Hortense Mancini, and Madame de Maintenon, long detain the attention, even from the wonders of the "glass closet," where a silver perfume-box, by Benvenuto Cellini, wedding-gloves of the patriot Hampden's bride, and the trunked ones of King James, with Von Trump's tobacco-box, and "a silver-gilt apostle spoon," belonging to Lord knows who, offer a curious and heterogeneous variety, and mark the successful and arduous researches of the collector after all that was rare and old. The Beauclerc closet, dedicated to the elegant works of the accomplished lady Diana Beauclerc, the round bed-room, and the great cloister, follow in sight-seeing succession, and each has its separate interest and character. In the second are some fine portraits, and many very pleasing ones: among the latter may be reckoned the portraits of Lady Suffolk, the mistress titré of George the Second, Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Clive, the tragic and comic muses of their time ;there is also a fine head of Oliver Cromwell's mother. But the Round Bed-room is to Strawberry, what Naples is to the rest of Italy, the ne plus ultra of curiosity: attention is exhausted, eyes are dazzled, and expectation satiated by the time it is reached; and it is with a pleasure unspeakable, that one passes through the great cloister, into the refreshing grounds and gardens, without even stopping to examine those gatepiers, which are taken from the tomb of William de Luda in the Cathedral of Ely. The Shell Scat, at the end of the pretty winding shaded walk, which is within view of the Gothic chapel, offers a bel reposo after the fatigue which pleasure ever imposes. This shell seat is a very curious carving in oak, designed by the celebrated Bentley. The shell is a chamu. Here the three Graces of the Paphos of Strawberry† were wont to repose, to the delight of their flattered and elegant host, who saw even his friends with the eye of an artist. There is but little in the grounds of Strawberry to detain the steps of the visitor, except its beautiful little Chapel in the garden: an edifice of as true Gothic taste and design, as its being copied, à la rigueur, from particular parts of the Cathedral of Salisbury and the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury, can make

*

ing and she only looks tipsy." The tradition of this picture is, that Ninon herself gave it to Lady Sandwich, daughter of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: her grandson, (Miss Rae's Lord Sandwich,) gave it to Horace Walpole.

I really forget in what order of seeing we visited a handsome modernly-furnished saloon, in which the most interesting object is a fine, full-length, and very beautiful portrait of the present noble lady of the castle, the Countess of Waldegrave. I think our cicerone told us it was by Sir William Beechey. Both as a portrait and a painting, it may stand the test with any of the Lely and Kneller beauties in the adjoining rooms.

+"Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos-it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury, dined there, and the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell. A thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were, than they will be then. I shall say, Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings! Yesterday, t'other more famous Gunning, Lady Coventry, dined there!"-Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Vol. ii.

it. The interior has all the character of the cells or oratories appertaining to churches or monasteries in Catholic countries :-its altarpiece and altar-pictures are curious from their antiquity; the beautiful windows of painted glass are emblazoned with saints and arms and the effigies of kings and queens, a superb shrine faces the door of entrance. In the front stands a superb crucifix, inlaid with mother-of-pearl: on either side, a King of France, and the Virgin Mary, in bronze and faïence, stand upon consoles. The story of the marvellous "trasferimento" of this "holy house" is thus told on a tablet over the door. "The shrine in front was brought, in the year 1768, from the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, when the new pavement was laid there. This shrine was erected in the year 1256, over the bodies of the holy martyrs, Simplicius, Faustina, and Beatrix, by John James Capoccio and Vinia his wife; and was the work of Peter Cavalini, who made the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey."

Such is Strawberry, the cabinet, the toy, the retreat of the gifted son of a great minister, whose talents, intellect, and observation, well fitted him to run the career of his ambitious father: and who, had he been an ambitious or an interested man, had eminent opportunities of indulging either passion to their fullest extent. "I am unambitious, I am disinterested, but I am vain," observes Mr. Walpole, in a letter to Lord Chatham. Into this frankly acknowledged foible, Strawberry Hill, and its precious collection, entered largely; but the vanity of possessing and showing-off this monument of his taste, and knowledge, and industry, and the objects of art they had gathered round him, did not blind Mr. Walpole to the incongruities of the whole, nor to the objections which the pedantry of archi-virtu and the cant of criticism would eventually level at the hochet of one, who had shown so little mercy to the unfounded pretensions and presumptuous mediocrity of that numerically powerful body, in all communities, whose claims to distinction are unsupported by those endowments which should alone command it :

"In a house, affecting not only obsolete architecture, but pretending to an observance of the costume even in the furniture, the mixture of modern portraits and French porcelaine, and Greek and Roman sculpture, may seem heterogeneous. In truth I did not mean to make my home so gothic as to exclude convenience and modern luxury. But I do not mean to defend, by argument, a small capricious house. It was built to please my own taste, and realize my own visions. Could I describe the gay but tranquil scene where it stands, and add the beauty of the landscape to the romantic cast of the mansion, it would raise more pleasing sensations than a dry list of curiosities can excite: at least the prospect would recal the good humour of those who might be disposed to condemn the fantastic fabric, and to think it a very proper habitation of as it was the scene that inspired—the author of 'The Castle of Otranto!" "

FOUR YEARS IN FRANCE.*

THIS is altogether one of the most curious books which the present publishing season has brought forth. It is, as its name imports, an account of a four year's residence in "La belle France," and is written by an Englishman of observant mind, and very peculiar opinions.

