for it is all "up and down" on this road) in a comfortless-looking room in the straggling town of Rochester. Such having been my situation on a dark and wet night in October, 1830, and in none of the happiest moods, forasmuch as, according to Johnson, we never do any thing consciously for the last time without sadness of heart, and I had just quitted a residence very much to my mind, and in which I had passed ten of the happiest years of my whole life,-I was attracted to a discussion that was going on touching the hotels of Calais, and particularly to the following sentence from a respectable-looking Englishman: "I was very well accommodated," said he, "at the Flying Horse;' Mrs. Symmonds, the landlady, is an excellent old woman, and her charges are reasonable." That is the house for me, thought I within myself; although neither a flying nor any other sort of horse will now avail me, the reasonable charges may. Then, reader, imagine me at the "Flying Horse," ushered into a room with a well-sanded floor, and vis-à-vis to a dead wall-the room in which I was to live and dine! Then the persons I was to live with! They consisted of a retired London tradesman; a lieutenant-colonel of the East-India service, with about an ounce of liver, and in the last stage of both mental and bodily existence; and a man who took more liberties with the English language in half an hour, than the Roman writers did with theirs in an age. But enough of this; at least I had enough of it after the first evening, and, Englishmanlike, sat and sulked by myself in a private room for the next ten days.

But at the expiration of this period, what was the impression on my mind of Calais and of France? Why, to speak the truth, I was thoroughly disgusted with a great deal that I saw particularly with the filthy state of several of the streets and lanes, and also with some of the unsightly habits of the people.

"I shall never endure all this," said I to myself; "I will return to my own country at all hazards;" when the door of my sitting-room opened, and in walked my family, who had necessarily been detained in Hampshire, until the sale of my effects was accomplished. Grumbling now was of no avail. "Here I am," recurred I," and I must make the best of of a bad bargain." I had, in fact, nothing for it but to endeavour to put my mind into that state, which Horace recommends, which would make a man, if not happy, contented, even at Ulubræ. I took a house in the town and furnished it; and afterwards found out the difference between looking out of my windows in Hampshire on a tastefully laidout flower-garden, inhaling the perfume of the rose, and various other sweet-scenting shrubs, and looking out of those in Calais upon a small butcher's shop, and inhaling the odours from a filthy gutter on the opposite side of the street. Luckily for my comfort, however, at the end of a year I got a person to take the lease off my hands, and I retired to a pretty little chateau in the country, at which I now reside. But I was not idle during my residence at Calais. I wrote and published a pamphlet on the currency, which nobody read, and three papers in the Quarterly Review, which every body read.

It would be absurd in me to say much more of the town of Calais, notwithstanding it once cut so conspicuous a figure in British history, some signs of which are now visible, the figure of the cat on the top of one house in the Grande-place, and of a duck on the other, for ex

amples. Still, as there may be some amongst your numerous readers who, like myself, have been satisfied with old England, despite of all her faults, and not visited foreign parts from inclination, it may not be amiss to observe, that it is rather a pretty town, and very much improved in many respects since I first knew it-particularly as to the cleanliness of the streets and lanes, although further improvement is desirable. Its noble church, built by the English, is its chief ornament; but its astounding feature is the number and magnificence of its hotels, two-and-twenty in number, with about as much business doing in all of them, collectively, as would suffice for six. The country about it is about the ugliest my eyes ever beheld; notwithstanding which-taking into consideration matters of more importance, such as the speedy communication with England, its noble pier extending nearly a mile into the sea; its fine range of sands, as sound as a brick floor, and the salubrity of the air-highly salubrious to those who are quite sound in their lungs.

Calais, or its vicinity, is, in my opinion, the most desirable place in France for an Englishman to reside at, whose ambition does not lead him at once to the capital of la belle France. It is called a dull town; but I do not admit the charge. If the daily arrival of three steam-boats, and often of double that number, together with at least half a dozen public coaches, together with families en route, do not satisfy the gapers, it is hard to say what would. And amongst the advantages of Calais to the generality of John Bulls and their ladies, is the fact of almost every tradesman in the town speaking, or at least understanding, the English language; and if the latter-the ladiesmust dance and go to the theatre, they will not be disappointed in those respects, and on every day in the week!

But, have I forgotten the splendid new rooms, and the baths, erected two years back? They are certainly a great acquisition to the place, and if they had been built ten, instead of two years back, the town would have found its account, by not being nearly eclipsed, as it is, by the superior allurements of Boulogne.

