In travelling to Bordeaux, from the north
of France, you rush forward to meet the
spring. There, on March twenty-second,
were wall-flowers in blossom, with hawthorn-
hedges, rose-trees, and weeping-willows fast
coming into leaf. At Poitiers, adorned with
cypresses and picturesque quarries at the
entrance of the town, artichokes and other
vegetation were precociously advanced in the
narrow valley through which the river Clain
runs. Further on, the rows and quincunxes
of fine old chestnut-trees speak well of the
climate; and the evergreen box growing wild
in the hedges, is a novelty, under those
conditions, to English eyes. In Poitou, you
behold real shepherdesses, who would not
recognise their own selves at a fancy ball, or
in the portraits which fashionable artists
have painted. They spin all day long, to
while away the time; and they cannot help
running the risk of intermingling their flocks
(consisting of half-a-dozen sheep each at
most), by meeting in knots of four or five to
gossip and grumble about the price of bread.
Around Vars, the land is cultivated in strips
of equal breadths of vines and wheat, as if
the inhabitants had resolved to produce
exactly equivalent proportions of loaves and
wine. Angoulême looks like a city suspended
in the air. Its rocky pedestal, concealed by
apricot trees in full blossom, is spitted by
the railway tunnel, which pitilessly pierces
it.  You glide on to Libourne, famous for
claret; you flit over the broad-spread stream
of the Dordogne. A little further, and then
a little further, and the porters shout the
welcome word —Bordeaux!

BARBAROUS TORTURE.

IN the present degenerate days a pair of
curling-tongs, very seldom used, represents
nearly all the apparatus of the hairdresser,
pertaining to the fine-art department of his
profession. Scissors, razor, brushes, and combs,
remain, of course, to him; but they belong to
his profession merely as it is an useful art— as
a branch of the fine arts it is almost extinct.
Here and there a professor may be found
who believes in high art, writes wig-maker
over his door, and talks to a chance visitor
of the general falling-off of the age. His
rack is full of rusty tools; and, on his
shelves, are worm-eaten blocks covered with
cobwebs. He is told that the rabble of his
profession shaving at a halfpenny a chin can
thrive; that a halfpenny barber will sometimes,
with his own hand, scrape together
twelve or fifteen shillings on a Saturday
night until Sunday morning; and he
reckons up, on his fingers, that to earn
fifteen shillings, an unassisted professor must
lather and scrape a fresh customer every two
minutes, and continue to do so without an
instant's pause for nearly twelve hours;
keeping him up all night, and cutting his
way a little too far into the Sunday. Thereupon
he shakes his head, and says, "You
may believe it, if you like." He has his
doubts, and begs leave to retain them. It is
not high art, he must observe.

"There was a woman who for many years
shaved for a halfpenny opposite St. Giles's
Church."

"Indeed, sir! I am not surprised. In
the history of my art —speaking, by your
leave, of the time when it was an art— I read
of the fashionable barbers' shops in Drury
Lane, under the reign of his sacred majesty
King Charles the Second, and that five of
them were conducted by ladies, as I believe.
I may make bold to remind you that the
ballad said,

Did you ever see the like,
Or ever hear the same,
Of five wo-o-men Barberers
That lived in Drury Lane.

One of these shops still remains, and nearly in
the same state it existed in of yore. If you
want to see it, sir, you must inquire for the
corner of White Hart Yard. The daughter
of the lady who kept it attended General
Monk in the Tower, sir, and married
him. It was a good match for the general.
No, sir, I would not exclude woman from the
practice of an art scarcely less fascinating
than herself; and if, even in its degenerate
state, she will adorn it by her touch, I am
not surprised. It is her usual goodness. I
am even consoled. Woman, sir, it has occurred
to me often, is a great consoler. I am
told that in France to this day the other sex
ply the razor and scissors upon our sex's
caputs very extensively. In what style, sir,
would you have your hair dressed?"

"I want it cut, simply."

"Cut to look simple? Yes, sir. In the
Roman style perhaps, with a Brutus. I hope
you know, sir, that, according to the Athenian
Chronicle, the barber's art was so beneficial
to the Roman public, that he who first brought
it into fashion in Rome had a statue erected
to him."

"I need to have the patience of a statue."

"Did you ever meet with a book, sir, by one
Mr. Philip Stubbes?  Mentioned lately in
an eminent periodical? Indeed, sir? Now,
do you know, your wish to be cut simply,
reminds me, by your leave, of the days of
Queen Elizabeth, and of what Mr. Stubbes,
(whose book I possess) says upon the palmy
days of our art, in that reign so glorious to
Britain.—  I think I could recite the passage."

"Pray —-"

"Not a word, sir."  And our estimable
friend, releasing our head suddenly, sat down
by his table, spread one arm abroad over its
surface, and beat time dolorously with his
fingers as he droned forth at us, the elegant
extract which he had (not, it is to be feared,
without a suppression or two) stored in his
capacious memory:

"'There are no finer fellows under the sun,