sure and surprise; so imposing is it in height of roof and length length of nave, so graceful the graduated elevation of its fine sanctuary and quire, so pleasing the effect of those cataracts of coloured light that pour in on all sides from a thousand windows! The monuments are few, but on a grand scale, and placed with effect where they stand, especially that to the memory of Francis the First, the base of which is occupied by a magnificent bas-relief. The new organ, which is to be without rival in France, was, at our visit, not as yet installed, but active preparations were making for its inauguration, and it may be, and probably is, already pealing along the aisles. My friend the Abbé first conducted me to a door on one side of the quire; a secret spring obeys his touch, and we pass onward through a cold cheerless Sacristy, the only furniture of which was an ample store of huge fluted candles, and a high-mounted extinguisher standing in one corner. But here we stay not a narrow door opposite to that by which we enter, lets us into a well-boarded, well-warmed, well-proportioned room, where a handsome stove, some easy chairs, and several good modern paintings, put your mind at rest on the subject of monastic austerity as comprehended at St Denys. A room was this where ladies might have sat over their work-boxes, or a gay evening party have assembled, quoad light, heat, and cheerfulness, without any mistake: but we must not tarry in it, for we have the vaults to visit, to do which we retrace our steps into the body of the church, looking up, as we are instructed, at the glass éffigies of the French kings on the painted windows; we cross the high altar over the tombs of some of the later Louises, and descend by a dozen steps, through an iron grating, into the cold atmosphere of the royal vaults beneath. Directly at the end of a long arched corridor, and illuminated by a window which lets in a scanty light from above, you soon discern, on a high pedestal, the statue of Charlemagne. Here and there, on either hand, early sovereigns of France and their royal consorts, stone crowns on their heads and stone sceptres in their hands, lie extended in grim repose. The corridor, which appeared to terminate at Charlemagne's statue, is found, on approaching it, to divaricate

into other passages, leading to little lowroofed crypts or chapels, where, placed upon many astone soros, lie quilted warrior and brocadeddame. Of course, you ask for Clovis, the first Christian king who ever imposed conditions on Providence, who, fighting against the Germans in 455, and being hard pressed, " fit un vœu à Dieu, que s'il lui donnait la victoire sans autre delay, il se rangerait à l'eglise Chrétienne, et se ferait baptiser."-" Prince très illustre," adds his historian, "si sa grande cupidité de regner seul, ne lui eut fait oublier et l'equité et l'humanité, envers ses parens et ses sujets les plus fidèles!" Childebert is another name you are sure to recollect ; he came into being about sixty years afterwards. He it was who built that church in front of the Louvre, which no Protestant forgets, " St Germain l'Auxerrois." Here hesleeps in his stone trough, with his wife Ultrogoth beside him. It is she whom Surius calls, Nutrix orphanorum, consolatrix pupillorum, sustentatrix pauperum et Dei servorum, atque adjutrix fidelium monachorum." In the eighth year of the reign of Childebert, a great inundation of the Seine and the Marne happened, and boats suffered shipwreck between St Denys and Paris. "Sequana Matronaque tantam inundationem circa Parisios intulerunt, ut inter civitatem et basilicam St Laurentii, naufragia sæpe contingerent." Chilperic comes next in order: he was by no means a deserving person, and his wife Fredigonda, who lies "en marquetterie" at his feet, was a very Clytemnestra in her life. He is represented here with his hand to his chin, not, says Gregory of Tours (who is by no means flattering in his account of him), to signify how he died (his throat was cut), but merely because he had a habit of stroking his beard. Gerard gives you all that need be said or sung of either consort in three lines

supinus, "pro peccatis patris sui, Caroli Martelli." Next comes Charles le Chauve, who, with Cæsar's laurel, could never get Cæsar's knack of writing Latin; witness the following edict, where, in honour of St Denys, he ordains, " nullum teloneum, vel barganaticum, nec rotaticum, nec pontati. cum, nec cæspitaticum, nec pulveraticum, nec salutaticum, nec mutaticum, nec ad nostrum opus nec ad vestrum, nec ad juniores nostros ullo exigere aut exactare præsumatis!" The Reine Blanche sleeps here in black marble, and Philip Augustus, who, in 1190, enclosed Paris with a rampart. He built the Halles, "Halas, Magnas Domus in quibus, tempore pluviali,

omnes mercatores merces suas mundissime venderent, et in nocte, ab in

cursu latronum tute custodirent." The pretty baby king, little Louis X., who died at eight months, is a lovelylooking infant, and gives relief to the quaint tombs near him, where imbricated warriors lie in quilted mail, while coloured figures in wood, with short petticoats, and of true Dutch build, stand over them. Hideous blue angels support golden heads of departed sovereigns, on red cushions, while the yellow or green slippers of the royal form rest upon the flank of some frightful abortion of natural history, a mis-shapen dog, a lamb with a golden fleece, or a round-headed lion with a man's face and a rat's tail. On the whole, a day at St Denys is far from being unproductive of enter. tainment or instruction,

