ENGLAND IN 1787. [From the saturday Review.]

Otago Daily Times, Issue 138, 25 April 1862, Page 7

ENGLAND IN 1787. [From the saturday Review.]

A little time ago we came across n small book which struck \i~ a» soiiicwli.it rif ;i emi'isity - namely,ii sort of Ilaml-Book for Frem-h irn- | vellers in England j;nt before t'ir> outbreak of the Ricat French Kevoluliuii. I ,•!:<• so irr.ny Frenci booksuf that clay, it is n-.iiher ini.jiiyliioi^f«ior yet. has the writer's name in the titlepage,'but one of those abbreviations whii h were doubtless intelligible to many people iit t< c lime, but which have ceased to ntiiird any information now. A bibliographer might proqalily find out without much trouble, who was '• JIX I) s, tie la Soi-iete Royale de Londrcs,et de ['Academic ties liiKcri|)!ions et Belles-Lettres do Paris." We cannot say that we know, hut we have many kind friends who, when we do not know a thing, are always ready to tell us ;so very likely it will not belong before we know ail about, M. L. D s. As yet, wo only know something- ahout his hook. He calls his'little volume L'Ami ties l-.trnngers gui voyagent en Anglctcrrc. It hoars date, Paris, t ITB7. This was just at one of those times when England and English institutions excited special interest and admiration among thoughtful Frenchmen, lint when, of couise, the means of intercommunication between the two countries were far less easy than they now are. We are not clear, however, that this lack ot easy intercommunication at all necessarily implied greater mutual ignorance. Kow-a-days, every Englishman goes into France, and though the number of Frenchman who come into England has not increased in anything like the same proportion, it is doubtless very much greater than it was in 1787. But we. suspect that the few who travelled in those days travelled to much more real profit than the many who travel now. People travel now because it is the fashioiC- They scamper over a ew beaten tracks—they look at the objects" •which it is the regular thing to look at —and thejcome back in many cares with a surprising stock of ignorance about the countries which they have gone through. They'learn a good deal about the inns, and something about the custom-houses ; • -but of the general institutions of the country, past and present, our travellers often come hack knowing just as-little as when they set out. Indeed in some cases men travel a good way and hardly know through what countries they have been. We feel sure that a good ninny people ■went into Savoy three years back under the full belief tli'at it was part of Switzerland. As for one man in a hundred who climbs Alps troubling himself about the. Federal Constitution, that of course is a tiling not to be thought of. When, on the other hand, everybody did not . travel, the few who did were likely to travel to much more real purpose. Even the formal " Grand Tour" of an earlier time, which a young nobleman took as the finish of his education, must have been something more instructive, and less hurrying and superficial, than the frantic rushing about of our modern holiday tourists. And when men oi other classes, or at a later time in life, set out to travel, the commonly set out to travel with an object. They did not wish merely to get over so much ground, but really to learn something of the lands which they passed through. So, of course, do many travellers now—perhaps a greater positive number than then—but nothing like the same proportion of the whole number who travel at all. The difference of the' two modes of the two modi s of travelling comes out very strikingly in the books of travel of the two periods. We have seen our writers of such books gradually driven, as travelling becomes commoner and nearer countries staler, from travels in France to travels to ■ Mesopotamia. China and Japan may possibly soon take their turn, but, be it at Calais or be it fit Pekin, the object is the same—to make a joke. The Savoyard takes his bear and his monkey, and goes through the world " wifli a comedy." The literary Englishman deals with the world itself as one vast comedy, and often finds it quite needless to take the poor Savoyard's companions in any separate shape. An old book of travels is very different. It is often" stupid, often superficial, often full of mistakes; but it is never merely ilippant. The writer did not mean merely to make jokes, but to give rial information according to the amount of his light. Nobody,in the days of our grandfathers would have called a book "The.Bridal find the Bridle," and we do not see in what century earlier than the nineteenth any room could have been found for Mr. "Walter Thornbury. Our French guide of 1787 would prabably seem somewhat dull now-a-days. lie wrote before the Napoleonic language and the Napoleonic typography had been invented. A paragraph might, in those days, extend beyond a single sentence, and a sentence might be composed of more than three words. Nor had the language then assumed its present mystic and oracular shape. You had only to master Ihe French Grammer and the French Dictionary, and you could understand a French