whose regard only was Britanniar made to
rule the waves, by Doctor Arne, at the Opera
House: and to whom, of all persons in the
world, Britons nevvar, nevvar, nev-var—
shall—be-hee slaves! You have him, the
Frenchman, Gilrayically busy impaling frogs
(his natural diet as is well known) three at a
time on the prongs of a fork: you have him
making rat soup, snail fricassee, and other
ungrateful messes. You have him (still
Rowlandsonised) invidiously placed beside the
Briton: painfully bringing out the contrast
between their respective persons. You have
him Bony, in a hundred shapes and figures.
You have him in the famous plate by Mr.
W. Hogarth, namely, Calais Gate, with the
lean, cadaverous sentry on duty, feasting his
hungry eyes on the noble sirloin, which goes
nigh to crushing completely that other lean
Frenchman who carries it. There is the
patriotic man in Doctor Goldsmith's book,
who hated the French because they wore
wooden shoes, and with whom doubtless
hundreds of his countrymen felt. Well
deserved, indeed, the tumultuous applause
that greeted the great story declaimed by
Mr. Braham, of how 'Twas in Trafalgar's
Bay, there the Frenchman lay; and how at
the end, when the mimetic drums and trumpets
had finished the noisy sea-fight, England
was brought to confess, that e-evry man
that day hadd one his de-ewty! That
day had done his (suspension for Mr.
Braham's lustiest note) de-ewty! Natural
enough that the natural enemy should be
spoken of complimentarily as Froggy, Jacky
Frenchman, Mounseer, Johnny Crapaud, and
other epithets.

"Why" (here a sanguineous interjection)
"eyes," says our old admiral with frightful
oaths, "didn't we blow him out of the water
at Toulon and batter the place about his
(something) ears?"

"We made the rascals run," says our old
Peninsular Major, "at Vimeiro and Sala-
manca. We raced him, sir, through the
whole country; and, when our fellows went
at him with the bayonet, he did not stand
two minutes."

"Invade England, sir!" says our admiral
again.; I wish he would. Let him come,
that's all!"

In those fine old days, too, Mounseer was
brought upon the boards to crowded houses
and convulsed audiences with his ridiculous
mistakes and broken dialect. What inextinguishable
laughter when the hapless wretch
has tumbled into the pond or tub of water, and
comes in dripping, his clothes clinging to his
lean figure! What delight when the good dame
has so contrived that he shall trip over
among the flour sacks, and so make him enter
quite blinded and whitened with the farinaceous
powder. All the young theatrical
rustics (Yorkshire always) were made to pant
with desire to go and fight the French. Then
came fine opportunities for the benevolent
parent, guardian, landed proprietor, or testy
uncle, standing by, to lift up his hands and
say in broken accents: "Go, young man, go
forth, and rally round the flag of your
country: that flag which for twice a thousand
years has braved the battle and the
breeze. Go forth and fight for our common
country, and Heaven, speed you." (Villagers
shout.)

Having enjoyed for so long a time the
fee, as it were, of this stuffed figure, theatrically
as well as otherwise, and having had
perfect immunity in this matter of making
game of, jeering at, and otherwise unhandsomely
treating our French Guy, it must
be conceded, on principles of fair reciprocity,
that our dear neighbours are entitled to
their stuffed man, to handle theatrically,
comically, or, indeed, any way that it shall
seem fit to them. And so, setting off one
stuffed figure against the other, Bogie Albion
against Bogie Mounseer, it comes to this;—
that bystanders had best only laugh heartily
at both conceits, and see who has made out
the best Guy.

Still, it is a curious thing to note the
different treatment of their respective stuffed
figures by the two countries. Mounseer,
after certainly much scurvy handling, is
suddenly taken away, set over combustible
matter, and burnt like other Guys. When
those delightful relations, before spoken of,
came in to the vociferous chanting of
Departure for Syria, to enthusiastic applause at
Monsieur Jullien's concerts, the stuffed figure
was to be seen no more: and it was curious
to observe how the profile of a certain illustrious
and imperial personage, hitherto bemonstered
and made horrible in our metropolitan
Charivari, became of a sudden smooth
and beautiful. That stuffed figure no longer
existed. Any one who should presume to
revive the other figure, or bring him forward
theatrically, would have been met with howls
of indignation, and shouted down in unanimous
Departure for Syria. It is, however, a
grievous thing to think that, for all this handsome
treatment, the corresponding figure on
the other side of the Straits, has never for an
instant been withdrawn—theatrically, that
is. All through the handshaking, glass
clinking, Departing for Syria, God saving of
the Queen, Alliance note-paper; nay, even
through that Exposition year when the gay
city of the Seine was flooded with enthusiastic
Britons, the old-established, ridiculous,
straw-stuffed figure flourished through
thick and thin, flourished through entente
cordiale and sight-seeing British invasion!
The noble Briton rushing every night to
theatrical recreation, and bursting in
happiest ignorance through queue laws and
bureau regulations, met everywhere
something that was meant to be his own image,
hideously deformed and provoking
inextinguishable laughter.

The noble Briton thinks to himself, grinning