SIR A. IL FAULRNER's RAMBLING TOUR THROUGH FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, AND

ITALY.

Tuts discursive narrative of a Continental rambler over well- trodden ground, is thrown into the shape of letters " by the advice of the printer, as more fitted for its desultory details than any graver form of composition." They are addressed to Lord BROUGHAM, as to a mind of congenial views; for Sir ALTHUR, like his Lordship, seems a crotchety Radical, who wishes to attain the ends of the People by any way short of the bold and straightforward course. Luckily, however, for the reader, the Remaiks on Home Politics are confined to the opening and closing letters, and interfere but very little with the narrative of the tours And this, in despite of the apparently worn-out nature of the subject, is very brisk and amusing ; partly from the peculiar reamer of the author—pattly from his independent spirit, which induces him to puss over every thing, however important it may be considered in itself, that does not peculiarly strike him—but chiefly from the variety and the unlaboured air which this inde- pendence gives. nem Havre to Paris, fur instance, he only notes two subjr ets—a Laocesterian school, and a waiter at an inn; but the details of the ihst are facts, and the second is a story. In the capital itself, he rather tells what he heard in society, than what he saw at cr turnon shew-places, except a levee at the Tuileries. In Sw itzerland, he says little of her landscapes, much of her system of education. At Florence, he lightly passes over her curiosities, to discuss her morality., or rather immorality, and the character of her ruler. At Rome, be was insulted by the Swiss Guards, and refused admission to the Sistine Chapel, on account of his frock coat: whereupon he wrote a diplomatic letter to the Hanoverian Minister, winch he prints at length. And SO it is throughout—a light but pleasant medley of facts, anecdotes, sketches, remarks, and opinions. Or if there be an exception, it is at Naples, where he made a longish stay; and whose government, nobility, and people, he subjects to a severe scrutiny; as be also does Mr. BuLwER's Last Days of Pompeii,—putting the criti- cism, however, into the mouth of a Neapolitan.

But a few specimens will give the best idea of tho volume; and we take them, as they were written, without method.

TouNDLINO nosPITAL AT lulus.

No one should leave Paris without visiting the Foundling Hospital. The building is sufficiently spacious to accommodate between 300 and 400 children ; Put seldom contains, at any one time, more than 100. Fifteen brat., on the average, are received every day, mid twelve exported, for nursing, to the country. There is, however, a melancholy loss of life on the passage; the distance to which they are conveyed bring frequently not less than thirty or fotty leagues. 'When the males have attained the fitting age, they are put to different trades and occupations ; the greater part trained to the business of farming, or as farm-servante, but all liable to he draughted for the conscription. Alb infant nay be purchased at any time, ready cut tend dry, for fifty francs; only every proper security is requited for the character of the purchaser. Adoptions are rare, and the parents very seldom claim their children : if they wish to do so, paper is sent, when the bantling is deposited in the receivmg-boz, stating itch particulars of its personal appearance (nooks are sometimes made upon the skin) as enable them satisfactorily to prove their identity. It was the hour of feeding the animals when we arrived ; and they all, like se many young crows, began to cry out most importunately for food. Those who had been just taken into the house, and not above a few hours old, were plated on an inclined plane covered with a mattress, opposite the fire, where, swathed up to the chin, they lay like SO many mummies, sows not above

• foot long, basking in a row.

itOZIWiling STORM.