sentence as easily as an English one. M. L. D- evidently did not write for " sensation." We have found only one passage in which one can discern the faintest germs ■of the Imperial style. And how feeble it is, after all! In half-a-dozen sentences not one word ends in— -Hon. Y-a-t-il de la soricto en Anglcterre ? Oui el mon. II ny en a priint bur le pied celle de Paris, tie Aliemie, de Naples, de Milan: il y en a pour les Angioii. Us en joiiissent d leur mauierej ot le> etrungers peuvent y prendre part. - Voici cc que c'rs£ M. L. D.'s Journey in England is unfortunately Very little more than a journey to' London, and to planes immediately round about London. He t cuts the rest of England short with a very fuw. ' pages. But we suppose that this was nothing wonderful in an age which thought it something miraculous when George the Third ventured to make longer journies than between London and Windsor, and when he actually dipped his royal body in the subject waves of the English Channel. It is wonderful how little people seem to have moved in those days—how much less than thov move now, how much less than they moved in earlier times. . Mediaeval kings went up and down their kingdoms, and our present Queen does'the same. But King George spent forty years within a circuit .of thirty or forty miles, and his predecessors, when they moved at y.U, moved as far as Hanover. It is therefore not very wonderful if, out of 171 pages of M. L. 35., sixteen only arc devoted to England in general. Our gnide begins with a veryigenevons appreciation of the .position of Kngland, which, four years after the peace of 1783, is worth noticing. England had not list, by the unfortunate war which that peace terminated,'any real portion of the glory which she had gained in the war whichended twenty years earlier. Frenchmen were yet more desirous than before to know something of a people which had resisted so many enemies atonce. Our friend's admiration is, peihaps, a little patronizing in its expression, but ,'tll it is real admiration. As there is not a trace of the modern French style of. utterance, so them is not a trace of the vaunting and vapouring •which that style commonly accompanies. The French traveller is warned that on landing in England he will find everything diilerent irom what he had been used to on the Continent. The first difference is in the article of travelling. The diversities belong mainly to an age before railways, and even before coaches, but those who venture into the less frequented parts of either country know that some of them exist'still :— ' " Vous venez de quitter'des clumins pa\es; vous ctiez conduits par tie pros pnysii.s rie postilions, en bottes fortes ct grands > clinpucux, monies wir dc petits bidet.', nvsc lies traits tie eortlcs, et iii cabriolets ou chaises a deux roues: vous allcz ehe mtnes il present sur dcs chemins ferrfis, en chaises J6peit» a quiitre roues" (quc vous ticuvez a cbnquc pohte), par ue petits postilions, cv bottes mollcs, et de petits chnprnux ronds, avtc deux Irons chevaux et ties ban,pis de cuir." • ' The speed of the journey strikes him, the readiness of everything, the .attention which the traveller receives at the inns. All this is the blessed effect of free-trade in post horses. To be sure you must pay for it; but parting attentions will be redoubled "si vous navez point trouve a. redire nu niemoire, et donne liberalcmc-nt aux garcous." The ppstillions, too, must be well paid. It is vseless to threaten them, dangerous to beat them. But then all this is worth paying for. You get ■ moneys worth in the form of waiters who wait upon you, and of postillions who will take you from Dover to London in a day. The French traveller in England ought to understand English : still he may possibly get on -without. AI.L.D. divides his travellers into three classes. There are "voyageurs de la premiere clas&e etdu grand monde -," there are those who travel for curiosity, "pourvoir la campapne, les ■ j.irdines, le local dv pays ;" and there are mercantile people who travel on business. The first and the third classes have greatly the advantage of the second. The nobility speak French, and go do the merchants, but the plebeian traveller for his own improvement is to be handed over to a French-speaking valet de place. The " premiere " noblesse" speak French, but we should like to

have, a definition of the rlass, because it may either mean rr'TS fs opposed to nntitled gentle-, men, or Dv! es nnd Marqno so- as opposed to other peers-. An'oni other classes everybody can red Fro cl. b t co nparsitivc-ly few can sneak it; they have br.t sist.u practice. I'.nri arc afraid of making n i<f;.k.