to meddle with every thing. The scandal of the London press is, perhaps, an inevitable result of its liberty; and if so, the evil must be endured for the sake of the good. The legitimate remedy would lie in an improvement of the public morals, if that were not hopeless. As long as the first personages in the land-its statesmen, magistrates, and clergymen are not ashamed to encourage, and to leave on their tables, to be read by the females of their family, journals remarkable only for their ribaldry, coarseness, and contempt for all the proprieties of life, they have no right to exclaim against the immediate agents, who place such matter in circulation.

Another feature of distinction between the French and English periodical press, is to be found in the circumstance, that almost all the distinguished literary characters of Paris-the members of both the legislative chambersmore or less habitually write for the papers. There is not that affected disdain for the "gen

tlemen of the press," which is here so boastfully announced by lordlings and senators, who imagine, that because they are corrupt, no body has sense or spirit but themselves. This afflux of talent to the French press, produces, from time to time, articles of great interest and curiosity. Political disputations are thus brought nearer to the scene of action. The writer being himself an agent in the transactions he describes, is capable of knowing more of the real springs and levers by which the state machine is worked. The comparative wealth of the English press may keep in its constant service a mass of talent superior to that of the working portion of the French publicists, and more money is perhaps spent in obtaining intelligence; but the British journals are comparatively deficient in that weight which arises from the known and frequent contributions of such men as Benj. de Constant, the Duc de Broglie, and Chateaubriand, &c. &c. &c., who are at the fountain-head of public affairs, and

are personally acquainted with the events they so ably discuss.*

In fine, the actual condition of the French periodical press indicates a people rapidly advancing in political knowledge, and resolutely. determined to secure for themselves the blessings so dearly purchased by thirty years of anarchy and warfare. It manifests a rapid development of instruction, and of national wealth; and it is becoming an organ daily more formidable to abuses, and to the partizans of anti-national schemes of government. Materially, and perhaps intellectually, the English press is undergoing a similar development more rapidly even than that of France. But as yet the number and success of journals which in

*This difference possibly depends in part upon the relative quantities of business in the French and English chambers. No one who attends to his duty in the House of Commons, could, in the present day, find leisure for frequent articles, such as were formerly contributed to the "Morning Chronicle" by the political leaders of the Whigs.

England are devoted to the cause of the several aristocratic and oligarchical categories, and are written to pervert and deceive the people, is incomparably greater; and the expression of the truth and the whole truth is not so clear, and exempt from trimming, yieldings, and politic suppressions, as in the pages of the more popular of the French publicists.*

There are subjects on which the boldest journalists in England dare not speak their whole thoughts.

230

CURIOSITY SHOPS.

NAPOLEON IN 1829.

PARIS, says a witty French writer, abounds in those shops, which "sell every thing that is useless." I know nothing more amusing than to go through a course of these repositories. It is reading history in tangible forms. Every antiquated article is a page in the story of other days. The mirror of Marie de Medicis, or the cabinet of Madame de Pompadour, gives a sketch of the progress of the arts, which comes home to the apprehension more strikingly than a volume of Vitruvius. I find every thing that I want in these delightful magazins, except the money to buy their whole

contents.