conditions of madmen. From a queen to an actress, there is no sort of publicity which is not liable to this annoyance, and if every day does not produce its Damiens, or its Hackmans, scarcely a week occurs, in which trouble and vexation do not flow from that source.

But the worst, and by far the most incessant evil with which immortality has to contend, is the album nuisance. An album-holder is an omnivorous animal, and there is no sort of celebrity that is not its prey. Lords, members, poets, playwrights, divines, judges, doctors, millionaires, actors, all's fish that comes to their net. The autograph of Dando would be an acceptable catch, and that of the last-executed murderer, a treasure beyond price. Then it is further required that the nonsense appended to the name should be your own; and if the party has any pretensions (and what album-holder has not) the nonsense must be eulogistical. They are all, moreover, as restless as they are absurd. No moment is sacred from their intrusion,

They stop the chariot, and they board the barge."

The printer's devil may wait for copy, the cabinet may be assembled, a daughter may be getting into the carriage to be married, or a wife being put into the hearse to be buried. The canonical hour may slip by, the undertaker be hurrying off to another customer, but stop you must to try "charms" and "arms," "6 beauty" and "shoetie," "wit" and "hit," "youth" and (un)" truth," or you are set down as a brute and a bore, and calumniated in every coterie in London. Oh! if these people would but demand money, or ask you to go bail for them, or to be their executor, or any other unreasonable request, large enough to be decently refused; but a poor copy of verses, nay a quotation, or even your simple signature (for it comes to that at last), you can't refuse; and yet if you do not, steadily, firmly, brutally-what is to become of you? There is no nuisance in life like the album nuisance! A peck of March dust in a high easterly wind, the bursting of a steam-boiler at sea, or the stopping of your banker (if you happen to be overdrawn) is nothing to it. Who would not rather meet a mad dog, a train of carriages off the rail, or a drunken omnibus in a crowded street, than the modestest album-lady? They are fit subjects for a quarantine law, or an indictment at quarter-sessions.

These trifles, however, must be borne, if immortality is to be gained; and those who don't like them had better retire into the shade. But all these notwithstanding, the proof of the pudding shows that popularity is popular, and immortality as we said from the beginning, worth having. "Aude aliquid," then " brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum." Make speeches at public dinners, turn private actor, break lamps and knockers, or preach fanatical sermons: wear a queer hat, dress like a tiger, set up a quack medicine, or go to sea in a yacht, and be sick for a month; do any thing absurd, extravagant, or wicked, that will make you a name; be any thing or every thing, be any body, no matter whom, provided you are not nobody, and then your fortune's made.

μ

NIMROD IN FRANCE.*

GAMBLING.

ONE might almost imagine that gambling, in France, was one of her elements of education, for not a child of three years old is to be found in the country that has not made its essay, when trying its luck at a fete, for one sous-worth of gingerbread. The evil, however, has greatly diminished in what may be called the lower grade of life, within the space of the last five or six years, no public gambling for money being now allowed at the fates, ducasses, &c., and in the upper walks of society it is confined to the drawing-room, coming under the denomination of private play, perhaps the most dangerous of any. For the active and praiseworthy measures of the French government in suppressing the public gaming-houses in Paris, the cause was at once apparent. The chances in favour of the tables amounted to something very like robbery, producing effects of the most disastrous nature-suicide especially to a large portion of the population of the capital, and to others who visited it for the sole purpose of play. Taken in any light, gaming is an offence of the most alarming nature, but amongst the lower orders of the community it tends, by necessary consequence, to promote idleness and theft, and all their usual consequences. That it is next thing to an act of madness in persons possessed of property to put it to such risk, with such fearful odds against them, as is the case at all public gaming-tables, is admirably illustrated by Tacitus, who expresses his surprise that any one should thus act, when sober. One would indeed imagine that the sudden ruin and desolation of many of our ancient and once opulent families-some members of whom have sacrificed every honourable principle upon the altar of this destructive demonwould have acted more powerfully than we find it has done, in cautioning our aristocracy against the suicidal act. And has it not been said that Tacitus might have been describing an English gentleman devoted to play in this severe rebuke?" Ea est in re prava perviccacia, ipsi fidem vocant."