->> ; jo there ac r a \v people, even •' 1-ranconp d'h. iv.iv.es de nv. i-i.e v de femmes amiables dv premier rang." who cannot speak a word. Tlicfc wo'th/ people,tlun, aithongh '■' dv premier rang." do not .belong to the class which he calls " In bonne comp:ignie," fur— La bonne coinpanifl en general '";fc uncmeme ration rfipan'Sae par toiitc l'Europu ; purlant a muuie langr.o, et s ututiiant a. avoir lo memo to n les monies 'mani&rcs. " ' , London society, in the first rank—" les Paris dv royanme, lours fils,lenrs parens, leurs Allies, ainsi bicn quo les geniilehoininos dcs provinces (liapplily, England never contained either a ' epntilliommc'or a p-ovinco) gui viennent rcsidir a Lomlres pendant la seance dn Parlement "—depends on the usages of Parliament. The uncertain hours of that bojiy prevent dinners — diners arranges — except on Saturdays, Sundays, and some holidays ; but the lnd:es deal much in assemblies at which but few men appear. They prefer to go from the House to the clubs, and dislike the trouble of dressing. Hut Parliament is not composed wholly of this more oxnltcd class of beings. Many of "la bonne bonrgeoise" have feats there; many others who have not, still interest, themselves in public affairs, and like to talk about them. Thp?e men do not care for great assemblies — they divide their leisure between their clubs aud their families. Still the assemblies are numerous, and find many votaries of some sort or other :— II i> ja peut-fitro pas moius dc deux cens mnisnns dans Londres, on ire doni'ent deux trcis assemMees dans l'liiver ; en sorte qu'il y a qnelquefois trois nu quatre assemblees dans la meme soiree. La compass nic commence a venir a. neuf heures. Les srens £i la mode, homines ou femmes, gui seront invites a toittrs trois, voiit a cliacuce, y resilent phis ou moms, les uns entrant, les autrcs sortont: il y.a trois ou qnalre: cens personnes gui te rencontrent .°as se voir, ciui .cc parlent sans attendre la reponse ; il y a dcs tables dejeu repandr.es dans les differentes rfiambres; et cela diirc jiiij(|u'i\ une hcure on dnux dv matin.. Dans quclques niateons on donne & ?ouper ; raais cela est rare. S'l vient quelques Francois ou Francoises, on leur fait cc cempliment; on croit que e'est oo qn'ils aiment lo mioux mais il ne faut pas croire que cc soit I'uwige. In London it docs not do to drop in to dine with a man who has not asked you :— On courroit risque tie trouvey qu'il est alle diner en 1 ville, ou qu'il a une compagnie assortie, et quo s=a i table est remplie ; ou bieii, qu'il dine si son petit coiivnrt,- ct ne se soucic pas d' 6trc pris au depourvu. , . - In country towns people are more sociable than in London, not being fettered by Pa'linmentory hours,-but the same general principles prevail. But where Englishmen are to the most advantage, and most in their natural state, is in the country houses of the nobility and gentry. There Englishmen are not nearly so dull'as people fancy, and the,novels which so describe them are not to be believed. But, except in very great lioiifcs, it docs not do to go without at least telling your friend what day you mean to come. There is a good deal more that is curious both ahout social and political matters. Our author is greatly struck with an Englishman's power of doing what he pleases, subject only to the law :— II ny a aucun pays au monde ou la Tiberte et la ■ prnpriete; poient mieux assureos qn'en Anpleterre. Personne ne pent fitre arrete, oil mis en prison, pans une .cause fomlee snr la loi. Cehii gui est arrete,. ou ses amis nonr Ini, peuvent.'demontier, par le droit' appolle Habeas Corpus, quo son proces lvi soit fait: si une juste cau.se nest pas produite pour le retinir en prison, ou si le cas permet qu'il wit atlmis a dormer rles Furetfa pour eoniparoitre, il doit ftrc mis en liberte. Tout Anflois ala i possession ploino.Gt absolve tie ses biene. qui ne penvent Ctre taxes fans son conpentement—?. a., par ses representatifs en Parlement. ' II peut en disposer coiume il Ini plait ; des-herifer tous ses enfans. ou les tins an prejudice ties autres, sans en dormer dcs raisons. Tout Angloid doit etre juge par tes pairs et selon la loi ; il ne peut ptis etre ' condamnd S, une peine plus forte quo la loi prononce eontre sa faute ou son crime. London and its neighbourhood. are described at length ; but, as we have said, the rest of the island is cut very short. Oxford is however tq be seen, Stonolienee, York Minister, and a few other-tliinps. We fear from the following extract, with which we shall wind up, that JT. L. D. at once admired the " AVashv Vilines" and transferred the glory of them from New College to Queen's :— Je vous recommande, dans Queen's College, les peinturps sur verro, gui sont au-dewf is do la poite ; elles soiit modernes ; et il ny a pas long-temps que le ecret,- perdu presqiie. depuis l'Ere Clireticnne, a etc ctrouvc par If. Price et At. Jervvp, gui ont execute p.lle-oi sin- Ips desFeins dv Chevalier lieynolds. Tub Belligerent.Kihtoji.—The lastnumberof the A Icxandria Smfinel, which was issued the day before the outran cc of the Ferlnral troops into that city, contained a violent article on the subject of " Government troops polluting the Foil of the Old Dominions.'' It said if they dared to set foot in Virginia., no matter in how large a force, they would " be swept from the face of the earth, every mother's son of them, and their bodies would furnish fertilizing material for the next season's wheat crop. By nine o'clock the next morning the editor was in Warrenton, Virginia, forty miles distant; minus Lis ctat and hut.—A merica?i Paper.