MR. HENRY BULWER..2 FRANCE.

PERFECTLY to exhibit a great and living people, in their social, literary, and political relations, is a mighty attempt ; demanding,

indeed, natural and acquired abilities of such a high and various kind, that it may be questioned whether any living person is coos petent to the task. A genius at once exact, comprehensive, and patient—great acuteness, great sagacity', a sound judgment, ands large common sense—however indispensable, would of themselves be insufficient qualifications, unless enriched by much and various knowledge, and cultivated by practice, observation, and long self. training. " To catch the living manners as they rise," and truly display them by the pen, is no mean accomplishment: yet to this must be added, a thorough knowledge of " Deontology, or the Social Science ;" and after painting the living forms as they appear to the eye, and resolving them into their original elements, a more difficult question than any in algebra remains to be worked,—from the superficial manners and their constituent parts to find the un• known whole--the social character. A first-rate critic is not the production of every century ; yet if it be hard to pass an exact judg. ment on single works, how much harder must it he to take up the literature of a nation—observe how the fashions and opinions of the time have tinged its sentiments or changed its form and character

—distinguish between the temporary manias which rage at succes- sive periods, the literary modes which are established by the au-

thority of some great genius, who stamps his imprint on the mind of his age, and the permanent and enduring character of the nu- tional literature itself; and determine to what extent and in what way the character of the people is represented in the works of their authors ? After all that has been written and spoken about politics, that science is very young. The man who should do

for it what ADAM SMITH did for political economy, would have

earned his immortality. Yet he who undertakes to examine the political condition of a great and complicated society, should have some better guide than mere empirical knowledge, both to direct his observations and to form his judgment. Ile ought, in fact, to have laid down for his private use, the principles of a science, which, if given to the world, would place him among the first of philo- sophers. The "wealth of nations" has such an effect upon the national character—changing the face of the country, determining the form and nature of its private buildings and its public works, operating not only upon the wellbeing and the employments but even upon the subsistence of the people, and affecting so constantly all they do, all they feel, and all they enjoy—that no man is qua- lified for a social observer of nations who is not a master of political economy. Sum up all these qualifications, and it will not

be considered surprising that Mr. HENRY BULWER has not alto- gether accomplished the task he undertook. The title, indeed, is a misnomer : instead of "France,- Social, Literary, Political," it should have been "Slight Sketches of French Manners, Politics, and Literature."

Disregarding, for a moment, the arrangement of Mr. Butwsa, we may class the information he has furnished under two heads; the first consisting of pure facts—the statistics of the subject: and this part is highly valuable. The second head contains the result of his own ingenious but desultory observations, intermingled with sketches of characters and manners both past and present, and occasionally an illustrative piece of history : this part, both in matter and execution, is inferior to the other. With some of the French point, there is too much of its affectation, and of the na- tional disposition to say what is smart and striking, rather than

what is true. In studying their literature, he appears to have been as much taken by its form as its spirit : he has aimed at trans- ferring into our colder and sterner tongue the boldness of personi- fication and the light and colloquial badinage in which the French indulge—so happily, it is to be concluded, since it pleases their countrymen ; but what appears nature in the original, seems forced in the copy. It is perhaps a graver fault of style, that his study of foreign languages has in a manner vitiated his own : lie fre- quently uses English words with a foreign idiom, and occasion- ally to such an extent that they obscure his expression. 'After an Introduction which contains a clever statistical " Analy- sis of France," Mr.B ULWER divides his work into three books. The first contains a description of the Capital (which might serve as a sketchy guide-book to Paris), and a minute account of what he calls the "Characteristics" of the French people, arranged under the various classes of Politeness, Gallantry, Vanity, Wit, Gayety, Frivolity, and Crime. The second book is devoted to the "Hate' real Changes ;" in which be takes a review of the characters of the governors and the governed, from the days of RICHELIEU. to_ those of Louis PHILIP, and aims at establishing a sort of political fatalism,—endeavouring to prove, that under no circumstances palpable, than in analyzing the complicated or investigating the

profound. Our extracts, therefore, shall be taken from the plea- :anter part of his volumes. Here are some amusing bits from his chapter on Politeness.

