The Prince's summary of the English character, at the close of the volumes, is contained in the following pages.

'On the whole, fashionable Englishmen, however unable they may be to lay aside their native heaviness and pedantry, certainly betray the most intense desire to rival the dissolute frivolity and jactance of the old court of France, in their fullest extent; while, in exactly the same proportion, the French seek to exchange this character for the old English earnestness, and daily advance toward higher and more dignified purposes and views of existence.

"A London "Exclusive" of the present day is, in truth, nothing more than a bad, flat, dull impression of a roué of the Regency and a courtier of Louis XV.; both have in common selfishness, levity, boundless vanity, and an utter want of heart; both think they can set themselves above every thing, by means of contempt, derision, and insolence; both creep in the dust, before one idol alone,—the Frenchman of the last age before his king, -the Englishmen of this before any acknowledged ruler in the empire of fashion. But what a contrast if we look further! In France, the absence of all morality and honesty was at least in some degree atoned for by the most refined courtesy ; the poverty of soul by wit and agreeableness; the impertinence of considering themselves as something better than other people, rendered bearable by finished elegance and politeness of manners; and egotistical vanity in some measure justified, or at least excused, by the brilliancy of an imposing court, a high-bred air and address, the perfect art of polished intercourse, winning aisance, and a conversation captivating by its wit and lightness. What of all this has the English "dandy to offer?

'His highest triumph is to appear with the most wooden manners, -as little polished as will suffice to avoid castigation ;-nay, to contrive even his civilities so, that they shall approach as near as may be to affronts. This indeed is the style of deportment, which confers on him the greatest celebrity. Instead of a noble high-bred ease, to have the courage to offend against every restraint of decorum; to invert the relation in which our sex stands to women, so that they may appear the attacking and he the passive or defensive party; to treat his best friends, if they cease to have the stamp and authority of fashion, as if he did not know them," to cut them," as the technical phrase is; to delight in the ineffably fade jargon and the affectation of his "set; "and always to know what is "the thing; "-these are pretty nearly the accomplishments which form a young "lion" of the world of fashion. If he has, moreover, a remarkably pretty mistress, and if it

has also happened to him, to induce some foolish woman to sacrifice herself on the altar of fashion and desert husband and children for him, his reputation reaches its highest nimbus. If, added to this, he spends a great deal of money, if he is young, if his name is in the peerage, he can hardly fail to play a transient part; at any rate, he possesses, in full measure, all the ingredients that go to make a Richelieu of our days. That his conversation consists only of the most trivial local jests and scandal, which he whispers into the ear of a woman in a large party, without deigning to remark that there is any body in the room but himself and the object of his delicate attentions ;-that with men he can talk only of gambling and sporting; that, except a few fashionable phrases, which the shallowest head can the most easily retain, he is deplorably ignorant; that his awkward tournure goes not beyond the nonchalance of a plough-boy, who stretches himself at his length on the ale-house settle; and that his grace is very like that of a bear who has been taught to dance, all this does not rob his crown of a single jewel.

'Worse still is it, that notwithstanding all the high-bred rudeness of his exterior, the moral condition of his inward man must, to be fashionable, stand far lower. That cheating is prevalent in the various kinds of play which are here the order of the day, and that when long successfully practised it gives a sort of relief," is notorious. But it is still more striking, that no attempt is made to conceal that crasse selfishness, which lies at the bottom of such transactions,-nay, that it is openly avowed as the only rational principle of action, and "good nature" is laughed at and despised as the height of vulgarity. This is the case in no other country in all others people are ashamed of such modes of thinking, even if they are wretched enough to hold them.

Here, however, people are so little ashamed of the most crasse self love, that an Englishman of rank once instructed me, that a good" fox-hunter" must let nothing stop him, or distract his attention when following the fox; and if his own father should be thrown in leaping a ditch and lie there, should, he said, "if he could n't help it," leap his horse over him, and trouble himself no more about him, till the end of the chase.

Whoever reads the best of the recent English novels,—those by the author of Pelham,-may be able to abstract from them a tolerably just idea of English fashionable society, provided, Nota Bene, he does not forget to deduct qualities which national self love has claimed, though quite erroneously ;-viz. grace for its roués,-seductive manners and amusing conversation for its "dandies." I mixed for a while with those who dwell on the very pinnacle of this fool's world of fashion; with those who in

habit its middle region, and with those who have pitched their tent at its foot, whence they turn longing lingering looks at its unattainable summit; but rarely did I ever find a vestige of that attractive art of social life, that perfect equipoise of all the social talents, which diffuses a feeling of complacency over all within its sphere; as far removed from stiffness and prudery as from rudeness and license, which speaks with equal charm to the heart and the head, and continually excites while it never wearies; an art of which the French remained so long the masters and models.

'Instead of this, I saw in the fashionable world, only too frequently and with few exceptions, a profound vulgarity of thought, an immorality little veiled or adorned, the most undisguised arrogance, and the coarsest neglect of all kindly feelings and attentions, haughtily assumed, for the sake of shining in a false and despicable "refinement," even more inane and intolerable to a healthy mind, than the awkward and ludicrous stiffness of the most declared Nobodies. It has been said that vice and poverty are the most revolting combination. Since I have been in England, vice and boorish rudeness seem to me to form a still more disgusting union.'

