27 MAY 1922, Page 3

It is odd' that the pages from. Farington's Diary, which

have been appearing in. the :Morning Post dining the last. week or ten days, have not attracted more attention, for they are inimitably vivid sketches. of Paris at one of the strangest periods in all her mad and glorious history. Farington is now in Paris, and it is the year 1802—the year in which the capital of France was reopened to the world—the year when from England came posting every one of note in all classes, Poets and Painters, Lawyers and Merchants, Bishops and Soldiers, Lords and Commons, Statesmen. and Men and Women of Fashion. It was, in a word, the year of Wordsworth's Sonnet; the year of " Young Bonaparte's•" power and pride.

" CALAIS, AUGUST, 1802; Is. it a reed that's shaken; by the wind, Or.'what is it that ye go forth to see

Lords, lawyers, statesmen, squires of low degree,

'Men known, and men unknown, sick, lame, and blind, Post forward all, like creatures of one kind, With first-fruit offerings crowd to- bend the knee In Fmnce, before the: new-born Majesty. 'Tis ever thus. Ye men of prostrate mind, A seemly reverence may be paid to power ;

Rut that's a loyal virtue, never sown

'In haste, nor springing-with a transient shower : When truth, when sense, when liberty were flown,, What hardship had it been to wait an hour ? Shame on you, feeble Heads, to slavery prone l "