There are two trifling features in the character of Calais which I do not feel inclined to pass over, inasmuch as they have often been contemplated by me, without having been satisfactorily accounted for.

The first is, that with ten thousand inhabitants, which may be considered the population of a city, Calais exhibits the quiet of a village. The second relates to the fact that, notwithstanding the number of travellers-families and others—that must be daily in the town, it is only now and then that any of them are to be seen in the streets, when once conducted to their hotels. This can only be accounted for by one or other of the following causes :-They may think there is nothing in the town worthy of their looking at; those who have been travelling by land may be fatigued, and those landed from the steam-boats may be sick; and consequently they keep within doors. What Calais was, previously to the last peace, I am unable to say; but on the authority of Mr. Brummel there were only thirteen houses in the Grande-place which had glass in the windows of them. That English money has

During the extremities to which the Calaisians were put, when their town was besieged by Edward the Third, the two houses here alluded to are said to have been sold by their famishing owners, one for a duck, the other for a cat.

made it what it now is, no one will be inclined to deny; and when I first knew it, it was in a most flourishing condition, but which cannot now be said of it.

LIVING AT CALAIS.

Of the expenses of housekeeping; or, of what is expressed by the broader term of "living," in the town and neighbourhood of Calais, I am now pretty well able to form a judgment. In the articles for eating, merely, including grocery, I consider there is not more than five per cent. difference between this part of France (including Boulogne) and England; but be it remembered that, for obvious reasons, this part of France is the dearest in the kingdom. It is in the cellar that the great saving is effected; next, in taxes and house rent. My own taxes, although I have two houses and a fourwheel carriage, only amount to twenty-six francs per annum; and, for a house pleasantly situated and detached, with three sitting-rooms, with large garden and paddock, double coach-house, stable, &c., I only pay 261. per annum. Brandy I seldom touch; but for 2s. per bottle I drink, purchased by the "piece," as good claret as I would desire to drink; and there is no doubt, but that the cheapness of vinous and spirituous liquors is the inducement to many thousands of persons living in this country, and the cause of their dying here as well.

There is one other little feature-call it a dimple if you will-in the the history of this place. Every day in the year, a waggon-load of champagne arrives in it for shipment to England! And the mention of an article of merchandise leads me to the fact, that the lace trade, carried on here chiefly by the English, is now flourishing to an unheard-of extent. Operatives, as they are called, are earning from two to three pounds a week, whilst their employers are getting rich. It is only lately that spotted lace has been manufactured by machinery, and the trade in that article is both flourishing and profitable, but confined to the English, in a company of whom, as the inventors, is the patent invested. Still the introduction of machinery here, and its occasional beneficial results, have not been without their accompanying, and we may say, natural evils. By giving an unnatural stimulus to an increase of population, it has spread poverty when the new source of demand for labour has removed, and produced much misery.

TRADESMEN.

I have dealt with the same tradesmen ever since I have been in France, with one exception, and I returned to him the last year, finding that I had not gained by the change. I have found them correct in their accounts, uniformly civil and accommodating. They are partly accused of having one price for the English and another for the French, but I have not been able to detect that species of imposition. I am, however, able to state on authority, that one of this class of persons has admitted that he cheats the English whenever he can; but, within my knowledge, he forms a solitary instance. It is possible that a little latitude of conscience may be exercised by some in making those who do pay contribute towards loss sustained by those who do not pay, but

I do not speak from experience on this point. I have been told that I have been the means, unconsciously, of my butcher making a fortune. I do not go the length of admitting the truth of this assertion; but by telling him that the English did not, if they could avoid it, eat old cow beef, he took to killing oxen and heifers, and consequently got the custom of almost all the best English families in the town and neighbourhood, and a fine business he now has. I think it is Fielding who says, "the French would make the best cooks in the world, if they had but meat," and Dr. Johnson saw no meat in Paris fit for any place but a prison; but if those celebrated writers were to re-appear upon earth, I could show them as good beef and veal in my butcher's shop, in Calais, as they would wish to sit down to. The mutton looks fat and tempting, but is apt to be flavourless, and from the following cause: The sheep, in this part of France, are kept badly when young; but when intended for the butcher their condition is forced by high keep, such as corn and beans, to the highest degree possible, thus creating a mass of newly-acquired, but somewhat insipid, flesh and fat. Their confinement also, at this time, may have something to do with their want of flavour.

