other without curiosity, and scarcely
articulate a word.

M. Wey acquired a more accurate acquaintance
with English social etiquette than is
ever attained by ninety-nine out of a
hundred even of his travelled countrymen; while
our language so nearly approaches an
unknown tongue, that there is hardly a
newspaper or a novel that can cite three
words of English, or mention an English
surname, without the most absurd mistakes.
There is no occasion to search for examples;
the first that come to hand will do. A
romance, open on my table, makes a charming
young lady, one Miss Lucy, say, "John!
bring me my album, if yeou pleasse;" and
to-day's Courrier is very learned about the
Dig Diggings, meaning the Dry Diggings, in
California. Nor is our author faultless in
this respect. Not is good, is not good
English; neither are boarding-scool, or
scool-room. It might be difficult to find the
town of Herneby at the mouth of the
Thames. A waterman is not the name of a
steamboat in general, though there be
steamboats with Waterman inscribed on their
paddlebox. But those are trifles.

One of M. Wey's friends had given him a
letter of introduction to an English
merchant, William P., esquire, for whom he left
it with his visiting card at the bureau of the
Reform Club, in Pall Mall. Two hours
afterwards, Mr. P. called at the stranger's
lodging, to find him absent. He returned
the same evening, and as no one was at home,
he wrote a note, in the superscription of
which M. Wey found himself dubbed Esquire.
All the letters which he afterwards received
bore the same title, with which it is the
courtesy to gratify every bourgeois who is
placed above the conditions of trade, that is
of little commerce. The shopkeepers are not
esquires; but the merchants who operate in
their cabinets, the speculators, the bankers,
in one word every one comprised in the
world of affairs, in business, is received
esquire by condescension and by civility.

England is the country of legal equality;
but that kind of equilibrium has no effect
upon the national manners; and although
our (French) fondness for distinctions appears
puerile to the English, it is easy to demonstrate
that they are not exempt from the
same weakness. They have not, like Frenchmen,
a passion for uniforms, epaulettes,
embroidered coats, or decorations; their button-
holes, often adorned with a flower, are never,
either in the street or the drawing-room,
dressed up with rosettes or knots of ribbon;
but the rules of etiquette, in respect to the
titles which mark the hierarchic degrees
established between the different classes, are
inconveniently strict and intolerant.

Custom, in this matter, carries with it so
many minute observances, that they always
escape the notice of strangers. Amongst
the English themselves, the commission of
certain mistakes constitutes a marked
boundary line between vulgarity and high fashion.
No branch of knowledge is less cultivated in
France than the precepts of the puerile
courtesy of the other side of the Channel.
French romancers, comic writers, and editors
of journals, commit, on this subject, mistakes
which greatly injure them in the eyes of the
English. One of the most common of these
consists in investing with the title "Sir,''
(exclusively attributed to knights and
baronets) the members of the House of Commons,
in virtue of their temporary mandate. In
the melodrama of Richard d'Arlington, they
are liberally bespattered with this dab of soft-
soap. But the heaviest of these offences is to
place before a family name the title of "Sir,''
which ought never to be immediately followed
by the surname. "Sir Paxton," "Sir
Reynolds," are hideous gallicisms. Do not
suppose that this is nothing but the caprice of
custom. Let us go on, and we shall have to
signalise a series of shades more delicate,
more unknown, and very variously significative
in respect to the distinctions of caste.

Formerly, whoever was above the servile
condition, without being provided with a
title, was confounded under the designation
of "Master," which now is applied to none
but children: Master Lambton is the young
son of Lambton. Since the time of the
Stuarts, when one has to write to great
people, the expression "master" ought to be
abbreviated thus, "Mr." To write it at full
length, in so many letters, would be uncivil.
In speaking, you still pronounce "master"
for children; but, under pain of incongruity,
it is essential, when a man is in the case, to
say "Mister." "Mistress" is never written
in all its letters; they put "Mrs.," and
pronounce "Missis." The title of "Miss" has
still more characteristic anomalies to show
us. In general, they say "Miss Sarah,"
"Miss Mary," &c. But it must be observed:
first, that the eldest daughter of a family
cannot, without impropriety, be designated
by her baptismal name. Even a betrothed
lover, on the point of marrying Jane, eldest
daughter of Mr. Siddons, would call her
Miss Siddons, and not Miss Jane. Secondly,
the eldest daughter of a family of "gentry"
never bears her baptismal name. Before
she is weaned, she is already "Miss Crawford"
or "Miss Burdett." Thirdly, the eldest
daughter of a younger branch loses the
prerogative of being designated by her surname
whenever she is in the presence of her eldest
female cousin of the elder branch. She
suffers a sudden transformation, and everybody
considers her as simply "Miss Julia,"
or "Miss Isabella." When her cousin
retires, she is Crawford again. The younger
sons of titled families receive (and it would
be a great fault to omit to give them) the
qualification of Hon. (honourable) Mr., Mrs.,
or Miss——. In good houses, no sort of
title whatever is given to domestics of either