especially regarded the election for the seconde circonscription. My conversation with the better classes showed an enthusiasm for M. Thiers, if only to spite M. Persigny. My conversation with the ouvriers showed rather a preponderance in favour of M. Devinck. One most intelligent ouvrier recited to me with taste and eloquence a long address to the electors from the Prefect de la Seine. His manners were nearly perfect. The same may be said of the great mass of the poor. In talking to them, if your eyes were blindfolded, you might imagine yourself in a drawing-room.

The ouvrier used to be the most dreaded personage in Paris. He used to lurk in the dense and ancient quarters which the Emperor has cleared away to make room for boulevards within range of cannon shot. Thence he was always ready to issue forth, to pile up a barricade or to storm the Palais Royal. He was to play a bloody part in all the terrible dreams of Socialism. Socialism, however, simply meant the demand panem et circenses. The Emperor gives the people both. Consequently the antagonism between capital and labour appears to be drawing to a close. Work-people have a direct interest, in some cases an allotted share, in the prosperity that attends their work. Labour is constant, and wages are high. They are becoming familiar with the idea of a provision for sickness and old age. An acute observer states,-"A great proportion of the workmen, who formerly had at most meat once a day, now have it regularly twice a day, in the forenoon and in the evening; the consequence, greater health and strength, must strike at the first glance." The imperial government has lent an enormous impulse to all industry.

It may be also said that it has solved the problem of the poor law question. Save in the case of illness and old age, the government will not give a poor man relief; it will give him work, and pay him for it. The workhouse is unknown. France may be said to spend on pauperism nearly as much as England, but what a difference in the result obtained. She has to show roads, quays, ports, reclaimed lands, embellished cities, for her money; the indigent is not demoralized by the workhouse system, but retains his self-respect. The only machinery for the relief of the poor consists in "Bureaux de Bienfaisances," and the "Sociétés de Secours Mutuel." These receive subventions from the municipalities and the State to the extent of a fourth, about £200,000.

5. June 6th. At the salon of my friends the G.'s I was told that the Emperor was a religious man, and in an argument would take the religious side of the question. I was told, too, that he believes in his destiny, and is addicted to the supernatural. Mr. Home's séances were mentioned. The Emperor was very fond of them, and only when the Empress became very much

alarmed on the subject, dropped them. The Empress is a good Roman Catholic, and makes her political influence felt in that direction. Table-turning and spirit-rapping do not lose their charms for Parisian society. They appear this season to be as rife as ever. The folly and impiety of these exhibitions are undoubted. The spirits generally commence by being very solemn, but, if they converse long, they are sure to descend into utter trivialities. These pretended revelations encourage infidelity. The so-called spirits teach that the invisible world is peopled only by the spirits of human beings departed. The book of revelation is thus brought into contempt. This is certainly not a hopeful feature in Paris society; I am not prepared, however, to say that spiritualism is more prevalent here than in London or New York. Those who will not take the trouble to search into the book of revelation are credulous in reference to every novel lie.

A friend lent me a number or two of L'Union Chrétienne. This is a weekly journal of the Greek Church published in Paris. The Greek Church, with its handsome cupolas and splendid gilding, is perhaps the finest architectural ornament of the Faubourg St. Honoré. The mottoes taken by this journal are St. Luke ii. 14, and St. John xvii. 20, 21. One of the numbers contained a letter of approbation from the Patriarch of Alexandria, dated the 13th of April 1863. I perceive a learned paper, one of a series, on the Council of Constance, appropriate enough to this periodical at the period in which it. was thought that l'Union Chrétienne was effected between the Greek and Latin Churches. The tendencies of this paper are strongly anti-Romanist. It will be interesting to churchmen to know, that many of the most earnest minds in the Greek Church are hopefully contemplating the possibility of a Christian union with the Church of England.

I walked home through the Champs Elysées. What a ceaseless summer fair is going on beneath the thick-foliaged trees spaces of green turf, radiant beds of flowers, columns of silver fountains, the gay laughter of the children of pleasure. Let it not be forgotten, as English tourists too often forget, that there is a dark back-ground to all this. The imperial fertilizing system" cannot remove poverty and degradation. Those who will be at the trouble of searching will find abundance of both in the poor quarters. Still, I doubt if there is any district in Paris whose name suggests such an evil reputation as St. Giles's or the Ratcliffe highway. Moreover, whatever hidden sin there may be, it is not manifested so openly and coarsely as in the streets of London. Yet the frequent spectacles at the Morgue, the dead-house of Paris, soon to be swept away, suggest some very unpleasing speculations.

6. The state of literature in France is not in a satisfactory

or encouraging position. Works of a high class do not appear to be popular; although I think that the writer in Fraser, to whom I have alluded, has exaggerated this. The study, even of the great French classics is thought-and I can well believe itto be greatly neglected by the present race of Frenchmen. If the present is claimed as an Augustan age, it must be owned that it is singularly unproductive of Augustan literature. The great writers in France, the orators and statesmen, almost to a man, are inimical to the Empire. Again, literature can no longer offer the splendid prizes it did in the time of Louis Philippe and the Republic-prizes as splendid as those of the days of Queen Anne. No writer, by the force of his genius, can achieve the career of a Villemain or Guizot. Literary activity, indeed, is abundant. The great literary ambition is to write a successful play; a play, if successful, confers on its author great pecuniary gain. French writers appear to feel that they have abdicated for themselves the proud position which they once claimed of standing in the intellectual van of Europe. Books and periodicals are produced in the utmost abundance; history, philosophy, economy, science, poetry, art, fiction; the essay, the satire, the song: there is a deluge of all these. But, if we except one or two publications, pre-eminent among which is the Revue des Deux Mondes, always worthy of careful perusal, you will hardly find an original writer, even of second-rate ability. This rapid fungous growth produces no hardy plant that will survive the contemporary generation.' The moral tone of the light literature of France is deplorable, although it does not at the present moment so glaringly violate all propriety as in previous years. If current literature faithfully reflects current manners, the state of things is deplorable. Adulterous love is the general staple of the French romance; moreover, there is always blood and black tragedy, which reflects that recklessness of death, that disregard for the sanctity of human life, for which Paris, historically speaking, has always been so conspicuous. I have been just looking at the libretto of Faust, an opera which, during the season, was a great favourite here. Faust asks Mephistophélès, "Fais que mes passions soient satisfaites! C'est tout ce que je te demande." Exactly! that is the true Parisian idea of life.