Mr's drawing-room is an elegant drawing-room-we speak of the men and women we meet there, not of his tables and chairs. It is one of those which one frequents with feelings of unqualified approval, and never too often. His dinners are without pretension, good, and remarkably well served. In their social composition he knows both who is who, and what is what; and to partake of that repast chez lui, which is at once the criterion of an host's abilities and a specimen of his society, is, in the Maison ****, an assured enjoyment of several hours, for which you feel grateful and flattered. One already foresees a beautiful avenir, where the soup is not an unmeaning expletive, but challenges attention by its excellence, and is promptly distributed by many hands. The first moments of suspense are past you have reconnoitred your position-you have taken your roll out of its spotless napkin, and unfurled it on your knee-you are going to make that first sotto voce and decided movement towards acquaintance with your voisine, which, inspirited by the soup and half a glass of fine sherry, gets on afterwards of its own accord. In this agreeable salle à manger the dishes always come at the right moment - the damask arena is always occupied -the servants watch the guests' movements, and know that while they are interesting each other in sparkling sallies of wit,

or graceful attentions of common-place, that any thing put down to be eaten, abruptly before them, would only be an impertinence, and stop mouths more agreeably employed. The adroit service seizes the happy moment, when an agreement as to a cantatrice's merits, or an actor's originality is arrived at, and the conversation for an instant languishes; this is the time, surely, for the entremet, the sole en matelotte Normande, the pleasing mixture of the Macedoine de legumes, or that abyss of good things, the truffled vol-au vent, which lies smoking before you. The wine, being necessarily good, is not, as in England, descanted on; no dish is criticised; the elegant refinements of easy circumstances, and the good taste of the invited, spare you the possibility of a shock, and are apparent throughout; no awkward butler breaks mismanaged corks; an invisible functionary executes that duty without reproach. The footmen are silent in their service, unless, when bringing round some bottle of more recherché quality, they whisper the patronymic. They note your slightest movement of want, existing or satisfied, and never trouble you to repeat a demand. No lowering spouse looks thunder-clouds at some awkward exhibition of the homeliness of the family resources; no conscious husband strives to cover his wife's discomposure by becoming prematurely and unnecessarily gay; no flippant impertinences pass muster; no indiscriminate praise or censure of men, books, or things, no loud assertion of egotistical opinion, or egregious self-esteem will here meet with sympathy or support. Scandals past, present, or to come, form no part of the conversation: vulgar retaliation upon French prejudices are abstained from; provincialisms or solecisms offend not. The conversation is, perhaps, never deep, but it is seldom dull; it may affect, perhaps, the last fashion of phrases yet unvulgarized by use, but still its essence is the maintenance of that happy medium between sustained argumentation (which monopolizes attention and induces dyspepsia) and that raw violence of manner which, in addressing you, forces unqualified dissent, or compels to silence and reserve. As dinner proceeds, it flows with more and more facility and fewer interruptions; each has fair play; the whole is a piece of concerted music, a diapason of harmony, and a Solo would scarcely be commenced ere it was quietly put down. It is not conceded to any large dealer in anecdote, at Mr-'s parties, to inflict his tiresome memory on reluctant audiences. Even the célébrités do not engross attention. The profound thinker, from whose prolific wisdom society abroad may have drawn her largest supplies, here imitates those mighty rivers, which impart only the overflowings of their full urns, and as they pass along, discover not in the serenity of their surface the depth of their resources. All waters are equally deep to the eye, and like them, the mind's depths must be fathomed to be known. To perfect the whole, a condiment to the intellectual banquet is supplied in the freemasonry of a liberal education, and all rise with improved conversational powers to join the ladies and contribute to their amusement. A few musical friends drop in, and the rest of the evening is passed in listening to what is perfect in its kind, and new in its quality. May many such dinners be in store for us (inasmuch as toutes les grandes pensées viennent de l'estomac), and may many such soirées follow them!

But, alas! all parties are not ejusdem farine! Take a specimen of another!

When a man is matrimoniously in

clined, let him keep his own counsel; and if he have already been indiscreet enough to speak out to a lady confidante, let him hold, suspect her offer of introducing him to the "charming young friend" with whom she may have been at school. A man disposed to matrimony, as an expedient state, will go through any thing to arrive at it! On one of those fatal occasions, when introductions to all that is enchanting are generously promised and gratefully accepted, did we find our way up three pair of stairs of corkscrew architecture, and land upon two or three square feet of neutral territory, between two exactly similar doors exposed to equal assault in the exploratory uncertainty of the guest. Here did we take our last draught of respirable air for that night! we hit upon the right bell, and were again admonished on the threshold, that we must be very sentimental if we would prosper in our undertaking; the door of the exterior oven presently opened, and in we went. There were three rooms, at least there were three times four walls defining the limits of three compartments of contracted space, the whole of which would have made a respectable aviary, but would have been scarcely a zoological allowance for monkeys. These boxes, of course, opened and steamed into each other, wafting reciprocal gales of musk and music to the equal annoyance of the victims who were being black-holed with surprising resignation!