" Je me recotninande a vous," was said to me the other day by an old gentle. nan dressed in very tattered garments, who was thus soliciting a son. The o'd man was a picture: his long gray hairs fell gracefully over his shoulders.

Tall-he was so bent forward as to take with a becoming air the position in

which lie had placed himself. One hand was pressed to-his heart, the other held his bat. His voiee, soft and plaintive, did not waut a certain dignity. In that very attitude, and in that very voice, a nobleman of the aucient regime right have solicited a pension from the Due de Choiseul in the time of Louis the Fifteenth. I confess that I was the more struck by the manner of the vener- ald: suppliaut from the contrast which it formed with the demeanour of Isis countin men in general : for it is rare, now-a- days, I acknowledge, to meet with S Funelonan with the air which Lawrence Sterne was so enchanted with during t:le first month, and so wearied with at the expiration of the first year, which hespent in France. That look and gesture of the " petit marquis," that sort of studiol elegance, which, at first affected by the court, became at last natural to

he nation, exist no longer, except amorg two or three "grand seigneurs" in the Faubourg St. Germain, and as many beggars usually to be found on the Boule- vard& To ask with gi ace, to beg with as little self-humility as possible-here, perchance, is the fundamental idea which led, in the two extlemes of society, to the sante results. But things vicious in their oligin are sometimes agreeable in their practice.

"Hail, yc small sweet courtesies of life ! far smoother do ye make the road of it-like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations at first sight, 'tis ye who open the door and let the stranger in." I had the Sentimental Journey in my hand : it was open just at this passage, when I landed, not very long ago, on the quay of that town which Horace Walpole tells us caused him more astonishment than any other lie bad met with in his travels-I mean Calais. " Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life !" was I still muttering to myself, as gently pushing by a spruce little man, who had already scratched my nose and nearly poked out niv eyes with cards of" Hotel —," I attempted to pass on towards the inn of !Ifonsieur Dessin. " Nona de D . . .," said the Commissionaire, as I touched his elbow, "nom de D . . ., Monsieur, Je suis Francais ! ii ne faut pas me pousser, mid. . . je suis Francais ! "-and this he said, contracting his brow, and touching a moustache that only wanted years and black wax to make it truly formidable. I thought that he was going to offer me his own card, instead of Mr. Meurice's. This, indeed, would have been little more than what happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He was going last year from Dieppe to Paris. Ile slept at Rouen, and on quitting the house the following morning, found fault with sonic articles in the bill presented to him. " Surely there is some mistake here," said he, pointing to the account. "Mistake, Sir !" said the aubergiste, adjusting his shoulders with the important air of a man who was going to burden them with a quarrel, "Mistake, Sir ! what do you mean? A mistake !-do you think I charge a sou more than is just? Do you mean to say that? Je suit officier, Monsieur, (Skier Francais, et finsiste soy cc flue costs me rendiez relies!" • • • • You arrive at Paris : how striking the difference between the reception you receive at your hotel, and that you would find in London! In London, arrive in your carriage !-that I grant is necessary - the landlord meets you at the door, surrounded by his anxious attendants : he bows profoundly when you calls loudly for every thing you want, and seems shocked at the idea of your waiting an instant for the merest trifle you can possibly imagine that you desire. Now try your Paris hide]. You enter the court.yard : the proprietor, if he happen to be there receives you with careless indifference, and either ac- companies you saunteringly himself, or orders some one to accompany you to the apartment, which, on first seeing you, he determined you should have. It is udess to expect another. If you find any fault with this apartment-if you ex- press any wish that it had this little thing, that it had not that-do not for one moment imagine that your host is likely to say with an eager air, that he will ice what can be done-that he would do a great deal to please so respectable a gentleman. In short, do not suppose him for one moment likely to pour forth any of those little civilities with which the lips of your English innkeeper would oseriow. On the contrary, be prepared for his lifting-up his eyes and shrug- ging up his shoulders (the shrug is not the courtier-like shrug of antique days),

