SOCIAL LIFE OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.
IN our notice of the book comparing the Social Life of England and France, we spoke of the imperfectness of the comparison. It is a very common error to suppose that a comparison is to be made by bringing together extraordinary events. Extraordinary events are, by their very nature, exceptions ; and it is absurd to compare two rules by comparing the exceptions. Real compari- son is a much less striking hut much more useful labour : all kinds of ordinary circumstances are Co be looked into, and their dill;Ten- ces estimated. It makes a much more pleasing book to accumu- late the moral marvels of two countries, but it is neither a scien- tific nor an equally useful mode of inquiry. If two geographers designed to compare one country with another, they would not do so by collecting for comparison the rarities of each : gold is found in Ireland, and copper in France ; nevertheless, a statistical writer would set off' the corn and the whisky against the maize and the vine, and would neglect a consideration of the small quan- tities of the precious metals that may have been discovered. A collection of moral marvels has, however, its use.: if it does not serve for comparing one set of people with another, it enlarges our knowledge of human nature ; it shows us what, under pecu- liar circumstances, men are capable of; and in guiding men to their true happiness, what to reckon upon, what to expect, what to avoid. Without retracting, one particle, our praise of the authoress of the volume in question, we may be allowed to say, that from the neglect of these truths, she has altos-ether failed in producing, what we much desire to see—a real and adequate com- parison of the social condition of any two countries. We must begin, however, with an accurate history of the social state of each. With respect to England for one country, we may ask, where are we to look—in what volume, in what collection of volumes— for a luminous history of the social ''pleasures and pains of our ancestors ? The truth is, that this is a virgin subject : the very principles upon which such an inquiry is to be conducted are not yet settled ; even the history of wealth in England has never been investigated, and this is but a very small part of the subject.
We have said that a collection of marvels has its use ; and we shall not scruple to continue our gleanings from the curious con- tents of this volume. Perhaps the mere momentary surprise, or, as it is called, interest, with which they affect the reader, is their only merit : but that is something—especially in a newspaper. To pro- ceed then—
At the commencement of the seventeenth century, there were not more than fifty coaches in Paris : in the reign of Louis XIV. every body had one—without a coach, nobody could go to court. This may seem a trifling anecdote : it however indicates a most important change of manners—achangefrom cavaliers to courtiers, from the freedom and boldness of martial modes to the luxurious effeminacies of drawing-room habits—instead of clanking boots, and a fierce hat and feather, silk stockings, silver buckles, and a pow- dered wig. Going to court on horseback implies an occasional wet jacket, and the appearing before the Sovereign in dirty boots— things incompatible with formality and ceremonious observances. Carriages imply good roads, commerce, and an advanced state of civilization. In 163G, Anne of Austria, on the route of Orleans, between Piteaux and Paris, was obliged to sleep in her carriage, because the road was so bad that neither the mules nor carts that carried her baggage could arrive.
Paris was at one time lighted by a Government establishment of porte flambeaux, and porte lanternes : persons provided with them were placed at the Louvre, the Palais de Justice, and other public places in Paris. The price was fixed at three sous for every quarter of an hour.
St. Evreniond used to say, "Il n'y a pas de meilleur commerce qu'un Anglois qui park, et qu'un Francois quipense." Queen Mary, the wife of William the Third, was a woman of lazy habits and slow understanding. An account-book of hers, while Princess, is yet extant, in which she meant to have set down every little item of the disbursement of her monthly allowance of pin-money. But the sum to be accounted for, though by no means large, is never made up ; she always goes beyond it, and she regu- larly, at the end of every month, (when the Prince passed the ac- count) makes a written apology for her inaccuracy, hopes he will forgive her, promises to be more exact for the ensuing season, and in one instance hopes she may count on his justice, in case she died, making good the difference to her servants. Of the celebrated coffeehouses of former times, such as and others, though no regular subscription was made, as in our clubs, yet they were not places of entirely miscellaneous resort ; it was necessary for a person to be introduced by another and a fre- quenter of it. Politicians frequented the St. James's Coffeehouse ; the learned, the Grecian, in Devereux Court ; Locket's in Gerard- street, Soho, and Pontac's, were the fashionable houses, where the young and gay used to meet to dine. Three o'clock, or at the ut- most four, was the latest dining hour in the capital. The silks, the chintzes, the porcelain, the lacker-ware, and the toys of China, and every description of Eastern merchandise, used to be sold in the same shop. When the India ships arrived in the Thames, it was no uncommon thing for the ladies of rank to go down to Blackwall and make purchases on board. The India houses, often mentioned in the comedies and poems of the times, were no other than warehouses dealing in all the importations of China. The use of tea was then so recent and so confined as to occasion no great importation of it ; it was a fashionable luxury, and was only to be found at these India houses : there, in a little back room behind the warehouse, a kettle was always kept boiling, to try the tea before it was purchased.
Sir John Germain, husband of Lady Betty Germain, was so re- markably illiterate and oddly ignorant, that he left by will a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, a great Dutch merchant in London, who had written on trade, believing him likewise to be the author of St. Matthew's Gospel. After having received the sacrament in his last illness, at the earnest desire of his wife, he said to her, " Betty, that thing you made me take has done me good." He was a native of the Low Countries, and was what was then called a soldier of fortune.
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