to one of the Latin-derived tongues is as great as from English. It will hardly be disputed that, of all the German writings, Goethe's Faust is among the most difficult of transfer. Poor Gerard de Nerval brought the first part of the poem into French, when he was eighteen years old. Of the remarkable excellence of this translation, Goethe wrote in terms of high approval. It will hardly be discussed whether Goethe knew his French as well as the general reader or most Quarterly Reviews. It will hardly be suspected that he would have written or said as much in praise of any one of the half-dozen or more English translations of his immortal drama. Do the best of them-Hayward's conscientious, drudging prose, or Anster's ingenious, varied verse-give you more of Faust than Laroche does of Hamlet, or Wailley of Tom o' Shanter? I trow not, O, general reader.

But I cannot keep my eyes off that Horatian poster. It is disfigured; worn and torn by a whole winter's exposure to wind and weather, and to the hooks and fingers of rapacious chiffoniers. It is

encroached upon on all sides, by Gallic advertisements of dry goods, furniture sales, concerts, and patent perfumery. I make it out rather by the help of the first clean copy, long ago transferred to my memory's retina, than from what of its original fair proportions now remains visible to the bodily eye. To me it is still impressive in its ruins, like some mutilated antique statue amid the grossnesses and prettinesses of a modern gallery. On the classical side, however, I have nothing more to say. It has one feature of another kind, not brought into my last view, which is worth looking at, if I am right in fancying that it indicates a marked trait of French character.

Of all the sins of commission, by which poor human nature is beset, we are more persistently tempted by none than by the sins of presumption. They are the devil's favorites; of this kind was Lucifer's own. And of all sins of presumption, I know of none into which we more readily, unconsciously fall-I had better said, slip-than that of confounding our views of things with the nature and essence of things themselves; but of this class of sins of presumption, there is none which wears such an air of innocence, and which, by consequence, is more difficult of avoidance,

as the confounding of one's little loophole view of the sayings or doings of one or more foreigners with the manners and customs of their whole nation. Against falling into this cunningest, most temptingly baited of Satan's sins, I constantly pray. When he goes about like a roaring lion, he is not nearly so dangerous. I have known divers wrestlers with him in this form, in the arena of controversy-veritable theological Van Amburghs; and at the very moment of victory, when the applause of the ring was loudest, and they were bowing their thanks, plump went both feet into one of his presumption traps.

So I never step out on the balcony, or wheel round my chair to face the window, that I do not ejaculate, "Get thee behind me!" But with all this painstaking, as I have not the vanity to forget that I belong to that order of beings of whom the courteously timid curé, preaching before Louis XIV., said, "the most are mortal," and remembering that the adversary is the devil himself, I never wheel my chair back to my table, to sketch down a pen and ink view, that I am not afraid, not only of being unwittingly caught myself at the very moment of writing, but of drawing my readers (if I have any) into the snare after me. This is a great matter.

It is not a jest, or it ought not to be, to think or speak falsely of our neighbor. You know how a misapprehension of what you catch at a glance, in passing by Jenkins's window, if put into words, may harm Jenkins for life. You thought he was kissing the maid, not discovering in that cursory glance that the osculated person was Mrs. J. in the morning gingham.

Now let Jenkins, instead of being a neighbor over the way, in our native village, be the individual of a nation, and you a shrewd observer from abroad, taking notes; you print and multiply your injustice by twenty-four, sixteen, thirty-six, sixty, or any other number of millions, accordingly. Your book or letter treats of the manners and customs of the Americans, the English, French, Germans, vel ceteri.

I remember once guiding a fellow passenger from the steamboat that had brought us to Havre up to Wheeler's Hotel. On the way an unsavory little accident befell his foot, whereat he directly broke out into comparison between the cleanliness of Americans and

the Europeans, most inodorous to the latter. He did not except a soul of them from the sweeping comparison, although what might be called the fundamental base on which the comparison rested, was laid down by one individual of the 264,209,000 souls that populate Europe. When my friend had relieved himself of his tirade, and was grown calmer, I, being in a philosophical mood, for no ill had befallen myself, sought to draw some sweet use from the adversity. If we were superstitious, my dear Green, said I, (it was a newly traveling brother of Green's, who was here last year,) might we not consider this as a warning, that as one European, by an improper act, has given a bad odor, in your senses, to all Europeans, so should we take nice heed to our ways among strangers, least a chance bad word or act, let slip from us, be taken by them as a sample from which they are to judge all Americans?