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and telling you, that the apartment is as you see it-that t is for Monsieur to make up his mind whether he take it or nut. The whole is the affair of the Peet, and remains a matter of perfect indifference to the loot. Your landlady, it is true, is not quite so haughty on these occasions. But you are indebted for her smile rather to the coquetry of the beauty, than to the civility of the hostess: the will tell you, adjusting her head-dress in the mirror standing upon the chum- "h-piece in the little salon, she recommends, " Que Monsieur s'y trouvera fort teen, qu'on milord Anglais, qu'un Prince Busse, on qu'un Colonel du Hems regiment de dragons, a occupe cette menus chambre;" and that there is just by an excellent restaurateur, and a cabinet de lecture ; and then-her head-dress being quite in order-the lady, expanding her arms with a gentle smile, says, " Mais apts..% tout, c'est a Monsieur a se decider." It is this which nukes your French gentleman so loud in praise of English politeness. One was expatiating to me the other day on the admirable manners of the English. "I meat, said he, "to the Duke of Devonshire's, dans mom paurre jiacre: never shall I forget the respect with which a stately gentleman, gorgeously ap• parelled, opened the creaking door, let down the steps, and-courtesy of very rosnesies !-picked, actually picked, the dirty straws of the ignominious vehicle that I descended from, off any shoes and stockings." This occurred to the Froth gentleman at the Duke of Devonshire's. But let your English gentle- man riot a French "grand seigneur !" He enters the ante-chamber from the rand mealier. The servants are at a game of dominos, from which his entrance ,ardly disturbs them ; and fortunate is he if any one conduct him with care- le", lazy air to the salon. So, if you go to Boivin's, or if you go to Howel's and James's, with what politeness, with what celerity, with what respect your Orders are received at the great man's of Waterloo Place! with what an easy nonchalance you are treated in the Rue de la Paix! All this is quite true; but

there are things more shocking than all this. • • •

Our great idea of civility is, that the person who is poor should be ea- t'idraglY civil to the_person.avho is wealthy: and this is the difference between

tould the course of events have been other than they have been. Thethird book treats of" Predominating Influences," resolved into

Literary, and Female; with a pretty ample review of the incdern Freneh Historians and Dramatists. As the work is yet un- finished, it is probable that the final results of the survey will be brought before the reader at the termination. At present, how- ever, the vast and unwieldy nature of the subject appears, in a sat of vagueness of treatment : when we have read it through, re have acquired no accurate knowledge of the writer's conclu- sions, and have no distinct impression of La Grande Nation left upon the mind.

It may have been gathered from what has been said, that Mr. BULWER is more at home in painting the light, the superficial, the

the neighbouling nations. Your Frenchman admits no one to be quite his equal : your rnglishinan worships every one richer than himself as undeniably his superior. Judge us from our servants and our shopkeepers, it is true we are the politest people in the world : the servants, who are paid well, and the shopkeepers, who sell high, scrape, and cringe, and smile. There is no country where those who have wealth are treated so politely by those to whom it goes; but, at the same time, there is no country where those who are well off live in such cold, and suspicious, and ill-natured, and uncivil terms among themselves.

