)IRS. STOWE'S SUNNY MEMORIES OF FOREIGN LANDS. * THESE volumes give

an account of her visit to Europe by the au- thoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The circumstances under which the journey was made naturally throw a rose-coloured hue over the descriptions; while Mrs. Stowe and party travelled too con- tinually en prince to see much untrammelled, or to hunt up ob- jects for themselves. However, in addition to the interest felt in the observations of a clever American lady on English society, Yrs. Stowe had objects in view which give purpose and character to her letters. She came to stimulate in some degree the Anti- Slavery feeling in our country ; and this took her among a class of amiable philanthropists, many of them of a mark or rank whose mere names inspire curiosity. She further came to inquire into what truth there might lurk in the Pro-Slavery assertion that the Blacks in America are better off than the free labourers In this country ; and though the platform and fashionable at- mosphere in which she lived prevented any searching examination fate the worst aspects of popular distress, what she did see ex- posed the fallacy of the assertion. By putting various things together, Mrs. Stowe comes to the conclusion, that of late years much has been done to raise the condition and character Of the masses in this country and to bring the different classes of society together ; and though she probably attributes more of the merit of these effects to her immediate friends than really belongs to them, the result is a cheering view of the improved state of Bri- tain.

The Continental part, towards which Mr. Stowe has contributed some passages from his journal, lnis less interest than what relates to this country; but there are pictures of the religious and social condition of France, and personal anecdotes touching Uncle Tom. The style of the whole is lively and animated, displaying the fluent

ease of the practical writer. We are not sure, indeed but this fluency has been too much indulged. Actual observation by an American, however slight the subjects may be, has a real interest ;

but mere reflection or reverie leaves a sense of weariness when it often occurs in a long work. There is also too much of criti-

cism on art, and too much of blue-book statistics. The criti- cism, however, would not be amiss if it were not altogether based on mere liking or fancy, often hasty, and exercised on works in private collections that seem to have been very far from chefs- d'teuvre. Mrs. Stowe makes a sort of apology for some of these matters, as the work was primarily-designed for American readers. Well-known names in religion, literature, politics, and science, continually occur in the volumes; and those who are fond of pene- trating the arcana of great establishments, and listening to the conversation of the guests, will find matter of this kind to snit their tastes. We prefer topics of a class which come more home to the business of actual life. 'The following picture of Scottish peasantry is from the traveller's pilgrimage to Abbotsford and its neighbourhood.

We saw a knot ofrespectable-looking labouring men at a little distance, conversing in a group, and now and then stealing glances at us : one of them at last approached, and inquired if this was Mrs. Stowe; and being answered in the affirmative, they all said, heartily, Madam, ye're right welcome to Scotland.' The chief speaker, then, after a little conversation, asked our party if we would do him the favour to step into his cottage near by, to take a little refreshment after our ramble: to which we assented with alacrity. He led the way to a neat stone cottage, with a flower-garden before thedoor, and said to a thrifty, rosy-cheeked woman, who met us, Well, and what do yoa think, -wife, if I have brought Mrs. Stowe and her party to take a cup of tea with us?'

"We were soon seated in a neat, clean kitchen, and our hostess hastened to put the tea-kettle over the grate ; lamenting that she had notkuown of our coming, that she might have had a fire 'ben the house,' meaning by the phrase what we Yankees mean by 'in the best room.' We caught a glimpse of the carpet and paper of this room when the door was opened to bring out a few more chairs.

' Ilelyve the bairns cam dropping in.' rosy-cheeked, fresh from school, with satchel and school-books; to whom I was introduced as the mother of Topsy and Eva. " Ali,' said the father, such a time as we had when we were reading the book; whiles they were greetin' and whiles in a rage.'

"My host was quite a young-looking man, with the clear blue eye and glowing complexion which one so often meets here ; and his wife, with her blooming cheeks, neat dress, and well-kept house, was evidently one of those fully competent to

Gar auld claes look monist as weel's the new.'