That steps are at length being taken to put down the London hells the police reports inform us, and may I take such flattering unction to my soul as to believe that my labours on the subject, in a contemporary publication, two years back, may have done something towards the much wished-for destruction of the most barefaced system of robbery that was ever allowed to exist in modern days, at least–and to which the doings of this nature in Paris might have been styled honourable, if not honest?

No character upon earth is more mischievous and detestable than the gamester by profession. We might as well expect honey from the scarabeus, as virtue and honour in his breast; and, like Satan, the proud destroyer of the repose of mortals, he would convert into a hell what before was a paradise. We may compare him with the leech, which, filled to repletion, rolls from his bloody repast to-day, but ready to take fresh hold on the morrow, and draw the last drop.

Concluded from No. ccxxxi., page 372.

MARRIAGE.

There is a good deal of roundabout as well as ostentatious ceremony in French marriages. In the first place, the names of the parties are stuck on the door of the town-hall, for those who run to read, a fortnight previous to the approaching day, as well as the forthcoming event announced in the provincial newspaper. Then when the happy day arrives, instead of going at once to the "hymeneal altar," as we almost profanely express ourselves, the bridal party are obliged to present themselves to the authorities at the Hotel de Ville, proceeding thence to their church. The procession generally consists—in the middle rank of life at least— of from three to five hired carriages, the drivers of them having a bunch of ribbons tied at the end of the crop of their whips, and if the "happy pair" reside in a town, and are of the respectable order, large flags are hoisted over the door of the brides' house, as well as over several of those of her neighbours, and occasionally suspended by ropes across the street as well. A good supper, as well as dinner, generally closes the wedding-day. Then a curious distinction is observed amongst the lower orders. Should one of the party not belong to the same parish with the other, a firing of guns is kept up during the whole evening of the wedding-day, to the no small annoyance of the neighbours, or to those passing on horseback, or in a carriage with horses not accustomed to the report of firearms. Something like a jumble of the church. bells occasionally takes place, but as to "a peal of bells," I have yet to hear that in France. "Those evening bells," with their beautiful melody, are only to be heard in one or two countries under the sun.

There is, in one respect, a striking difference between an English and a French wedding in the lower orders of society. With us the parties endeavour to avoid the public gaze; and here they court it. They will be seen parading the streets and the adjoining public ways, not only on the wedding-day, but on the day following, which perhaps, in strict decency, might as well be avoided. Then again they have a curious custom of issuing forth circulars announcing their nuptials, one of which, having just received it, I shall here translate.

"Monsieur Madame Ducastel, et Delvue, ont l'honneur de vous faire part du marriage de Monsieur Louis Ducastel, leur fils, Docteur en médecine, avec Mademoiselle Sophie Gonard.

"Calais, 16 Janvier, 1840."

I was for some time at a loss, having no knowledge of the young doctor or his bride, for the reason of this compliment being paid to me, but at length I recollected that I had purchased a carriage of a Monsieur Gonard, a coachmaker, who, I have since learnt, is father to the bride. There is much of kindly feeling in this trifling act, and much in character with the French people, who appear to me to abound in that primitive virtue.

The mention of marriages naturally leads me to the consequences of them-children. The French are very fond of, and very kind to, their own children, as also to those of others generally, which is to a great degree proved by the waggon-loads of bon-bons and toys that are sold annually in each department throughout the kingdom. Their parents

likewise bestow much pains on their dress, which, although frequently appearing fantastical in our eyes, is very creditable to them as indicative of parental affection. Neither do they overlook them in their amusements. A Frenchman and his wife, in the middle classes of life, are seldom seen taking their pleasure unaccompanied-if they have any-by their children.

FUNERALS AND MORTALITY.

I alluded to the former of these unpleasing subjects in the preceding paper, but was silent as to the last. I have reason to believe that the proportion of deaths to the population is greatly more in France than in England. I have, ever since I commenced residing in this country, been forcibly struck with the number of funerals, as also, still more so, with the number of craped hats (if I may use the expression) of the country-people. I have taken the trouble often to remark them, on market days, and found them to an almost appalling amount. I account for this in three ways. First, the system of living is of that washy nature, amongst the middle and lower orders, that little resistance can be expected to acute diseases. Secondly, the absurd and dangerous practice of the generality of their medical men waiting for directing symptoms, critical days, and crises, must occasion numerous fatal terminations to diseases which would have yielded at once to prompt and vigorous measures, and more active medicines. It would be ridiculous in me to state as a fact what might be capable of refutation, but it is as true as that I have a pen in my hand at this moment, that, when my gardener was taken ill with a violent cold, three years back, his doctor pronounced that he would have a forty days illness!! Nor was this the worst of it. The poor devil was condemned to a forty days' fast, and had it not been for some physic from my kitchen, body and soul would have sunk together under the regimen prescribed.