The rich man who travels in France murmurs at every inn and at every i shop: not only is he treated no better for being a rich man, he is treated worse n many places, from the idea, that because he is rich lie is likely to give himself airs. But, if the lower classes are more rude to the higher classes than with us, the higher classes in France are fir less rude to one another. The dandy who did not look at an old acquaintance, or who looked impertinently at a stranger, would have his nose pulled, and his braly run through with the small-sword, or damaged by a pistol-bullet, before the evening were well over. Where every man wishes to be higher thin Inc is, there you find people insolent to their fellows, and exacting obsequiousness from their inferiors: wheie men will allow no one to be superior to themselves, there you see them neither civil to those above them, nor impertineut to those beneath them, nor yet very couiteous to those in the same station. The manners, chequered in one country by softness and insolence, are not sufficiently courteous and gentle in the other. Time was in France (it existed in England to a later date), when politeness was thought to consist in placing every- one at his ease. A quiet sense of their own dignity rendered persons imensible to the fear of its being momentarily forgotten. Upon these days tested the shadow of a bygone chivalry, which accounted courtesy as one of the virtues. The civility of that epoch, as contrasted with the civility of ours, was not the civility of the domestic or the tradesman, meant to pamper the pride of their employer, but the civility of the noble and the gentleman, meant to elevate the modesty of those who considered themselves in an inferior state. Coirupted by the largesses of an expensive and intriguing court, the "grand seigneur," after the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, became over-civil and servile to those above him,-beneath the star of the French Minister beat the present heart of the Biitieh mercer,-and softly did the great man smile on those fi om whom he had any tidos to gain. As whatever was taught at Versailles was learnt in the Rue St. Denis, when the courtier had the air of a solicitor, every one aped the air of the courtier ; and the whole nation with one hand expres- sing a request, and the other an obligation, might have been taken an the at- titude of the grmeful old beggar, whose accost made such an impression upon me. But it new nobility grew up in rivalry to the elder one; and as the positions of society became more complicated and uncertain, a supreme civility to some was seen side by side with a sneering inoolence to others,-a revolution in man- ners, which embittered as it hastened the revolution of opinions. Thus, the man- ners of the French in the time of Louis the Sixteenth had one feature of simi-

larity with ours at present. A monied at istocracy was then rising into power in France, as a monied aristocracy is now rising into power in England. This is the aristocracy which demands obsequious servility-which is jealous and fearful of being treated with disrespect ; this is the aristocracy which is haughty, inso- lent, and susceptible-which dreams of affronts and gives them ; this is the aristocracy which measures with an uncertain eye the height of an acquaintance; this is the aristocracy which cuts and sneers; this aristocracy, though the aristo-

cracy of the Revolution of July, is now too powerless in France to be more than

vulgar in its pretensions. French manners, then, if they are not gracious, are at all events not insolent ; while ours, unhappily, testify-on one hand the insolence,

while they do not on the other represent the talent and the grace of that society which presided over the later suppers of the old rigune. We have no

Monsieur de Fitz-James, who might be rolled in a gutter all his life, as was said

by a beautiful woman of his time, "without ever contracting a spot of dirt ! "

We have no Monsieur de Naibonne, who stops in the fiercest of a duel to pick

up the ruffled rose that had slipped in a careless moment from his lips during the graceful conflict ? You see no longer in France that noble air, that "great manner," as it was called, by which the old nobility strove to keep up the dis-

tinction between themselves and their worse-born associates to the last, and

which of course those associates most assiduously imitated. That manner is gone: the French, so far from being a polite people at the present day, want that easiness of behaviour which is the first essential to polite- ness. Everyman you meet is occupied with maintaining his dignity, and talks to you of his position. There is an evident effort and struggle, I will not say to appear better than you are, but to appear all that you are, and to allow no person to think that you consider heim better than you. Persons, no longer ranked by classes, take each by themselves an iudwidual place in society : they are so many atoms, not forming a congruous or harmonious whole. They are too apt to strut forward singly, and to say, with a great deal of action and a great deal of emphasis, "1 am-nobody."

The following comes from the Statistics. It is an abstract by M. GUERRY from a large collection of papers left behind them by persons who committed suicide.

Sentiments expressed in the writings of persons having committed Suicide. CITY OF PA ins.

That they enjoy their reason. That one has a right to deliver oneself from life when life is a burden.

That they have come to the determination after much hesitation.

Agonies of their mind.

That they were confused in their ideas. The horror inspired by the action which they are about to commit. Preoccupied with the pains they are about to suffer.

Fear to want courage.

Avowal of some secret. crime.

Regret to have yielded to temptation.

Prayer to be pardoned their faults.