The innermost room had been rendered entirely insupportable by a stiff fire, which it maintained till it came to a natural death for want of air, on which desirable event the guests, who had been equally ready to expire, began to show tokens of revival. This furnace, or engine-room, was moreover papered of a fiery-red, with butterflies and passion-flower devices for border; an equally glaring carpet, covered every inch of the twelve by fourteen feet of surface on which it was extended; and a voluminous rugalmost smoked in front of the fire-place. The rest of the furniture was all dwarfish, to correspond to the room, except a huge piano-an immense old broken-kneed Vauxhall-song affair-which quite occupied one side of the small parallelogram, compelling the guests who were to applaud its achievements to the other, and, played on or silent, was the

lion of the evening. Such large instruments, we found, were always objects of respect; some opined " it must have cost a deal of money:" some stated that it was particularly adapted to sacred music-and we wished it in St Peter's accordingly. Some celebrated finger had pronounced upon its tones before it had been purchased; loud to be sure it was, but then it was so easy to open the window (bien entendu when the wind was not easterly) and disperse a portion of its vibrations. The chimney-piece was ornamented with flowers, cut out by some of the family, and paper pinks and muslin roses, on silk-twisted wire-stalks, and under glass bells, flanked a clock in alabaster. But what could our Louisa be thinking of, to hang up those horrible daubs, by her fair hand, in oils? one was accordingly compelled, on this confession, to say "very pretty," to a certainly original sketch of Love sleeping on a green bank-green, indeed, but not exactly the right sort of green; and as for the Cupid thus served up on chopped spinnach, he looked as if he were not likely ever to wake again. That Warrior's head, we have surely seen before in some foreign collection-and now that we recollect, it was from the top of a coach on Snowhill, where such a Saracenic head has glared on us since we were five years old. We believe he gets rouged every three or four years, but Louisa's warrior will not require it.

A calmer sea than that, never showed smooth surface of a deeper blue; nor did the same element ever exhibit more froth below, or blacker sky above, than the pendant, on another piece of canvass covered by the same indefatigable young lady, at whose bidding quicksilver rivulets run out of lead-coloured lakes, snowcapt mountains are provided with green hills for footstools, inextricable forests of black trees, are bisected by a gash or wound over which a bridge is thrown to intimate that some geological feature is designed, or a most peculiar sky is studded with birds, stuck immovably between heaven and earth and so much for paysage, the fine arts, and Louisa.

Did our sufferings, pulmonary, cutaneous, or moral, terminate here? Oh, that Canaan of ass's milk, a lady's album! with its lunatic addresses to

the moon, its moral exhortations to Lord Byron, its mawkish valedictions of young friends going to Cambridge, its lines written at sea, (and signed M. E. which must mean maris expers) or stanzas from abroad, which only show the writer not to have been at home in any thing but his Spellingbook!-or to crown all, its charades, its epigrams, its profane micrographical curiosities the stone tables of the law, or the prayer of the Redeemer within the circlet of a ten sous piece.

The Album penalty exacted to the letter, and our civility and patience having outdone themselves, we thankfully look up, and are prepared to resign the interesting volume into the hands of the fair proprietor, when two tall gentlemen, who had been obtaining but a bird's eye view, are already competitors! Two long right arms are suddenly extended towards the relinquished prize: two long right arms are as suddenly retracted, with galvanised politeness on perceiving each other's intentions. These were the active of the party, but many a silent guest was sitting there in mute submission to the inscrutable decrees of fate, and leaden-eyed expectation of eleven o'clock, which was still far distant! Tea came, and a third cup per man had been proffered and refused. The ill-made card-table had opened its sybilline leaves, and displayed to eager eyes its wax-bespattered thread-bare baize: premonitory of long whist, five sous points, captious trick-takers, women partners, and thin French cards. The young people, we hear, are expected to dance! Dance? what! in that cupboard, where a score of mice would interfere with each other's tails? Dance? to that horrible Megatherion, the grand piano? No, by St Vitus! No, by our innate self.. esteem, and our instinct of self preservation. Leap, like Curtius, into that gulf of un-to-be-rewarded immolation, we neither can nor will! besides, could two indifferent arms do all the dancing duty of this preposterous evening? The limbs of Briareus and Antæus, moved by the gallantry of a modern colonel of militia would be left at fault, and we must look for the lucky moment when the necessity of our departure can be confidentially whispered, together with our immense regret.