'I inquired the ages of the several children: to which the father answered with about as much chronological accuracy as men generally display in such points of family history. The gudcwife, after correcting his figures once or twice, turned away with a somewhat indignant exclamation about men that didn't know their own bairns' ages: in which many of us, I presume, could Sympathize.

"I must not omit to say, that a neighbour of our host had been pressed to come in with us; an intelligent-looking man, about fifty. In the course of conversation, I found that they were both masons by trade, and as the rain had prevented their working they had met to spend their time in reading. They said they were reading a work on America : and thereat followed a good deal of general conversation on our country. I found that, like many others in this old country, they had a tie to connect them with the new—a son in America.

"One of our company, in the course of the conversation, says, 'They say in Atnerica that the working classes of England and Scotland are not so well OW as the slaves.' The man's eye flashed. 'There are many things,' he said, about the working classes which are not what they should be; there's

*Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," &c. In two volumes. Published by Low and Son.

room for a great deal of improvement in our condition ; but,' he added with an emphasis, we are no slaves ! ' There was a touch of the • Scots wha bee wi' Wallace bled!'

about the man as he spoke, which made the affirmation quite unnecessary. " But,' said I, you think the affairs of the working classes much-im- proved of late years ?' " 50, certainly,' said the other ; 'since the repeal of the Corn-laws and the passing of the Factory-bill, and this emigration to America and Australia, affairs have been very much altered.' " We asked them, what they could make a day by their trade. It was much less, certainly, than is paid for the same labour in our country ; but yet the air of comfort and respectability about the cottage, the well-clothed and well-schooled intelligent children, spoke well for the result of their labours."

The following story of the brown silk dress is a curious example of how a prying mind and an unrestruined pen may make much out of little, while it furnishes a hint of the troubles of celebrity. Mrs. Stowe had a dress of her "own materials" made up, and thereupon a distressed dressmaker's apprentice who found it out wrote a letter to the editor.

"Could I have expected dear old England to make me so much one of Um family as to treat my humble fortunes in this seine public manner ? But it is even so. This week the Times has informed the United Kingdom that !Sirs. Stowe is getting a new dress made l—the charming old aristocratic Timis, which everybody declares is such a wicked paper' and yet which they can no more do without than they can their breakfast? What am I, and what is my father's house, that such distinction should come upon me? I assure you my dear, I feel myself altogether too much flattered. There, side by side with speculations on the Eastern question, and conjectures with regard to the secret and revealed will of the Emperor of Russia, news from her Majesty's most sacred retreat at Osborne, and the last debates in Par- liament, comes my brown silk dress! The Times has omitted the colour; I had a great mind to send him word about that. But you may tell the girls —for probably the news will spread through the American papers—that it is the brown Chinese silk which, they put into my trunk, unmade, when I was too ill to sit up and be fitted, "Mr. Times wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware what sort of a place her dress is being made in ; and there is a letter from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that it is being made up piecemeal in the most shockingly distressed dens of London, by poor, miserable, White slaves, worse treated than the Plantation slaves of America.

"Now, Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and was in due time waited on in her own apart- ment by a very respectable Woman, who Offered to make, the dress; and lo this is the result! Since the publication of this piece, I have received earnest missives, from various .parts of. the country, beggmg me to interfere, hoping that I was not going to patronize the White slavery of England, and that I %mild euiploy my talents equally against Gppression under every torn. The person who had been so unfortunate as to receive the weight of my publio patronage was in a very tragical state ; protested her innocence of any cothiesion with dens,' of any overworking ofliande, &e., with ns much fervour as if I had been appointed on a eommittee.of Parliamentary inquiry. Let my case ho' a warning to all philanthropists who may happen to want clothes while they are in Loudon, Some of my .correspondents seemed to think that I ought to publish a manifes.to for the benefit of distressed Great Britain, stating how I came to do it,Mild all the circumstances, since they are quite aitriamust have meant well; and Containing gentle cautions as to the dkposet of my future patronage in the dressniakieg line."