Such is the summing up of the German Prince; a good lesson, one would have thought, to the English critics, who were to undertake to review the work of Mrs. Trollope. We have been disposed to regard her work as to a certain extent pseudepigraphal. That this lady lived and travelled in America, and kept a journal of what she saw and fancied she saw, there is no doubt. But we have heard some pretty distinct rumors, that her papers have gone through the mill of a regular book-maker; and there are some things in the volume, as it stands, which we cannot think that she or any other lady, (not to say gentleman,) could have written.

It is curious, as we have already said, to notice the coincidence of the strictures of the Prince and Mrs. Trollope, in matters with respect to which the latter puts the Americans and the English in the most glaring contrast. We have given one example; their respective remarks on the theatre are another.

The following is Mrs. Trollope's account of the theatre at Cincinnati.

'It was really not a bad one, though the poor receipts rendered it impossible to keep it in high order. But an annoyance infinitely greater than decorations indifferently clean, was the style

and manner of the audience. Men came into the lower tier of boxes without their coats; and I have seen shirt sleeves tucked up to the shoulder. The spitting was incessant, and the mixed smell of onions and whiskey was enough to make one feel even the Drake's acting dearly bought, by the obligation of enduring its accompaniments. The bearing and attitudes of the men are perfectly indescribable. The heels thrown higher than the head, the entire rear of the person presented to the audience, the whole length supported on the benches, are among the varieties that these exquisite posture-masters exhibit.'

To illustrate this, Mrs. Trollope has introduced, what our learned brother of the Edinburgh calls a 'pot-house caricature,' representing three gentlemen and two ladies at a box in the theatre. The ladies are dressed in the usual manner for that place; and so are two of the gentlemen; but one of them sits with his feet protruding over the box, and the other sits sidewise, on its front. The third gentleman is sitting without coat or neckcloth, and with what Mrs. Trollope discreetly denominates his entire rear' presented to the audience. This last gentleman, as our worthy colleague of the American Quarterly judiciously states, is evidently an Englishman; such an 'entire rear,' was never reared upon onions and whiskey, nor very far from the reach of Barclay, Perkins and Co's entire. Now let us hear the German Prince.

'The most striking thing to a foreigner in English theatres is the unheard-of coarseness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence of this is, that the higher and more civilized classes go only to the Italian opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre. Whether this be unfavorable or otherwise to the stage, I leave others to determine.

'English freedom here degenerates into the rudest license, and it is not uncommon, in the midst of the most affecting parts of a tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coarse expressions shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, according to the taste of the by-standers, either by loud laughter and approbation, or by the castigation and expulsion of the offender.

'Whichever turn the thing takes, you can hear no more of what is passing on the stage, where actors and singers, according to ancient usage, do not suffer themselves to be interrupted by such occurrences, but declaim or warble away, comme si de rien n'était." And such things happen not once, but twenty times in the course of the performance, and amuse many of the au

dience, more than that does. It is also no rarity for some one to throw the fragments of his gouté, which do not always consist of orange-peels alone, without the smallest ceremony, on the heads of the people in the pit, or to shail them (what kind of ism is that?) with singular dexterity into the boxes; while others hang their coats and waistcoats over the railing of the gallery, and sit in shirt-sleeves.'

6

One cannot but admire the equal hand, with which the colors are laid on in these two flattering pictures; and even when there would seem a shade of difference, an adroit compensation is sure to be slipped in. Thus at Cincinnati, it is the lower tier of boxes,' in which the men sit in their shirtsleeves, with their entire rear' turned to the audience. In London, they sit in their shirt-sleeves in the gallery; but then they take off both coat and waistcoat, and sit pelting the actors and the lower tier with orange-peel. We must say that, in what follows, our brethren in Great Britain have most cause to complain of their Mrs. Trollope.

'Another cause,' pursues the German Prince, for the absence of respectable families from the theatre is the resort of hundreds of those unhappy women, with whom London swarms. They are to be seen of every degree, from the lady who spends a splendid income and has her own box, to the wretched beings, who wander houseless in the streets. Between the acts, they fill the large and handsome foyers, and exhibit their boundless effrontery in the most revolting manner.

'It is most strange, that in no country on earth is this afflicting spectacle so openly exhibited, as in the religious and decorous England. The evil goes to such an extent, that in the theatre it is often difficult to keep off these repulsive beings, especially when they are drunk, which is not seldom the case. They beg in the most shameless manner, and a pretty elegantly dressed girl does not disdain to take a shilling or a sixpence, which she instantly spends in a glass of rum, like the meanest beggar. And these are the scenes, I repeat, which are exhibited in the national theatre of England, where the highest dramatic talent of the country should be developed, where immortal artists like Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, Miss O'Neil have enraptured the public by their genius; and where actors such as Kean, Kemble, and Young still adorn the stage.

'Is not this, to say nothing of the immorality, in the highest degree low and undignified? It is wholly inconsistent with any real love of Art, or conception of its office and dignity. The