LETTERS ON ENGLAND.

BY M. DE ST. FOIX.

LETTER VI.

London, Thursday Oct. 2, 1817.

We left Brighton on the 30th; slept that night at a town called Dorking, and arrived in London yesterday afternoon. This is not the shortest road; but we chose it because we were told the country through which it lies is the more beautiful of the two. We were indeed delighted with it the whole way. It is in one respect different from what we had been led to expect by the flatness of the view from the Devil's Dyke, being a succession of hill and dale throughout; but for the rest, it in every thing resembles that.

In travelling here, you need never be reminded of towns and cities, till you come to them. The roads are mostly inclosed by thick hedgerows on either side, with lofty trees growing out of them at intervals; and they wind about so, that you can scarcely ever see along them for two hundred yards; but from the elevations and openings in the trees, you catch, every now and then, beautiful views, which are perpetually varying in extent and character, but which never become strikingly grand. Every thing, indeed, is on a smaller scale than what I have been accustomed to see. I feel as if I had got upon the surface of a smaller globe than that on which France is situated. Even the houses are in keeping with this feeling. The country seats of the nobility and gentry are, in point of size, like baby-houses, compared with those of France. Indeed I can in no way bring to my own mind so striking a feeling of the contrast in this respect, as by fancying a French chateau placed on any one spot in the road between Brighton and London.

As far as I have seen, the characteristic of English scenery is exactly this-that the unity of feeling connected with what is called the country is never broken. The hand of man may be detected every where, but it nowhere obtrudes itself, for the work is done in the very spirit of Nature. There are no endless avenues of trees, no boundless fields of corn, no straight, wide, paved roads, no woods planted in lines and sections, with the branches of the trees stripped off to the top. These have certainly a grand and imposing effect, but, like most other grand and imposing things, they talk of what one does not desire to hear. Such an avenue of trees must be the approach to some grand house; such an immense tract of corn must belong to some wealthy proprietor; such a broad road must lead to some great city; such a wood must have been planted for some use. Now grand houses, and wealthy proprietors, and large cities, and utility, are the most unrural things in the world—they are precisely what one goes into the country to forget.

I have constantly had feelings allied to these. when I have been travelling in France; but they were never very definite ones. I knew there was something I disliked in the scenery, but I could not tell exactly what. I now at once perceive the cause of this; and if I had learned nothing else, that alone would have been worth coming for.

You know I am not one of those querulous persons who want every thing just as it cannot be had; though I used to lament that, where

Cultivation was necessary, the hand of the cultivator must necessarily be so visible; but I now find here that it need be visible only in strict keeping with the scene of it.

Unity of effect is the great source of beauty in all nature and in all art. To speak of French and English scenery as matters of taste, and leaving particular associations out of the question, the difference between them seems to be, that, in the French, this unity of effect is perpetually broken by the evident desire to blend, in the mind of the spectator, admiration of art with that of nature; in the English it is perpetually preserved, by keeping art out of sight. An Englishman seems content to love Nature for herself. A Frenchman can love Nature too; but his admiration of her increases in proportion as she calls up feelings connected with himself: just as he loves his wife or his mistress best when she happens to have on a dress that he chose for her.

Would it be too fanciful, to trace the character of national scenery to that of the people to whom it belongs? The crying fault of the French character is egotism, arising from open self-satisfaction; that of the English is gloom, arising from secret self-discontent. A Frenchman cannot have too much of himself; an Englishman cannot have too little. A Frenchman constantly feels himself to be a part of his country, and his country to be a part of himself; so that he never cares to quit it. An Englishman feels that he has a country only from the particular ties that bind him to it; so that when they are broken, the world becomes his country, and he wanders from one part of it to another, without end or aim. It cannot be denied that both these are very faulty extremes in character; but I think, of the two, the English one is likely to produce, upon the whole, the least pernicious effects: indeed it may lead to good ones; but the other cannot. That which makes us content with the thing we are, and with all that is about us, binds us to earthly and tangible reality with a chain that is the more strong from its being invisible, and from our having no desire to break it. It keeps the mind in perpetual subjection; checks the growth of all its faculties except the very worst, and in the end inevitably destroys the very best. But that which induces us to fly from ourselves, though it often leads to more fatal consequences than the other, may have a contrary effect. The human mind cannot exist without love and admiration: they are its daily food, food that is scattered about for it every where. It is true, that when the mental appetite becomes vitiated and it cannot relish what it finds strewed about its feet, it may starve: but on the other hand it may be driven to seek its food at a distance. Hatred of itself and of humanity may force it to seek refuge in other worlds: in the world of books-the world of thought-the world of nature. And let it but once gain a true insight of these, and all its finer faculties must expand. Its fancy and imagination, which are always progressive and yet always young, will then travel through all the regions of possible or impossible existence; and if they return without finding a dwelling-place, they will yet bring back with them stores from which they may, for ever after, create worlds of their own. The affections, too, will then recognize their kîndred with humanity; they will learn the true objects on which they were made to rest; and will find, that, if they can for a while expatiate