It is a well-known fact, and stated by me in one of my contributions to a monthly contemporary two years back, that, whilst the cholera raged in Calais, and its vicinity, not more than six English persons fell a sacrifice to it, whilst upwards of a hundred-and-fifty fatal cases occurred among the French. Amongst the soldiers in France, also, the the mortality is great, evidently the consequence of unsubstantial food; and, as I should say, not enough of it for meu exposed to night air, and that of the worst description, when on guard in the immediate neighbourhood of the fosses which surround the towns.

Then I attribute increased mortality in the rural districts to insufficiency of clothing. Look at even a French farmer-to say nothing of his labourer-on his road to market in the winter. What a cold and comfortless appearance he makes in his loose and thin blue frock, his equally loose and thin linen trousers, and it is more than even betting that he has no stockings under his ankle-boots. Then the labouring population; who ever sees one of them warmly clad, as they are in our country, in their thick woollen jackets, and other articles of dress proportionably weather-tight? Not one French labourer in ten would be found to have stockings on for at least ten months in the year, and I have seen numbers of them stockingless in the depth of winter. Who then can be surprised that death should walk with a hastened step April.-VOL. LVIII. NO. CCXXXII.

2 L

through a land which seems to invite his presence; for, in addition to the above, the houses of the labouring poor, as well as of the majority of the farmers are generally deficient in the protection and comfort required by men who have been exposed to fatigue under the influence of every description of weather. We might apply the words of Horace to this picture of a certain portion of the French community:

"Nova febrium

Terris incubuit cohors;

Semotique prius tarda successitas
Lethi, correpuit gradum."

The proceedings of the lower orders of the French people on a death occurring in their family greatly resembles those of the ancient Romans. The Romans had the custom of sticking up a sign, by which the house was known to contain a corpse; and this was done by fixing branches of the cypress-tree near the entrance. The French merely plait some clean wheaten straw, in the form of a cross, and place it in front of the house. Then again, as was the case with the Romans, the funeral song is sung by persons hired for the purpose, as the corpse is being conveyed to the grave; and as was also the ancient practice, an oration is occasionally spoken over the grave. But, as was the custom with the Romans, there are no noisy lamentations, no tearing of the hair, no exclamations against the gods, amongst this Christian people, whose deportment on the occasion is exactly what it ought to be. If, however, a joke can be allowed on such a subject, a smile could not have been restrained at an accident that occurred a few weeks back at the grave of a popular character who resided in my neighbourhood.

This was a Captain Souville of the navy, and brother to the leading physician of Calais, whom I am acquainted with and greatly respect. The captain-as jolly a fellow over a bottle of wine as the country he belonged to could produce-was known amongst his friends only as "Tom Souville," his naval honour being merged in the more friendly and heartier appellation. Now such is the character over whom an oration would surely be pronounced, and such was the case with the captain. It was written and delivered by a talented person, and no doubt was a just panegyric on the merits of the deceased, as a gallant sailor and a warm friend, and it was also a pretty specimen of demonstrative eloquence. But the vis oratoris was reserved for the concluding sentence. Clasping together his hands, and looking down upon the coffin, the orator passionately exclaimed, Adieu, Tom Sum

ville !!"

66

I have only attended one French funeral, and that was as one of the chief-mourners over the son of my landlord, whose request on the occasion I was unwilling to refuse. It was conducted with considerable pomp, twelve priests assisting at the high mass; and cost, I was informed, at least fifty pounds. The scene in the church was certainly an imposing one; and if outward ceremonies have any avail, the soul of the deceased must now be in bliss. Then another curious ceremony followed. Almost a fortnight afterwards I received a circular letter, informing me that the deceased had received the sacrament previously to his death, and that he had died in the faith of the Catholic church.

There is one circumstance touching the burial of the dead in France, which I think calls for a reform. I allude to the uncoffined soldier who