he could not help it, and infected everybody with his spirits. I cannot give even the substance of it in a letter, for it was in a great measure local or personal. B—'s voice, like his brother's, is exceedingly lover-like and sweet. His playful tones are quite delicious, and his clear laugh is the soul of sincere and careless merriment.

One feature of the English section is both fresh and curiouse- the first impression which external objects and our social modes produce upon a cultivated American familiar with our language and literature, not unacquainted (it may be imagined) with the more homely practices of his father-land, and who has seen the greater part of the civilized world. Behold the result of English civilization and capital, even in our inns.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS AT DOVER.

My companion led the way to an hotel, and we were introduced by Englis4 Waiters., (1 had not seen such a thing in three years; and it was quite like being waited on by gentlemen,) to two blazing coal-fires in the coffee-room of the Ship. Oh, what a comfortable place it speared ! A rich Turkey carpet, snugly fitted ; nicely-rubbed mahogany tables ; the Morning Papers from London ; bell ropes that would ring the bell ; doors that would shut ; a landlady that spoke English, and was kind and civil ; and, though there were eight or ten people in the room, no noise above the rustle of a newspaper ; and positively rich red damask curtains, neither second-hand nor shabby, to the windows. A greater contrast than this to the things that answer to them ,n the Continent could scarcely be imagined. Maly, e all my observations on the English, whom I have found everywhere 'the most open-beat ted and social people in the world, they are said by them. selves and others to be just the contrary ; and, presuming they were different In England, I had made up my mind to seal my lips in all miblie places, and be conscious of nobody's existence but my own. There were several elderly persons dining at the different tables, and one party, of a father and sou, waited on by their own servants. Candles were brought in ; the different cloths were removed ; and, as my companion had gone to bed, I took up a newspaper to keep me company over my wine. In the course of an hour, some remark had been addressed to me, provocative of conversation, by almost every individual in the room. The subjects of discussion soon became general, and I have seldom passed a more social and agreeable evening. And so much for the first specimen of English reserve! The fires were burning brilliantly, and the coffee-room was in the nicest order when we descended to our breakfast at six the next morning. The tea- kettle sung on the hearth, the toast was hot, and done to a turn, and the waiter was neither sleepy nor uncivil: all, again, very unlike a morning at an hotel in la belle France.

AN ENGLISH STACE-COACH.

The coach rattled up to the door punctually at the hour; and, while they were putting on my way-worn baggage. I stood looking in admiration at the carriage and horses. They. Avele four beautiful bays, in small, neat harness of glazed leather, brass-mounted, their coats shining like a ricer's, their small blood-looking beads curbed up to stand exactly together, and their hoofs blacked and brushed with the polish of a gentleman's bouts. The coach was gaudily painted, the only thing out of taste about it ; but it was admirably built, the wheel-horses were quite under the coachman's box ; and the whole affair, though it would carry twelve or fourteen people, covered less ground than a French one-horse cabriolet. It was altogether quite a study. We mounted to the top of the coach : " all right," said the hostler, and away shot the four fine creatures, turning their small cars and stepping to- gether with the ease of a cat, at ten miles in the hour. The driver was dressed like a Broadway idler ; and sat in his place and held his " ribands" and his tandem-whip with a confident air of superiority, as if he were quite convinced that he and his team were beyond criticism—and so they were. I could not but smile at contrasting his silence and the speed and ease with which we went along, with the clumsy, cumbrous diligence or vettui in°, and the crying, whip. ping, cursing, and ill-appointed postilions of France and Italy. It seems odd, an a two-hour's passage, to pass over such strong lines of national difference—so near, and not even a shading of one into the other.

ENTRANCE TO LONDON.

From the top of Shooter's Hill we got our first view of London—an indistinct, architectural mass, extending all rouud to the horizon, and half-enveloped in a dim and lurid awoke. " That is St. Paul's! there is Westminster Abbey ! there is the Tower ! " What directions were these to follow for the first time with the eye.

