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The execrable passarts were formerly quite in vogue in some parts of the south of France; but this, with other benefits of the régime féodal, has been abolished by the revolution. The street population of Toulon and other cities, almost renewed since that eventful period, are now as decorous and cleanly, as they were formerly nasty and brutal.

Fondness for dress has of late years introduced itself into the Athens of the North; although one occasionally meets, in good company, a slovenly poet or dirty politician. There is as much vanity, and more pedantry, in slov. enliness, as in dandyism. The old cit worth a plum, is as vain of his thread-bare coat, as the fashionable lounger of his ruffles and diamonds. The poet with his eye "in a fine frenzy rolling," who goes into company dressed like old Briggs (in Cecilia,) is as vain of his appearance in a saloon, as the dandy who has no idea beyond the tying of his cravat, or the set of his clothes.

The letters of introduction which I brought to Edinburgh, were not of so much service as I anticipated. The Scotch are so distant with strangers, that it is very hard to become enfant de la maison. You cannot visit a family in the evening, unless you are very intimate indeed. The usual visiting hours are from two till four P. M. when I have my classes to attend to, and there is no pleasure whatever in calling formally on "fashionables" who are just out

of bed, and who have scarcely had time to pull off their night caps.

I sometimes spend the evening at the As sembly room, which is a handsomely decorated saloon: its beautifully papered walls and its crimson hangings, give a magnificent effect to the splendid chandeliers, which hang from the ceiling like constellations of stars. An orches tra is fitted up in a balcony over head, and below the variety of dress and splendour of or nament, present the idea of a parterre of flowers. The whole zest of this polite resort, consists in the agreeable Scotch airs which enliven the dulness of fashion,

"And pour a torrent of sweet notes around,
Fast as the thirsting ear can drink the sound."

Many of the young ladies who frequent this assembly, are very beautiful, and dress with taste and elegance; but there are several obstinate adherents to the old school of fashion, who are attired in such an outlandish style, that it required a great effort to keep my risi ble muscles in order. Almost every one of them had a different head-dress; many wear coronets of roses, or of ribbands-others are "coiffées à la Titus," and some wear diamonds beautifully wrought with their hair.

A few days ago, I accompanied my friend Peter Hill to an oratorio at the Assembly rooms, the concert was finished with some of the Scotch national airs, which always afford me the greatest pleasure. Indeed, I have felt

nore delight from some of the native Caledoian music, than from the most elaborate compositions of Handel, Mozart, Haydn, &c. but, or heaven's sake, do not tell this to any of your exquisite German connoisseurs; they would look on me with the greatest contempt, and set me down as past redemption!

The delicacy, grace and expression of the Scotch pastoral airs, the energy and boldness of those of a martial kind, the sportiveness and vivacity of the airs of their humorous songs, and the bounding gayety of their reels, render their music truly delightful to any one whose ear is sensible to "the concord of sweet sounds"-To be sure, these melodies have not received the fine polish of elaborate compositions, and the musical virtuoso will think them inferior to the airs composed by the great masters of the art, in which the very soul of passion is embodied in forms of the utmost symmetry and grace.

LETTER VII.

Benign ceruleans of the second sex!

I'll swear

That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery,
Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.

TO THE SAME.

Don Juan.

Edinburgh, February 12, 1819.

THE "blue stocking gentry" are the female pedants of Scotch society. Instead of talking

on those subjects which it is so becoming and graceful in a woman to know, they prose away on mineralogy, politics, borough reform, and the corn-bill: "they are certainly the very, flour of the sex," says Peter, in his excellent "Let ters to his Kinsfolk." Mrs. Kyndear is at the head of the Femmes Savantes of this order: she bores me to death with learned harangues about geology, pebbles, and the botanical names of plants, which she ecorche's in the most ridiculous manner. She knows more about Dr. Hope's laboratory, than what is going on in her own family, and can analyze a fossil, although she cannot tell the component parts of a pudding!

Peter, in his amusing work above quoted, draws a parallel between the blue stockings of Edinburgh and Paris, very much to the advantage of the latter. "In France, (says he,) the genuine power and authority which the women exert, and have long exerted, in swaying the course of public opinion in regard to a vast variety of subjects, are sufficient, were there nothing more, to make one excuse a great deal of their petulance and presumption. And then there is a light graceful ease about the manner of their trespasses, which would carry off the indignation of Diogenes himself. How is it possible to feel any serious displeasure against a pretty creature that comes tripping up to you with a fan in her hand, and seems quite indif ferent whether you ask her to dance a quad

le with you, or sit down by her side, and scuss the merits of the last roman?"

A taste for the physical sciences has become ite general in this country, and has entirely perceded the love of elegant classical literare Every one must needs be a chemist, bonist, and have his collection of minerals, ried plants, snakes preserved in brandy, and skins of ill-shaped fishes."* On almost every antle piece there are variously coloured fosIs, &c. which recal to my memory Gimcrack's ill, in the Tatler. The conversation in the ost instructive societies, is more remarkable or its metaphysical depth, than its elegance or hetorical ornament. The Latin and Greek anguages are not only neglected, but despised, ven by professional learned men; they call the cquirement of classical knowledge, wasting me upon mere words; and, if you venture to ut the treasures of antiquity in competition ith their metaphysical stuff, they will answer ou with a grin of incorrigible self complaceny, or work up their features into the increduis odi. Talk to them of the advantage there in being able to "rifle the sweets and taste

* I have frequently compared the understandings of such men, says Goldsmith) to their own glasses. Their field of vision is too ontracted to take in the whole of any but minute objects; they iew all nature bit by bit; now the proboscis, now the antennæ, ow the pinnæ of a flea! Thus they proceed, laborious in tries constant in experiment, without one single abstraction, till, t last, their ideas, ever employed upon minute things, contract he size of the diminutive object, and a single mite shall fill their hole mind's capacity.

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