in external nature as in their country, they can, after all, have no home but in the human heart. The mind's vitiated appetite will then be corrected; its taste for the simple and the true will revive; and all will be right again.

I have been led a long way from where I intended to have gone. I merely meant to ask whether the different characters of which I have spoken, in the scenery of the two countries, may not be traced to these different traits in those of the people? Whether the Frenchman, being always contented with himself, and wherever he may wander, desiring every where to find hints that may bring him back to himself, may not therefore have endeavoured to put upon every thing external an impress of himself? And whether the Englishman, being never really contented with himself, and always desiring to take refuge in something else, finding external nature the best strong-hold to which he can retreat from himself, may not, therefore, have endeavoured to leave or to keep it as he found it?

After all, however, the approach to the metropolis, and the view of it just before entering, if not the most pleasing, is by far the most remarkable part of the journey. For more than two leagues before entering London, the road is lined on each side, almost without intermission, with houses; all of which, for cleanness and finish, may be described by what I told you of those at Brighton. But the view of the metropolis itself, at about half a leagué distance, or rather the spot which it occupies, is the most singular sight I ever beheld. I really at the first view of it, felt quite a shock at the idea of living in such a place. All that can be seen of the city itself is the immense dome of its cathedral: the rest, apparently for leagues on every side, is one dead, immovable mass of thick dun-yellow smoke, not hanging over, but rising out of it, and more and more dense as it approaches the earth; so that the thickest part must be that which the inhabitants breathe.

. However, on coming a little closer, it did not seem quite so bad-so we ventured into it; and here we are, very well accommodated at the hotel C's friend recommended to us. C- wrote to tell him of our arrival, and he came to us directly. I thought there was, at first, a little hardness and reserve of manner about him, but this soon wore off, and I think I shall be pleased with him. We intend stopping here a few days, and shall then, perhaps, accept the invitation he has given us to pass some time at his house.

In two or three days I will tell you something of this very strange place; more than commonly strange to me, perhaps, from my having had so little to do with great cities of late.

LETTER VII.

London, Saturday, Oct. 4th, 1817. We do not intend going to any of the sights of London till we have M— with us; so I have been wandering about for the last two days without any distinct object. In one word, I hate London already! The filth of the streets, and the eternal din of the carts and coaches in them, is execrable; the general aspect of the people you meet there hard, heavy, coarse, vulgar, awkward, the antithesis of every thing spirituel is execrable; their ungraceful and tasteless costume is exe

crable; the endless succession of plain brown dirty-looking bricks piled up for houses, with plain square holes for windows and doors, are execrable; to me, who lothe commerce in its beginning and its end, its objects and its effects, the shops, superb as some of them are, are execrable; and above all, the atmosphere (for London has one of its own) is execrable.

Let me again warn you that these are only first impressions, not deliberate opinions; not what I think, but what I feel. I can at once perceive, however, that London contains all the horrors of Paris, without any of its general character of external grandeur. It remains for me to learn whether any thing like the particular splendours of Paris are to be found here:-its magnificent public monuments,-its admirable museums of art and nature,-its truly royal library,-its palaces and temples,-its lyceums and academies,-its theatres and gardens and fountains,—and the rest of those virtues of that first of cities, which half contrive, even among the wise and good, to keep its vices in

countenance.