Desire to expiate a crime.

That they are become reckless on earth.

Disgust of life. Reproaches to persons of whom they think they have a right to complain.

Kind expressions to persons, Szc.

Adieus to their friends.

Desire to receive the prayers of the Church.

Insult to the ministers of religion.

Belief in a future life.

Thoughts of debauch awl libertinage.

Materialism.

Prayer not to give publicity to their suicide.

Wish to have their letters published in the newspapers.

Reflections on the misery of human life.

Belief in a fatality.

Prayer to their children to pardon the suicide they are committing.

That they die men of honour. Regret not to be able to testify their grati- tude to their benefactors.

Talk of the hopes which they see vanish. Regrets for life. Prayers to their friends to bestow some tears upon their memory.

Regrets to quit a brother, &c.

Prayer to conceal the nature of their derail from their children.

Solicitude for the future of their children. lnceitituute of a future life. Recommendation of their souls to God. Confidence in divine mercy.

Instructions for their funerals.

Prayer to their friends to keep a mesh of hair, a riug, in remembrance of them. Desire to be buried with a ring or other

token of remembrance.

RI:quest as to the manner they would be buried.

Fear to he exposed at the Morgue. Reflections on what will become of the body. Desire to be carried directly to the came- tery. Prayer to be buried with the poor.

Take a series of bons mots from the chapter on Wit. - They are not unarnusing or without merit, but can scarcely have had the influence which Mr. BULWER imagines. A political witticism derives its weight not so much from its point as its truth. It happily and briefly expresses some general idea; or it appears to

meet the wishes -of the people, or to confirm their hoe. The sentence conveys pleasure rather for the thought than the expres- sion: the turn is only the stamp which gives it currency.

How many events in this country has a bon mot prepared ! How many has a bon mot completed ! A series of bons mots (begun by Volta)re, augmented by Diderot, collected and systeminixed by Helvetitia), a series of bons mots destroyed the ancient religion, sapped the foundations of the throne, and travailed the des- tinies of the monarchy which Louis the Fourteenth imagined he had fixed fur .eenturies under the weight of his solemn and imposing genius. " Ce ne sont :pas be d(penees genth-ales, cc sent lea &eta gearaux qu'il noes faut," said M. 'Oespremesnil ; and a bon mot put that immense machine in motion which rolled 'heavily over the gay and graceful court of France. " Je ne veux pas l!tre un aaochon l'engrais dans le chiteau royal de Versailles" said the First Consul, with the coarse energy of his character : and the laugh being excited in his fa- vour, he kicked over the speculative pyramid of Abbe Snlyes. " 11 n'y a qu'uo Francais de plus," is put into the mouth of the Comte d'Artois; and, as he rides into Paris, all the world are enchanted at the Restoration. Even the last Revolution did not pass without its saying " It is an old Garde National, going to visit his ancient general," said Louis Philip, as he rode up to the Hotel deN'ille ' • while they who put into Laftyette's mouth the unhappy phrase " the Monarchy of July is the best of Republics," founded on a new bon mot

a new dynasty.

Here are a couple of jokes from the illustrations of French Vanity. The first may, however, be applied nearer home : there are a vast many persons in the world who know from a morning's resding. Sir S. Romilly and General S. . . . were discussing some point of English law. Sir S. Romilly stated his conviction. " Pardounez.inoi, 'said the French General, " eons rous tramper etrangement, moo cher. Roniilly, je le sais—car —j'ai lu Blackstone re matin." In 1810. a notaire's clerk killed himself, leaving a piece of paper behind him, on which he declared, that having duly calculated and considered, he did not think it possible for him to be so great a man as Napolkin—therefore he put an end to his existence.

We shall return with interest to the promised continuation of this work. Mr. B MAUR explains, that the volumes already printed were written under circumstances very unfavourable to study : with all their imperfections, they discover fine qualities both of the mind and heart—how few of Mr. Bui.wisn's brother Met fibers of the Reformed House of Commons could have produced any thing like them!