Apart from any political objection to us, to do the Grand Duke justice, our eanntrymen, by an accounts, are far from always the most prepossessing of vicious. One hardly knows what to believe of the many tales in circulation about us at foreign coasts. It would appear that these ale the places a here we are must particuluily ambitious to Shine. Not long since, an Englishman ass supper which concluded an entertainment given by the Grand Duke, be came SO enamoured of the champagne, that, in the overflow of his eocial ft-chug and good fellowship, he found it impossible to resist the temptation of carrying the bottle about to his friends. A national trait, similar in spirit, I recollect being related while I was in Belgium, of some of our countrymen who evert emelt:Oiled by the Prince of Oraoge at Li undo Attar the lest of the com- pany bad retired, an English party set to afresh, and '0 kept it up" to an hour so late as to make it necessary to convey a hint that, in future, such telt monies to the good cheer of the landlord would be dispensed with No less likely to relish such manners than his Imperial Highness of Tuscany,o‘,- all accounts agree to describe as a most inaccessible personage, without no - spark of bonhommie in his whole composition. His domestics are carefully drilled never to allow him to be intruded upon under any pretence whatevei. but, as the best human precautions will sometimes fail us, his Imperial IBA: ness was doomed, on a late occasion, to experience the inefficacy of this donies. tic arrangement. A card was brought to him inscrilsad, "American Minister.- The servant was desired, by the beater, to say, that he waited fur an audience,' which was instantly accorded. The minister had a long interview. On er,", plying to the Consul, the Duke, to his inexpressible horror, discotosvinleterneigdthatelsipatatirtnhd.:. A met icon minister was no other than a plain Yankee Methodist parson, wa„, chose to write Minister on his card. The affair got wind, andes;

ing joke against the Duke. It was an American who related

culars, chuckling " pretty considerably " during his narrative at the extreme indignation felt by the Grand Doke, who, it seem*, was annoyed beyond measure to find his imperial affability had been so freely lavished on this demure-fa0e:1 apostle of the the very antipodes of every thing for which he ewes tailed the least earthly respect, whether as to condition, country, maunets, et opiuious.

NEAPOLITAN NOBILITY.

Much are the times altered sitwe Forsyth spoke of the Neapolitan nobility at " pure both in herald: y and opiniun." " Nothing degrades them," says he, " but misalliance, commerce, or a hemp rope! " Until I read this passage, I confess it was quite unknown to me that they had been liable to the last of duo drawbacks upon their purity. But as to the other causes of debasement, timo must be indeed changed sites Forsyth's day, as it is notorious that they will marry any woman who has money, no matter what her birth, parentage, or education ; and, in respect to commerce, all the world knows what shifts they will make to turn a penny. Pieturee are their staple commodity, and all was of baubles, antiques, family relics, and furniture, to the very tawdry trappings of the heels thew fathers reposed upon, nay, sometimes the bed itself, is sold fur what it will bring to meet the urgent call of the moment.

An advertisement which appeared in Gulignanrs Messenger cull convey some 'notion of the difficulties to which they are reduced, as well as of the valie which the order have conic to set upon their honours. The notice runs in thus terins—" To be sold, an estate in the kingdom of Naples, pothering is welh secured revenue, and conferring the title of duke.. The title and arms of duie will be transmitted to the purchaser by the present owner, who will relinquish one awl effice the other from his remaining hearing*. For further particulan apply, psps/id." One of the consequences of the dilapidated state of the finances of the nobility, is a frightful number of scruccones, or men who liveby sponging.

PROTECTIVE DUTIES AT NA VIES.

To show, by an instance or two, the extent to whit-1 prohibitive duties oa foreign inerclerndlie are carried, a coat, or a gown, cut or sewed, pays not lee than six ducats at the customhouse. An English gentleman fancied an iadia. rubber dook front Englana, the first cost of Which was thirty shillings, and the duty was two pounds fourteen. The weight of many impotted articles must tally to a nicety with the weight si.ecilied in the bill of lading ; if there happens to be one pound over, a tine is levied. Nut lung since, a grocer gave an order to his London correspondent to send him out a certain quantity of Ca:shire cheese. Owing to an unusually dry season the weight became reduced the full amount of an entire cheese less than appeared by invoice ; it was concluded that it was smuggled, and the penal:), was levied accordingly. After ths arrival of a cargo, should a inerehant deem it to his advantage to consign it ti sine other port in the pi:tibial:4 he must pay extravagantly to the eustems before it allowed to leeve the harbour. The consequeuee of all this is an en. bounded smuggling, ngainst which no restraints or vigilance avail in the !east. To pi event the introduction of contraband goods, a lofty wall is raised round the city and fortified by au army of sentries, stationed at short distances, arid yet is it found completely ineffectual. The smuggler, so long as he is inside the wall, cannot be touched, though contraband goods were actually found upon him ; he has, of course, only to pitch them ever the wall to the receiver on de oilier side, at a moment fixed upon between the parties, with both of whom the sentry is not seldom in collusion, and the thing is done. Yet this wall has cost government 700,000 ducats to raise, and requires 20,000 anutially to keep it up. Every intelligent Neapolitan with whom I have eonvcred on the subject