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For our own judgment, let it remind us of the complaint of the wise man: Hardly do we guess aright at the things upon the earth, and with labor do we find the things that are before us." I owed the quotation to Sterne, whom I brought with me on my last voyage, not to original biblical reading, and increased my indebtedness by this other loan, that seemed pat enough to the emergency. "I think it wrong, merely because a man's hat has been blown off his head by chance, the first night he comes to Avignon, that he should, therefore, say, Avignon is more subject to high winds than any other town in France."

To get back to the neighborhood of my starting-point, I beg to say, once for all, that, while I cannot help giving my views in definite lines, I should be sorry to have any one suppose that I insisted on their absolute correctness in detail or in spirit. It is quite possible they are not daguerreotypes; it is quite certain they have not the merit of artistic pictures; it is quite important to bear in mind, if you can once get it into your mind, that the daguerreotype or painting of an entire nation, by any foreign artist or artisan, is a work of such difficulty, that it has never yet been truthfully done. If, as we have rather boisterously affirmed, it has not been done by Trollope, or Hall or Dickens, or d'Alembert, and the rest, why imagine that it is done for the English

or French, by A. B. C., or D. E. F., or any other American or Englishman. Not but what each of them has here and there drawn a truthful line. And with this for a general caveat to stand at the head of all views that have been, or may hereafter may be published, I return to the Horatian poster.

You can still decipher, at the bottom of it, these ciphers, 12, 20, 30 francs. These are the prices, varying according to the elegance of the copies of Didot's Elzevirian edition of Horace-a little gem, not only of typography, but of photography-to say nothing of the scholarship. When you consider that the French are an eminently economical and, in many matters, an eminently calculating folk, this price of 30 francs, demanded and paid for a little 32mo. volume, the literary contents of which may be had in other and becoming forms for a few francs, seems to me a striking sign of their appreciation of art of material beauty, of form and color. And that appreciation is one of the most marked general characteristics of this people. No doubt that among the purchasers of this volume, in its most expensive form, are men who deliberate long before dining at a forty

sous restaurant.

A dinner at a forty-sous restaurant has, by the way, its attractive qualities, quite apart from those contained in the body of the work-the mere victual and drink consumed. For, when a Parisian dines at forty sous, he being not more sensual in degree, but being sensual-or, let us say, sensuary, as a delicate word-in more kinds than an Anglo-Saxon, he wants a feast spread for his eyes, for his sense of beauty, as well as for his palate.

We may count ten of his forty sous laid out for mirrors and gilding, etc., for appearances, in fine. These yield to his completer nature just as real, solid pleasure, and are as just as well worth his ten sous as the most practical, hardest boiled eggs are worth the ten cents of an American, whose uncultured eyes are but inspectors of provisions, watchful waiters on the mouth, not its boon companions.

Going into a two-franc restaurant one evening, with my friend Green, receiving a graceful bow from the tastefullydraped dame du comptoir, noting the brilliant lights, the snowy napkins, the pretty style of ornamentation on walls

and ceilings, the forks so finely silvered, the names of the dishes, so grandly compounded-if one could feed with one's eyes, said Green, the meal would be a banquet. The French do. And I hold that what is taken in by that organ, is not the worst part of their repast.

Look at that party-a family party, it would seem-at the next table but one, the father and mother, the children and uncle, and a cousin. What an event they are making of it. It has been arranged through the week-a reward to the pretty children and a treat to the elders-this Sunday repast. A cheerful celebration of the holiday, as accept able, let us trust, as the grave observance of our less social habit. They are not here barely to gobble and go. True, they observe and make the most of all the forms of a fine dinner, permitted by the carte-the potage, and the three courses, and the dessert-not one of them lacking a fine name, with an à la something in it. And here is victual for a third sense, the ear-a pabulum, by the way, that we Americans have a relish for otherwheres than at meals witness Judge Jenkins, editor of the Alabama Herald of Freedom, or Colonel Jenkins, of Boston, compounder of anti.. phlogistic pills, vender of cholagogue; witness our national declaration of independence, and our practice of freedom, North or South. They count upon filling an hour or two with the gratification of various senses and sentiments. They are come for the brightness, and gayety, and movement, of a hall, larger, handsomer than their salle-à-manger. The women are come to admire or criticise the robes and hats of the women; the men to admire their faces (quite like our churches); they are come to draw their dividend of sympathetic happiness from the happiness of othersto the common stock of which they are in turn willing contributors.