7. The commercial immoralities of the Bourse go far to mar the undoubted commercial prosperity of France. All that commercial prosperity is deeply tainted by a gambling spirit that is maniacal. As you enter the Bourse, what a Babel of discordant voices salutes you, what a confusion of passionate and unhappy faces! Women, outside the rails beneath the trees, are as eager as the men in the gambling strife. The Crédit Mobilier has assumed that foremost place in the heart of the Parisian which he used to devote to sauntering and

pleasure. All evil passions that are animated by the lust of gain are in full play here. Fortune and ruin sometimes assume colossal shapes; but the fact that any one for half a napoleon may dabble at the Bourse, according to the system of association for the million, shows how universal this gambling spirit must be. There is, however, method in the Parisian madness; it will not exhibit itself in a Mississippi scheme.

8. I spent last evening with a clergyman long resident in Paris. We discussed Protestantism in France, and the Oratoire. My space does not permit me, on the present occasion, to go fully into this interesting subject. M. Coquerel is at present the most popular preacher at the Oratoire; the place is always thronged when it is his turn to preach, about once a a month. His views are not such as one likes to hear enounced in a Protestant church. There is a strong Socinian element at the Oratoire. This, I believe, is the reason why Frederick Monod seceded. His brother, the late lamented Adolph Monod, refused to secede, believing that he should be quitting a post of usefulness. It is to be regretted that Protestantism in Paris shows so divided a front, numbering in its ranks Lutherans and Calvinists, the orthodox and the latitudinarian. It would be interesting to inquire how far Parisian Protestantism leavens the Roman Catholic mass, and whether there is any real movement in the direction of Unity and Reformation.

We spoke of the condition of the English in Paris. It is calculated that there is a stationary English population in Paris amounting to 12,000. The great mass of these are, of course, poor people. If we endeavour to classify them, those employed in stables, as coachmen or grooms, are one large class; those engaged in iron works, especially in the gas works, form another large class; those engaged in printing calico, gardeners, &c., should also be mentioned. The English clergy in Paris appear to be doing all they can to promote the spiritual interests of their poor fellow-countrymen, but, it is to be feared, with only limited success. They become absorbed in the Paris population, and do as the Parisians do. They form scarcely an appreciable element in the English congregations. A more hopeful sign is to be found in the schools attached to the different churches. There is an English charitable fund for the relief of the poor English. The wealthy English in Paris ought to be mindful of their poor countrymen, who, most commonly, are debarred from the hope of return to their fatherland.

F. A.

MEMOIRS OF BISHOP BLOMFIELD, BY HIS SON.

BISHOP Blomfield was translated to London in 1828. He left his first diocese amidst general regrets. In practical matters, and as a ruler of the Church, he had gained experience, and with it moderation and more humility; and as a Christian minister, the improvement had been still greater. And here we record with great satisfaction a memorandum from his private journal, dated so early as 1825. It proves the reality of his religion, though his doctrinal views were still, we think, defective on many points, and on others obscure and misty :

"1825, April 21. Presented petition from a congregation of Dissenters; spoke on it, and was well heard. I humbly pray that Almighty God may subdue in me all love of the applause of men, all conceit of my own strength or wisdom, all trust in my own goodness; and enable me by His grace to bring every thought into subjection to the law of Christ, and to be in spirit and temper as a weaned child. O Lord, to Thee be ascribed all the praise, and honour, and glory, by us, thy sinful, weak, unworthy creatures."

Transferred to London, Bishop Blomfield found a much wider field, and no doubt a more difficult task. The Emancipation, as it was called, of the Roman Catholics, was yet an unsettled question. Bishop Blomfield had always been opposed to it, and voted against it when it was eventually carried in 1829, though in doing so he opposed the Duke of Wellington and the whole Whig party. To the Duke he was indebted for his bishopric, and to the Whigs for his first introduction into notice. He opposed the project of the London University, as first brought forward by Mr. Brougham and Lord Lansdowne, on the ground of the exclusion of religious instruction from the scheme; and in opposition to it he took a leading part in the foundation of King's College, in the Strand. In 1830 his thoughts were much taken up with a subject to which we have already had occasion to refer the neglect of the Lord's-day; and here, too, his conduct was courageous and beyond all praise. When he thought that he was right, the fear of man was no snare to him; it was rather in the love of the world, in ambition and self-will, that his temptations and infirmities were found. When invited to dinner on a Sunday by William IV. soon after his accession, he explained, through Sir Herbert Taylor, that he never dined out on that day. The good-natured ki g excused him, and asked him to come on Wednesday. He wrote to the Lord Chamberlain requesting that the new pleasure grounds in St. James's Park might be closed during the hours of morning service. "In short, he held," his son informs us, "rather strict, or what would now be called