and the luxuries laid out for his investment, if
we wish to get at what the Germans grandly
call the inner life of the modern Gaul.

Penetrated, to borrow an appropriate
phrase, with a lively curiosity to dive
deeper into the domestic interior of the
French character, we lately invested the sum
of one franc and a-half (say, roundly, one
shilling English) in a French Ready Letter
Writer, a parallel book to one you may
generally find in the drawer of your cook's
dresser, with a dream book, a cookery book,
a ragged duster, and a miscellaneous collection
of clothespegs, brass nails, corkscrews,
scissors, and waxcandle-ends.

Our purchase, obtained at one of those
omnium gatherum cheap John shops, of dolls,
toys, walking-sticks, and perfumes, that so
strangely fill (while the walls are drying for
better occupants), in Lowther Arcade style, the
ground floor of a mile of the magnificence of
the Rue de Rivoli, called The Secretary
Universal, containing models of letters of
compliment, of felicitation, of condolence, of
commerce, of credit, of recommendation, of
declaration of love, of thanks, followed by
instructions for proceedings on marriage,
birth, and burial, and models of petitions to
the Emperor, princes, and ministers."

It is printed on coarse paper, of a peculiar
long shape only used for diaries in England,
covered with a piece of the yellow wrapper
peculiar to French books, and altogether so
rough and rude in its externals that we doubt
whether an English scullery-maid, in the
most unbecoming of caps, would buy such an
article, even if marked up only fourpence.

And here we pause, and wander on one
side off the rails, to ask some kind philosopher
to expound the secret of the inconsistencies
of French and English taste. Why
do they excel us in bonnets, caps, and
artificial flowers, in putting on a gown, or
arranging a shop-front, or decking out a
triumphal arch, or designing a bracelet?
and why do we beat them just as much in
bookbinding, and coats, and trousers, in laying
out a garden, building a carriage, and
making all kinds of saddlery, and harness,
and leather goods— except boots?

Why is a French château so frightful; a
French villa, a square white box, with a row
of poplar trees and leaden Cupids for its
garden? Why are new French streets in all
towns, from Dieppe to Marseilles, so light
and picturesque, while English streets are
monotonous repetitions of common-place,
and English mansions, villas, cottages with
their grounds, are models of beautiful and
picturesque arrangement. It is evident we
both love beauty, but of different kinds.

To return to our Universal Secretary.
The first chapter is devoted to general
instructions, some of which will be both new and
strange on this side the water. For instance,
it seems that in France it is a sign of respect
to put the date at the end of the letter to the
right of the signature, and to commence
Monsieur near the middle of the page, in
proportion to the rank of the person
addressed. Another mark of respect is to
leave a large blank space after writing Monsieur
or Madame in the middle of the page
four finger-breadths to royalty, which leaves
one line on the bottom of the page.

The next chapter is devoted to a class of
letters that are unknown in this country—
compliments to parents, relations, guardians,
benefactors, to be sent on New Year's Day.
A terrible day for genteel bachelors, for it
involves a heavy investment in sweetmeats
and bonbons for presentation to all friends.
We do sometimes have pigs with soaped
tails and similar stupidities at village feasts,
but the thousands of fire-balloons loaded with
sweetmeats for the Parisians to scramble for
at the Emperor's coronation would scarcely
have been gratefully received by our full-grown
Londoners. The model letters are of
the sweetmeat character, and abominably
hypocritical, inasmuch as they make no
reference to their real meaning— a handsome
present, a sword, a gun, a doll, or a box of
comfits. Of their importance in France we
may judge from the fact that not less than
sixteen models are given, including two in
verse of the most prosy kind. Then follow
eight complimentary letters for the birthdays,
or rather saints' days of relations and friends.
The first begins: "I need not consult the
almanack to tell me that this is the day of your
fête; when the heart guides you, memory is
always faithful, &c.;" and so on, in equally fine
language. We can only say if our boy Jack
were to write in that style, he would wait a
long time for that set of cricket stumps and
bails that we conditionally promised him last
half. Our cook Molly's Letter-Writer is quite
a blank compared to these complimentary
epistles. In the chapter of letters of congratulation,
the third is supposed to be addressed
to some one who has just obtained a place,
and is so ingeniously prepared that it will be
equally suitable for a policeman, a professor,
or a customs' officer or minister of state. We
learn from these the dignity of foreign official
employment, as the writer concludes by
"hoping that your friendship for me will not
be impaired either by your elevated position,
or by your occupation; if it should, what
now causes my joy would be the source of my
despair!"

Written compliments seem as much the
rule as French hat-off bows, for we have also
models for use after elections to municipal
offices, guard national, learned societies, &c.,
with appropriate replies.

A series of letters of condolence on the loss
of a father or mother, wife, husband, and
child are only remarkable, in an English
point of view, from the total omission of the
slightest direct or indirect religious allusion,
the nearest approach being an axiom that we
are sure of dying when once we are born.