The impression left on Mrs. Stowe by Frerieh society was muck more favourable than is usually the ease, at least in writers. It might be that, as in this country, she saw the best side of thine, and associated with the gravest and most regular people. It is probable that she took a more genial if not a more catholic view. The whole of her remarks are worth reading, but we can only find.' space for a few. "I know a generaPprejudice has gone forth, that the French are all mere outside, without any deep reflection or emotion. This may be true of many. No doubt, that. the strength of that outward life, that aeeteness of the mere perceptive organization, und that tendency to social exhilaration, which lire- rail, will incline to such a fault in many eases. An English reserve reclines to moroseness, and Scotch perseverance to obstinacy ; so this aiirial French nature may become levity and insincerity ; but then it is neither the milieu Englishman, the dogged Seetchman, nor the shallow Frenchman that vier are to take as the national ideal. In each country we are to take the lupe best as the specimen. "Now, it as true that, here in France, one can find people as juiligiewsi. quiet, discreet, and religious, as anywhere in the world ; with views etl*. as serious, and as earnest, not living for pretence or show, but-for the- 'mob rational and religious ends. Now, when all this goodness is silvered over' as it were, reflecting like mother-of-pearl or opal, a thousand fanciful shades and changes, is not the result beautiful ? Souse families into which I have

entered, some persons with whom I have talked, have left a Most delightful

impression Upon my mind and I have talked, by means of inaperfbct Eng- lish, French, and interpretations, with a good many. They have made my heart bleed over the history of this most beautiful country. It is truly mournful that a people with so many fine impulses, so mush genius, appre- ciation, and effective power, should, by the influence of historical events quite beyond the control Of the masses, so often have been thrown into a false position before the world, and been subjected to such a series of ago- nizing revulsions and revolutions. • • "In regard.to the present state of affairs here, it has been my lot to con- verse unreservedly with some of all parties sufficiently to find the key-note of

their thoughts. There are, first, the Bourbonists—inediteval people—be-

lievers in the divine right of kings in general, and of the Bourbons In par- ticular. There are many of them exceedingly interesting. There is some-

thing.rather poetic and graceful about the antique cast of their ideus • their

chivalrous loyalty to an exiled family, and their devout belief in the ideas; religion. These, for the most part, keep out of Paris, entirely ignore the present court, and remain in their chateaus in the country. A gentleman of this class, with whom I talked, thought the present Emperor did very well in keeping other parties out till the time should come to strike a blow for the true King. "Then there are the partisans and friends of the Orleans family. I heard those who spoke even with tears of Louis Philippe and his dynasty. They were patrons of letters and of arts, they say, of virtue and of religion ; and these good faithful souls cling lovingly to their memory.

"And then there are the Republicans—men of the real olden time, Ca- pable of sacrificing everything that heart holds dear for a principle ; such

Republicans as were our fathers in all save their religion, and because lack- ing that, losing the chief element of popular control. Nevertheless, grander men have never been than some of these modern Republicans of it Americans might learn many lessons from them.

"Besides all these, there is another class, comparatively small, having neither the prestige of fashion, rank, or wealth, but true, liumble,evan- gelical Christians, in whom the simplicity and spirituality of the old Hugue- not church seems revived. These men are labouring at the very foundation ef things ; labouring to bring back the forgotten Bible ; beginning where Christ began, with preaching the gospel to the poor. If any would wish to see Christianity in its loveliest form, they would find it in some of these humble labourers. One with whom I conversed devotes his time to the chiffoniers (rag-pickers). He gave me an account of his labours, speaking with such tenderness and compassion that it was quite touching. 'My poor people,' he said, they are very ignorant, but they are not so very bad.' And when I asked him, 'Who supports you in your labours ?' he looked up- ward, with one of those quick involuntary glances by which the French express themselves without words. There was the same earnestness in him as in one of our city missionaries, but a touching grace peculiarly national. It was the piety of Fenelon and St. John."