yes or no to the questions addressed to them;
these honourables of the Parliament, who
would not have dared a few minutes before
to venture an opinion on the last novel other
than is contained in one of the two words—
shocking or beautiful; all these disciples of
cant (a favourite English phrase of the
author); all these slaves of conventionality—
the vapours of champagne, of alcohol, and of
Madeira elevating their brains—take off their
coats, loosen their cravats, disembarrass
themselves of their waistcoats; and, in short,
establish their boudoirs in public. The
amusements of the Finishes are sufficiently varied;
but there is one, continually repeated, that
has always an immense success. It consists
in making a young female intoxicated, until
she falls down dead drunk; then they pour
down her throat vinegar, in which mustard
and pepper have been mixed. This horrible
beverage gives her nearly always horrible
convulsions. This is very gay. A. diversion
also very much appreciated in these fashionable
réunions, is to throw on the drunken
persons glasses of punch or any other kind of
liquor. . . . When a stranger assists at such
a spectacle, he perceives that in this puissant
find proud British empire, there is one man
better understood than Shakespeare: it is
Falstaff. It is generally towards seven or
eight o'clock in the morning that the company
retires from the Finish. The domestics then
call the cabs; the gentlemen who can still
stand on their feet then search for their coats
in a pell-mell of over and under-coats of all
kinds. As to the others, the waiters dress them
as they can, with the first garments that come
to hand—carrying the wearers into the
vehicles, and indicating to the drivers the
addresses of the packets which they confide
to them. If, by chance, the waiters are
ignorant of the residences of these gentlemen,
they deposit the latter in a room downstairs,
where they remain until they have recovered
sufficient reason to be able to give their
directions."

Here is a terrible revelation of the daily
habits of the young nobility of this country
—a revelation which we should find it difficult
to accept, but for M. Texier's established
veracity and accuracy of observation. He
tells us, too, àpropos of English hypocrisy,
that "These same men who have been drunk
together, meeting again at the club, will ask
one another the news, but make no allusion
to the orgies of the night before." It is a
matter of mutual arrangement by which they
hold one another in check; and, adds our
author, "If this be not the solidarity of
hypocrisy, it is something very near it."

Illustrating the height of hypocrisy in this
country, M. Texier says very gravely, "Here
all the feet of the sofas and chairs have
pantaloons on. It is the same also with the
pianos. I asked of my hostess why all these
articles of furniture wore more clothing than
the ladies I saw three times a week at Her
Majesty's Theatre or Covent Garden? 'Would
you not be shocked, Monsieur,' she replied,
'if you were to perceive the legs of the
furniture.'"

Some years ago something similar to this
was thought a very good joke against the
Americans. That it should be now turned
seriously against ourselves, is truly a comic
piece of retribution.

But M. Texier's grandest discovery is,
perhaps, the light which he throws upon the
political character of the English people.
The tractability and obedience of the lower
classes (whom we are accustomed to consider
rather alarmingly addicted to such bad habits
as individual opinion, aspiring to legislation,
and to be not the most manageable of
mankind,) meets with the author's great admiration.
"The English people," he informs us,
"is an infant, to whom you give formulas in
the guise of sugar-plums. If they suffer too
much, and are tempted to throw off the yoke,
you stop them in one word, ' Have you not
the right of petition? ' and they say to
themselves: 'It is true!' Then they return to
work, or to the tavern. It is two years and
a half ago since the Chartists assembled in
the City (!), and wished to make an irruption
into the West End. Behold how fifteen
constables, placed at the head of Waterloo Bridge,
stopped two hundred thousand of these
malcontents:—'How many are you?' asked the
chief of the constables.—'We are two hundred
thousand.'—'What do you wish?'—'We wish
to pass.'—'The Queen forbids it. Go, walk
about in the suburb, if you please, but you
shall not pass over Waterloo Bridge.'—'We
have not then the right or circulation?'—
'You have; but you are too numerous to-day
for your presence not to cause alarm. If you
have anything to complain of—Petition.'
And after these words the constable raised
his bâton and struck a few Chartists—in the
name of the Queen. Ten minutes after, the
assembly was dispersed."

Those who remember the events of the
memorable tenth of April, will appreciate the
accuracy of this description, not to mention
the admirable knowledge of the locality
exhibited by the historian.

M. Texier is a pleasant person to accompany
—upon paper—to a ball. "The proper
Englishman," he tells us, "dances gravely,
his eyes fixed, and his arms stuck to his sides;
but if he is excited by sherry or ports, he
abandons himself to epileptic contortions;
and nothing is more sad than the aspect of
this lugubrious gaiety." This he observes at
a public ball—"a temple of taciturn folly,"—
where a group of foreigners made an
irruption, "and several, joining in the quadrilles,
proceeded to embroider some continental
arabesques; unfortunately the commissaires,
incapable of comprehending this lyrisme
chorégraphique, enjoined the dancers to relapse
into the monotonous limitation of the British
Terpsichore. But the impetus was given, and