From Blackheath (seven or eight miles from the centre of London), the beautiful hedges disappeared, and it was one continued mass of buildings. The houses were amazingly small, a kind of thing that would do for an object in an imitation perspective patk ; but the soul of neatness pervaded them. Trellises were nailed between the little windows, roses quite overshadowed the low doors, a painted fence enclosed the hand's-breadth of grass-plot ; and very, oh, very sweet faces bent over lapfuls of work beneath the snowy and looped-up curtains. It was all bonze-like and amiable. There was an ajlectionateness in the mere outside of every one of them. After crossing Waterloo Bridge, it was busy work for the eyes. The brilliant shops, the dense crowds of people, the absorbed air of every passenger, the lovely women, the cries' the flying vehicles of every description, passing with the most dangerous speed, accustomed as I am to large cities, it quite made me giddy.

REGENT STREET.

We walked down Piccadilly, and turned into, beyond all comparison, the handsomest street I ever saw. The Toledo of Naples, the Corso of Rome, the Kohl Market of Vienna, the Rue de la Paix and Boulevards of Paris, have each impressed me strongly with their magnificence, but they are really nothing to Regent Street. I had merely time to get a glance at it before dark ; but fur breadth and convenience, for the elegance and variety of the buildings—though all of the same scale and material—and for the brilliancy and expensiveness of the shops, it seemed to me quite absurd to compare it to any thing between New York and Constantinople—Broadway and the Hippodrome included.

It will have been gathered ere this that Mr. Wittis is more at home with a riband than a Raphael. With London and all its associations about him, it is evident that a dandy and his cab have more of his real love and admiration than any thing else. It is strange, by the by, that he never seems to have visited either Westminster Hall or the Abbey.

THE WEST AND ITS EQUIPAGES.

Spent my first day in London in wandering about the finest part of the West- end. It is nonsense to compare it to any other city in the world. From the Horse Guards to the Regent's Park alone there is more magnificence in archi- tecture than in the whole of any other metropolis in Europe, and I have seen the most and the best of them. Yet this, though a walk of more than two miles, is but a small part even of the fashionable extremity of London. I am not easily tired in a city ; but I walked till I could scarcely lift my feet from the ground, and still the parks and noble streets extended before and around me as far as the eye could reach ; and, strange as they were in reality, the names were as familiar to me as if my childhood had been passed among them. " Bond Street," " Grosvenor Square," " Hyde Park," look new to my eye, but they sound very familiar to my ear. The equipages of London are much talked of, but they exceed even descrip- tion. Nothing could be more perfect, or apparently more simple, than the gentleman's carriage that passes you in the street. Of a modest colour, but the finest material, the crest just visible on the panels, the balance of the body upon its springs true and easy, the hammer-cloth and liveries of the neatest and most harmonious colours, the harness slight and elegant, and the horses " the only splendid thing " in the establishment —is a description that answers for the most of them. Perhaps the most perfect thing in the world, however, is a St. James's Street stanhope or cabriolet, with its dandy owner on the whip-seat, and the " tiger" beside him. The attitudes of both the gentleman and the " gentleman's gentleman " are studied to a point, but nothing could be more knowing or exquisite than either. The whole affair, from the angle of the bell- crowned hat (the prevailing fashion on the steps of Crockford'e at present), to the blond lege of the thoroughbred creature in harness, is absolutely faultless.

Some severe, or rather some coarse remarks, have been made upon Mr. WiLLIS for alleged violations of confidence in the publi- cation of parts of these Pencillings. But, with two exceptions, we can see nothing worthy Oren of comment. The sketches at Lord DALHOUSIE'S and the Duke of GORDON'S are altogether confined to general modes of living, and Ieave a most favourable impression of the private worth and amiability of the parties. The pictures at Lady BLESSINGTON'S are rather more minute; but it is probable that the persons themselves are not ungratified with their own exhibition—if Mr.MooRE be excepted ; and the parts of which he might complain are biographical portraiture, the result of that observation to which every one must be c:.posed. How far it might be right to publish the pith of Sir WILLIAM GELL'S sup- pressed account of the lamentable state of infirmity to which Sir WALTER SCOTT was reduced by disease, is very questionable: at all events Mr. WiLLis should have reflected, that matter which an author conceals from motives of delicacy ought not to have been blurted forth by another without Iris consent. A somewhat similar remark applies to the observation of Professor WiLsost upon LOCKHART; for although in reality there is nothing in it, the Professor, speaking with the careless warmth of social confi- dence, might suppose that particular observations would not be indiscreetly repeated, far less published to the world. If recrimi- nation, however, be a defence, Mr. Wi Lids has a complete one : the author of Peter's Letters, he truly observes, has no right to remark upon Pencillings by the Way.