A word more respecting French tradesmen. There is an independent manner about them, together with a show of equality in their own estimation, which forcibly strikes an Englishman.

That my baker should smoke his pipe whilst he was writing me an acquittance to a paltry bill of eighty francs, only surprised me a little; but I confess I marvelled at a scene I witnessed two years back in Paris. Whilst on a visit to the Prince of Moskowa, I accompanied him to a silversmith's shop, for the purpose of looking at a cup which he thought might answer for the Chantilly races of that year, to be called the Pembroke cup.* When his carriage stopped at the door, so far from there being either the master or a shopman to usher the Prince into the show-room, there was only a little girl, who called out mamma, here's a gentleman wants you." Mamma appeared, and in, to me, a state of disgusting deshabille; when the first thing the Prince did, was to present her with a check for two or three thousand francs for a former account. He then looked at the cup, which, after a discussion as to its merits and price, he ordered his servant to put into his carriage. And how did mamma conduct herself on this occasion? Why, I once or twice, at furthest, heard the monosyllable "Prince," tacked on to the answer of either oui or non; but during the discussion about the cup, she took a pin from out of her dress, and leaning her elbow against a pillar, very scientifically picked her teeth. No remark fell from my gallant friend on this occasion; but I afterwards had a proof that this sort of apparent disrespectful behaviour is not exactly relished by the French aristocracy.

I accompanied a peer of France, on another occasion, to one of the government offices, he having occasion to see the principal person belonging to it. Instead of driving into the courtyard, he quitted his

So called because the subscription towards the purchase of it was entered into at a dinner given by the Earl of Pembroke, in Paris, to some of the leading members of the French Jockey Club. This cup, won by Lord Henry Seymour's celebrated racer, Giles Scroggins, is a curious antique, so thickly beset with precious stones as to remind me of the consecrated bowl, said to have been exhibited by Emilius in his triumph over Perseus, the Macedonian king.

carriage, and walked into an anteroom, at once asking for the person he was in pursuit of. I was certainly struck with the reception he met with from the clerk we found there, and so must have been the peer, for on his return to the carriage, he told me he had complained of his conduct to the minister, adding emphatically these words: "I have taught that fellow how to treat a peer of France." It is within the range of probability that the pea-jacket the peer had on at the timenot the most aristocratic garb-might have led to the no doubt unintentional slight.

SOCIETY IN FRANCE.

I am little prepared to describe the general state of what is called society in France; neither is there occasion for this being done, after the able manner in which Mr. Henry Bulwer has described it. But why am I incapable on this point, after eight years' residence in the country? Simply for this reason: That having only associated with the uppermost orders, who, as has been justly said of them, "are every where alike," I know nothing of the intermediate classes. For example: I know no more in what way a French country-gentleman of one or two thousand a year lives, than I know of the habits of the Great Mogul, forasmuch as I have neither eaten nor drunk in a French gentleman's house, except at Paris. By what I have heard, however, of the style (lucus à non lucendo) of living of this description of person, I am led to believe it is far inferior in comfort and respectability of appearance, to that adopted in England. I am the more inclined to believe this to be the case, from what I saw on being admitted to walk through the domain of a gentleman of very considerable fortune in the neighbourhood of St. Omer. The house was of large dimensions; the grounds extensive, but by no means neatly kept; but although the family was at home, not a servant, excepting the gardener, who showed me the premises, was to be seen. I looked into the stables, which were excellent, but not a horse was there; I cast my eyes up to the chimneys, and saw no smoke. "Where are the redbreeched footmen?" said I to myself. It was in vain that I sought them either inside the house or out. During my visits to the Prince of Moskowa, however, in Paris, I saw what I should have seen in our own Grosvenor-square-every thing in good keeping, and society of the best stamp. And I may mention another fact; there was much that was à la manière anglaise in his hotel, which was of course very agreeable to me; and many times would he strike the table after dinner to remind his guests that they were to speak English, in compliment to his English friends, exclaiming at the moment, "Speak English. We are all English here." Neither were we deprived of the pleasantest of all hours, perhaps, to an Englishman-the one after dinner was ended-as has hitherto been too much the case in all continental society; another instance of la manière anglaise.

All nations, it is said, laugh at each other, but those that even have the best right to laugh, as saith the proverb. The French people certainly read us a useful and instructive lecture on one subject, and that is, economy in pecuniary matters.

"You English gentlemen," said a very respectable Calais tradesman to me, "do not know how to live. There is my father, who