NORMAN HORSES. France, every man is a musician. Goldsmith's charming picture of his Auburn, in its happier times, recurred to me :— "When toil remitting, lends its turn to play, The cross roads of France are very bad; but, to my surprise, although we never could have had a worse specimen of them than what this excursion presented to us, yet the norman hunter upon which I was mounted, carried me over the deepest ruts, and abrupt hillocks, without showing the least symptom of infirmity which so much prevails amongst his brethren of the Devonshire breed. The norman horses are remarkable for lifting their feet high, and the safety and ease with which they carry their riders. In the morning of the day in which the packet was to sail, a favourable breeze sprung up; and, after undergoing the usual search of the revenue officers, in the execution of which they behaved with much civility, I embarked, and bade adieu to continental ground. The vessel had the appearance of being freighted with hot bread, with which the deck was covered from one end to the other. This immense collection of smoking loaves was intended for the supply of six men, and one woman, during a passage which we expected to accomplish in thirty hours, or less! The faithful associate of our young captain, to whom she had just been married, either from motives of fondness or distrust, resolved upon sharing with him the perils of the ocean. 249 CHAP. XXI. 250 CHAP. ENGLAND. The sea-sufferings of this constant creature, and the resignation with which she endured them, sufficiently manifested the strength of her affections; for she was obliged to keep below all the time, and could afford but very little assistance in reducing the prodigious depot of bread which we had on board. Credulous mariners describe a species of the fair sex (I believe the only one) who appear to much advantage upon the briny wave; but the nature of our commander's lady not happening to be amphibious, she gave such unequivocal proofs of being out of her proper element, that my wishes for shore increased upon me every minute. During our passage, I could not help contrasting the habits of the english with the french sailors. The british tar thinks his allowance of salt beef scarcely digestible without a copious libation of ardent spirits, whilst the gallic mariner is satisfied with a little meagre soup, an immoderate share of bread, and a beverage of water, poor cider, or spiritless wine. At length, after a passage of a day and a night, in which we experienced the vicissitudes of a stiff breeze, and a dead calm, we beheld "That pale, that white-fac'd shore, "Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, "And coops from other lands her islanders, "That water-walled bulwark, still secure "And confident from foreign purposes." After passing another tedious night on board, owing to our being becalmed within the Needles, I stepped upon the same landing FRANCE. landing stone from which I first embarked for a country, where, in the centre of proscriptions, instability and desolation, those arts which are said to flourish only in the regions of repose, have, by their vigour and unrivalled bloom, excited the wonder and admiration of surrounding nations; where Peace, by her sudden and cherished reappearance, is calling forth all the virtues from their hiding places, to aid in effacing the corroding stains of a barbarous revolution, and in restoring the moral and social character to its pristine polish, rank and estimation. 251 CHAP. XXI. GENERAL REMARKS. THE fact seems at first singular. Two of the greatest nations under Heaven, whose shores almost touch, and, if ancient tales be true, were once unsevered, call the natives of each other foreigners. Jealousy, competition, and consequent warfare, have, for ages, produced an artificial distance and separation, much wider, and more impassable, than nature ever intended, by the division which she has framed; hence, whilst the unassisted eye of the islander can, from his own shores, with "unwet feet," behold the natural barrier of his continental neighbour, he knows but little more of his real character and habits, than of those of beings, who are more distantly removed from him, by many degrees of the great circle. The events which have happened in France for the last eleven years, have rendered this separation more severe, and during that long and gloomy interval, have wholly changed the national character. Those who once occupied the higher class in the ascending scale of society, and who have survived the revolution without leaving their country, are longer able to display the taste and munificence which once distinguished them. In the capital, those who formerly were accustomed to have their court yards nightly filled with carriages, and their staircases lined with lacqueys, are now scarcely able to occupy one third of their noble abodes. They cannot even enjoy the common observances of friendship, and GENERAL REMARKS. and hospitality, without pausing, and resorting to calculation. A new race of beings called the "nouveaux enrichés," whose services have been chiefly auxiliary to the war, at present absorb the visible wealth of the nation. Amongst them are many respectable persons. The lower orders of the people have been taught, by restless visionaries, to consider the destinations of Providence, which had before, by an imperceptible gradation of social colouring, united the russet brown to the magisterial purple, as usurpations over those natural rights which have been impressed without illustration, and magnified by a mischievous mystery. In the fierce pursuit of these imaginary immunities, which they had been taught to believe had been long withheld, they abruptly renounced all deference and decorum, as perilous indications of the fallacy of their indefinable pretensions, and were not a little encouraged by the disastrous desertion of their superiors, who fled at the first alarm. In short, the revolution has, in general, made the higher orders poor, and dispirited, and the lower barbarous, and insolent, whilst a third class has sprung up, with the silence and suddenness of an exhalation, higher than both, without participating in the original character of either, in which the principles of computation, and the vanity of wealth, are at awkward variance. Until lately, the ancient french and the modern french were antipodes, but they are now converging, under a government, which, in point of security, and even of mildness, has no resemblance, since the first departure from the ancient establishments. The french, like the libertine son, after having plunged 253 |