Monday, October 6. I continue this from the house of M. You may be sure I satisfied myself of the sincerity of his wish that we should make his house our home while we remain in London, before I consented to accept the invitation.

There is something peculiar about this young Englishman. Over his countenance there is a hue of deep, settled thoughtfulness, which is very remarkable in so young a man; and something about his manner, which at the same time represses confidence and encourages it: a reserve which forbids a quick intimacy, or sudden interchange of thoughts and feelings, and yet a sincerity of expression which cannot be mistaken, which at once satisfies you that he must mean what he says: a sincerity that will not even permit itself those allowable exaggerations upon which all conventional politeness is founded. I am certain, for example, that flothing would induce him to offer his hand, or subscribe himself" sincerely yours," to a man he despised. He has a tinge of the melancholy which is said to be so prevalent among the English; but instead of settling, as it usually does, into a coarse and careless indifference, it seems in him to have assumed a directly opposite feature. It seems to have elevated his character instead of depressing it, to have strengthened his mind instead of weakening it, to have softened his heart instead of indurating it. This melancholy may be detected in every thing-in his countenance, his voice, his manner of speaking, and thinking, and feeling-but it never becomes obtrusive in any thing. Perhaps, indeed, it may require something of a kindred feeling to detect it at all; for Cscarcely observed it, though he had opportunities, when M was in France last year, of seeing a good deal of him. But C- saw enough then to make him sure that M and I should like each other very much; and I think we shall. I can perceive that M-- dislikes talking, except on a few particular subjects; but on them he speaks with that fine and somewhat exaggerating earnestness, which always springs from real and intense feeling, and can spring from nothing else. The favourite of these subjects seem to be poetry, the fine arts, and elegant literature in general. In the two last of these we seem to agree in almost every thing; but

with respect to poetry, I do not think we exactly understand each other yet.

To-morrow we go to see the fragments of ancient architectural seulpture that were brought from Greece some years ago. They are chiefly from the Parthenon; so that you will readily guess I have chosen to see them before any thing else.

LETTER VIII.

London, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1821.

I HAVE Seen the sculptures from the Parthenon; and though I intended that my account of every thing connected with the arts in this country should be reserved till I had qualified myself to form a judgment as to their general condition, yet I cannot resist the impulse of writing you a few words about these glorious works, now that the feelings they have excited in me are at their height. I shall be able to give you a more detailed account of them hereafter, when I come to speak of the National Museum of which they form so distinguished a part. You may thank your stars, as I do mine, that I am not a critic-that I cannot talk about these things technically. If I could, I should never have done. But then I should only talk about, not admire them; as it is, I can only admire, not talk about them.

It is not possible for me to convey to you what I think, or rather what I feel about them, because I have nothing but words to send you; and they, unaccompanied by expression of voice and look, are comparatively powerless. In a word, these exquisite fragments, for they are mere fragments, are worthy to stand beside the Venus itself. Like that statue, they are pure imitations of select nature; and so far perhaps they rank above the Apollo, as it respects the artists who formed them. I mean that more intense study, a profounder knowledge of art, and a deeper feeling for beauty as it exists in Nature, were probably required to produce these works than the Apollo. But I think that, without reference to the skill that produced them, and viewed only as things calculated to induce certain permanent effects on the mind and heart of the spectator, that sublime statue ranks above them. One, capable of appreciating them justly, may pass a day among these sculptures from the Parthenon, and leave them with no other feelings than those of present and immediate delight and admiration : but he cannot stand for an hour before the Apollo, without becoming wiser, better, and happier, for the rest of his life; I do not mean that the Apollo has more of what is called ideal beauty; but that it has something superior to beauty at all: something loftier, more imaginative, more unearthly.

This term "ideal beauty" is perpetually in the mouths of the critics here and every where else; and yet they are all puzzled themselves, and they puzzle every body else, in determining what it means. Well they may for in fact it means nothing at all. It is a contradiction in terms. It is intended to mark a distinction, which they fancy is to be discovered, between the beauty of art, and the beauty of nature. there is no such distinction. There can be none. Every thing that is beautiful in art is to be found somewhere in nature, in at least an equal, I think a superior degree. I am persuaded, for example, that

But