By the time we were through with our dinner, of which, between the mouthfuls, Green spoke in justly disparaging comparison with the fare of the great New York hotels, where he had been a `constant diner for several years, all the small tables were taken up, either by family or friendly parties, or by guests who came singly, and fraternized presently after sitting down. There was something grateful, even to a non-contributor, in the spectacle of so much ap

parent happiness. There was a deal of laughing and talking, so that the hum of it never ceased. But there was no laughing and talking so loud as to prevent a waiter's ear from catching the "s'st," or the call of "garçon," uttered by any one present.

Yes, it is all entertaining enough, if you will, answered Green, as we walked off to a café, but there is a sad side to it, too. It is another proof that these French have no idea of home-none of our domestic family enjoyment.

There has been so much nonsense said and written, and, which is worse, believed, about the French want in that regard, by people who were never in a French private house in their lives, that it is not worth the while for us to add to it by discussing the point. But let me say, that in the only four families where I am sufficiently intimate to speak with knowledge, I find much the same household virtues and joys as rest in my best memories of American homes. And let me further say, that many foreign travelers, French and others, think they observe a peculiar disregard for family ties among us Americans. They observe that a boy of sixteen, a girl of fifteen, seems quite independent of the parents; that two generations rarely live under the same family roof; that Connecticut children leave their parents and go to Ohio; that Ohio children leave theirs and go to Wisconsin; that the number of applications for divorce, and the facility with which divorces are granted, are phenomena unknown in Europe.

But that the French are somewhat more gregarious than we, I will not deny. At least, it is a side of their natures turned out to the observation of strangers like ourselves. And this café, which is one of the popular order, is a favorable stand for our observations. It is called the Café Parisien. The average consumption of coffee here, on a Sunday, is, the proprietor tells me, 3,400 cups (demi tasses); of brandy and other liquors, 5,000 glasses (petits verres); of beer, from 500 to 1,000 mugs (cannettes); withal, there are, as you may count, twelve billiard tables in the salle.

Now observe, that if that player should hit you in the eyes with the butt of his cue, instead of turning round and damning you for making him miss his stroke, he will turn round and apologize,

with a courtesy and sincerity of manner that will take away half your pain and all your anger. Nor would he do so less readily or less handsomely, if you wore his blouse, and he, by chance, wore your broadcloth. Joggle the elbow, or step on the toe of the man at the next table, and the chances are that he will beg your pardon before you do his. Observe that, although we have been gazing at him for the last minute and a half, almost impertinently, I fear, he does not feel it necessary to say a rude word to us, or even to scowl at us. This is not from any want of spirit on his part. I happen to know, though he does not know me, that he has served his seven years, and shown the courage of a French soldier in more than one fight with the Kabyles.

Observe, in general, that, during the hour we have been here, you have not seen a quarrel nor heard a word that threatened a quarrel, among the three or four hundred persons present; even the tipsy man yonder cannot provoke

one.

Our experience this evening is not extraordinary. It may pass well enough for an example of the general rule. To that rule a wider experience will, indeed, furnish exceptions. Not all Frenchmen are polite; nor are all polite Frenchmen always polite. There are cases, whole classes of cases, where, I believe, we are their superiors in that true politeness which has been defined, "kindness kindly expressed." But I venture the "general observation" that,

if the French make less account than we of home pleasures, they understand better than we, or rather feel better than we-for I apprehend that it is in this case the instinct rather than the science of living wherein they excel us

how to live and let live, when assembled in large companies. By virtue of this social science, or social instinct, this little group of friends or family relations can at once enjoy, undisturbed, an intimate, house-like causerie, as you or I may make an agreeable passing acquaintance with some chance table neighbor, entering lonely like ourselves, and yet take share in the humanizing influence of the common enjoy

ment.

Mark again, in this cheap café, how much is done for the eye, and how well it is done. The architect has accommodated his plans to the awkward shape of the ground so ingeniously, and gilders, and carvers, and painters, have so come to his aid, that I am not sure but the general aspect of the room is finer than that of Taylor's splayndid rectangular saloon in Broadway. The very iconographic commercial advertisements, that decorate rather than disfigure the lower part of the side walls, have some touches of art in them. And so, while these Parisians, artists, or artisans, are sipping their coffee, they are receiving, constantly, through their eyes, an unconscious culture of that taste for which they are distinguished throughout the world.

THIS