Some of Murillo's works, which are placed among the Italians, pleased me exceedingly. In a picture of Mary and Elizabeth, with their Children, the head of Elizabeth is painted with a truth and vigour that quite startle you. When it first catches your eye it seems alive. This piece, however, is blemished by what is always most revolting to me-a figuring of the Almighty. He is represented as an old man, with white hair and beard. It is not that I consider this blasphemous, for it is not meant irreverently; but it is something worse than absurd to represent the Eternal in the decrepitude of age. But indeed the absurdity is to attempt to clothe the Divine essence in the attributes of mortality. I was surprised to recognise in two pictures of Francesco Albani the subject of the tapestries in the state-room at W. How well I remember the pleasure I used to have in gazing on them when I was a child, and the high idea I had of their very indifferent execution! There is nothing very striking in these pictures, but I am not sure that I was not longer before them than any others in the gallery. In the catalogue, the account of the works of each painter is headed with a short notice of his life. I was not a little diverted to find the following laconic summing up of the merits of Salvator:-"La peinture ne fut point son unique occupation. Il cultiva les musesfit des satyres, et grava à l'eau forte !" It would take days to go through the Louvre as it deserves, and I was there to-day but for a few hours. It is, however, a feast to which I purpose returning often, and I doubt not that it will always be with increased delight. I went yesterday to the fête de St. Cloud." Saw ever mortal the like o' this ?"-I am sure no Englishman ever did in his own country, nor any where else, I have no doubt-except at St. Cloud. The park of St. Cloud is handsome; that is, as far as I could distinguish it in its yesterday's dress; for it was literally clothed with people. There was, in addition to every possible Parisian, a great number of contadini, dressed each in their own country dress; which added in no slight degree to the variety and picturesque effect of the scene. Near London, at Greenwich or at Epsom, you would see, or at least distinguish, nothing but Cockneys-the out-pourings of the idleness and vice of the metropolis; or, at most, you might meet one or two country fellows, come up probably to make their debût in a second fight in a London ring, or to try their fortune for the gold-laced hat at single stick. But at St. Cloud, amid élégantes of all descriptions, real, would-be, and aspiring, you distinguish the country dame and her daughter by their neatly plaited white cap, their chintz gown, and their long antique-looking chain and cross round the neck. Here and there, too, you see the high Normandy cap, peering like a steeple over the houses, above the heads of the rest-which, peculiar as it is, and strongly contrasted with the present Parisian head-dress, I have seen many women wearing, and quietly sitting at the play, or walking through the streets with them, without being annoyed by any of that sneer and gibe which would follow any very striking singularity of dress in London. At St. Cloud there seemed to be more real gaietymore enjoyment than I ever saw at a place of a similar kind. The people there seemed to be come more really to amuse themselves and less to prey upon each other, than is the case at a fair in England. There were fewer tables of petty play, and more shews, swings, and round abouts; and above all, there was a grace, a delicacy, an absence of all grossness, in the franche, even folle gaieté, which existed at St. Cloud, such as I never saw, or should see, on our side of the water. Some of the roundabouts were of a very curious nature; they had four arms, at the extremity of each of which was a small ship-so small indeed, that a day or two before H. and I had been debating whether a similar machine which we had seen in the Champs Elysées could be meant to hold people. To our no small astonishment, therefore, we saw six or seven persons get into each of these cockleshells, which were then set off at a violent rate, roundabout and up and down at the same time, so that the motion exactly resembled that of a boat in a very roughsea. I did not see any body sea-sick, but how they avoided being so, I could not possibly discover; for I am sure the stomach of a boatswain of a line-ofbattle ship could not have stood motion like that at sea. The shews and plays were numberless, and there were some, though not many, of those petty gaming tables. "où les pontes en gagnant à tout coup, vident leur bourse dans un quart-d'heure." Every here and there was written up "Bal de Monsieur un tel ;" and within a circled space you would see twenty quadrilles figuring. It is astonishing how well these people dance: A French barber once exclaimed " Monsieur fut né coiffé !" I really believe that the French are born making a pirouette or cutting an entrechat. These dances were chiefly composed of the middle class of people, who have a gracefulness and elegance quite unknown among those of similar station in England. The grisettes of Paris appear to me to be a race of which we have no counterpart in London. Our shopkeepers and milliners have none of the tournure so characteristic of these people. They were on their own ground in the cotillons at the fête de St. Cloud; and their neat and piquant dress-their lively looks-their graceful dancing, were as different as can well be from the glumpy and awkward appearance of people of the same rank in London. We dined" chez le fameux Griel."—" Dix ou douze salles et autant de petits cabinets sur la terrasse au côté de la rivière etaient occupés par une foule de gens qui se disputaient les tables, les chaises et les plats." Such is L'Hermite's description of it, and it is very just; but why he should call him le fameux Griel, I could not so well discover: for with great difficulty and immoderate delay we got an execrable dinner, for which we paid rather more than we should have done for one of the first order at Véry's. The cascades and jets-d'eau at St. Cloud are excellent of their kind; but I don't like these things. I perfectly think "qu'ils ne servent qu' á faire remarquer l'intervalle désespérant que laisseront toujours entre eux les prodiges de l'art, et les plus simples ouvrages de la nature." As evening closed in, the throng became greater, and the gaiety, perhaps, more loud; but not one instance did I see of drunkenness or impropriety of any sort. It is the fashion among us to vaunt our superior morality; but if the two nations were to be judged by their behaviour in public, we should have good cause to be ashamed of the contrast. I have heard it alleged that the very absence of all immoral ebullition shews the existence of greater depravity. I hold this position to be utterly false; at all events, I cannot help considering the demeanour of a joyous and most promiscuous assemblage to be a pretty fair token of what their propensities in this way are. It must necessarily be unpremeditated, and there is no time when the heart is more unguarded and exposed than in the fullness and abandon of social intercourse. We got to our carriage without much difficulty. The French coachmen are much worse whips than ours-but they have less need of skill, for at all public places the carriages are marshalled with great regularity. As we drove away, the lights, the hum, and the indistinct gliding motion on the other side the river gave token of what was going on on its banks; and, as we passed through the little town we met many groups still eagerly pressing to this scene of festival. We returned by the Bois de Boulogne, and, as we went, I hummed the burden of the old ballad "La plus belle promenade Est de Paris à St. Cloud- A St. Cloud!" I last night saw Andromaque-Talma played Oreste, which is accounted one of his first parts. A French tragedy on the stage is precisely what I anticipated it would be. Not even Racine can overcome the trammels in which "the rules" bind him-and which cast an air of coldness and rigidity even over a piece composed of his beautiful verses. But fine verses do not constitute a fine play; we want action, of which there is none, and nature, of which there is very little. A strict attention to the unities no where shews its cramping effect more than in the catastrophe of this play. Instead of Orestes witnessing the death of Hermione, which a change of scene would in an instant effect on the English stage; a third person comes in, and coldly recites a certain number of Alexandrines to communicate to Orestes the |