• gave it as his confident opinion, that a reduction of the import.duties by a full half, evould, in a little time, double the revenue, by preventing this extensive practice of smuggling.

Sir ARTHUR gives but an indifferent account of the progress that is made in unrolling the Herculanean manuscripts, and re- covering their contents ; nor does he seem to have a very high opinion of the works themselves. The instance Ile gives, how- ever, scarcely supports his judgment. The pages of PHILO. DEMUs may be dull, but the details must throw some light on the domestic economy of his age.

TIERCULA NEA MANUSCRIPTS.

The lines and letters in some of the papyri have a regularity almost typo- graphical, and no doubt were executed by professional copyists; others are scrawled hastily in such a way as to suggest the idea of their being done by di author Ilimeell; a suggestion further corroborated by corrections which lave every appearance of being the result of reconsideration. The persons employed in the slow, 'sedulous, and most bilious occupation of unfolding these carbo. cadet,. scroll., are misetably remunerated. The highest price fur unrolling and engraving a column on copper, is twenty-six ducats ; subordinate labourers get ten ducats a month. The chief interpreters receive only thirty, the principal librarian forty. Governmeut is quite apathetic, and seem as if they cared but moderately whether the manuscripts, museum interpreters, custodes.and shared the fate of Empedocles and his slippers. One of the head librarians bad, at his own expense, and after years of labour, made out and publiebed a com- plete catalogue of the books in the library, in three massive folio volumes, and the only return made to him by the Government was a present of ten copies at his own work. A few general observations will convey some faint notion of the kind of trail which rewards your toil in the perusal of these fragments. I shall take Mo.- dentin, who, as every one knows, is one of the most voluminous and moon- nent prosers which have been dug up; aud he still keeps the interpretess busy. In a work of his which treats of domestic economy, he dwells at considerable length on the advantage of having& wife to superintend our household concern', in opposition to the opinion of 'rheoplwastus and some other philosophers, who are for refusing to women all share in domestic matters heyoutl that of the pro- creation aud care of children, and doing the work of an, upper sort of servant. The author devotes a lengthy space to consider the best mode of clioomeg slaves; he enlarges upon their disposition, age, form of the 'r bodies, sae, habits, the quantity of wine necessary to keep up their condition, Sc. Sc. niiich topic's toe discussed jest as the Farmer's Magazine disserte upna the best mode of breeding and feeding and choosing our working cattle. Among the good points of a slave, he tells ue that he ought to be neither too dull nor too lively; and is clearly of opinion that, if slaves Irbour well, they should have some remuoetation besides their maintenance. The distribution of their tasks be recommends to be regulat,d according to their respective strength and capa- bilities, and their flogging (contrar) to our more enlightened notions in the British Army) reasonable and gentle. He proceeds next to discuss the nature of true economy in the accumulation of wealth. A wise man he recommends so divide his property so as to be derivable from different sources, in order to prevent the untoward conrqueoces of any sudden accident invo:ving him in inextricable rum. Speaking of the office of a steward, he distinguishes be- tween two several kinds of agencies ; one he calls the " Attic," and the other the "Persian." The former he severely coodemns for leaving the factor at his entire discretion in the matter of purchase and sale. The Persian stewardship as his unqualified approval, as requiring the eye of the principal over all the trankietions of his agent ; these functionaries, it would seem, being in classic times pretty mu.1 what they are in our own.