The book is prefaced by a singular and interesting tract, descriptive of the author's conversion from the communion of the Church of England to that of the Church of Rome. This circumstance, being one of unfrequent occurrence, becomes particularly deserving of notice in the present instance, as the party in question had been a Protestant clergyman. He gives us a narrative, at some length, of the feelings which preceded and led to this unusual consummation, and labours, with great zeal, to make it appear a matter of reason rather than sentiment. Of this, however, we must be permitted to doubt; and our doubts arise from the consideration of his own story. It appears that his ancestors, on his mother's side, and that not remotely, had been Catholics; and of his mother herself, he says,

"Some rags of popery hung about her: she was very devout, and made long prayers: she had not her breviary, indeed, but the psalms and chapters of the day served equally well:"

Again, speaking of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford,

"Here we all turned towards the altar during the recital of the creed; at Lincoln, this point of etiquette was rather disputed among the congregation; my mother always insisted on my complying with it. I learned to have a great respect for the altar."

In another place, he observes,

"It will be seen, from the account given of my infancy, that I had been from the first familiarised with popery; that I had been brought up without any horror of it."

Now, from these and other passages of the author's apologetic tract, we are certainly led to infer that his imagination had been strongly acted upon at a very early period, by the ceremonials of Catholicism, and by the curious mixture of it, which was left unexpunged at the time the Protestant reformers of England made up the ritual of the Established Church.

"From my earliest years," says he, "my mother took me regularly every Sunday to the cathedral service, in which there is some degree of pomp and solemnity. The table at the east end of the church, is covered with a cloth of red velvet on it are placed two large candlesticks, the candles in which are lighted at evensong from Martinmas to Candlemas, and the choir is illumined by a sufficient number of wax tapers. The litanies are not said by the minister in his desk, but chanted in the middle of the choir, from what I have since learned to call a prie-Dieu. The prebendary in residence, walks from his seat, preceded by beadles, and followed by a vicar or minor canon, and chanting the Sanctus. This being finished, and the prebendary arrived at the altar, he reads the first part of the Communion Service, including the Ten Commandments, with the humble responses of the Choir; he then in

* Four Years in France; or Narrative of an English Family's Residence there during that period; preceded by some account of the Conversion of the Author to the Catholic Faith. 8vo. 148.

tones the Nicene Creed, during the music of which he returns to his seat, with the same state as before. Here are disjectæ membra ecclesiæ: no wonder that the puritans of Charles the First's time called for a 'godly thorough reformation.""

We have quoted these sentences, to show what was the avowed bias of the author's thoughts and mind in his youth: how the first natural feelings of Protestant aversion to the Romish ritual being overcome, a predisposition to it succeeded-and hence conclusions were jumped at, which we think the attentive reader of the book will agree with us in saying, are unwarranted by any sturdy exercise of the reasoning faculty. The amiable and liberal-minded author, who does not appear to have adopted any of the bigotry of the sect with which he has identified himself, evidently acted throughout in the spirit of candour and principle; of which, indeed, he gave the most unquestionable evidence, in forfeiting all those prospects laid open to him on his entrance into the Protestant ministry: but so far as strength of argument is concerned, we, although unpractised in theological disquisition, should scarcely hesitate to enter the lists with him. It cannot be denied, however, that his narrative is deeply interesting; more particularly where he speaks of his emotions before his confirmation, at high mass on the feast of the Ascension; and his subsequent interview with Dr. Douglass, the then Catholic Bishop of London, when our author presented himself to that ecclesiastic, renounced his Protestantism, and solicited to be received into the bosom of the Catholic church.

But, to pass on to the main body of the volume. The first thing that strikes our observation is the very lively manner in which the author describes whatever falls under his notice, which, by-the-bye, comprises al! that class of subjects likely to prove important to an English settler in France. His style is exceedingly antithetical: instances of which are continually occurring; and he does not even throw aside this disposition when speaking in a foreign language. Arriving at Sens, he finds in the cathedral a very fine piece of sculpture, the tomb of the dauphin, son of Louis the Fifteenth. Upon being informed that, during the revolutionary fury, it was only by force the populace were restrained from destroying this royal monument, he exclaims, "Le bon peuple de Sens n'est pas apparemment un peuple de bon sens!" In fact, throughout the work, there runs the same good-humoured, cheerful spirit, evidencing the hopeful, self-satisfied condition of the author's mind, and throwing over his remarks an amenity and grace by which they are rendered doubly acceptable.

There is abundant information conveyed in these pages, calculated for the use of travellers in the rival kingdom, as well as of settlers therein, particularly of the South of France, where, indeed, the author resided between three and four years. It is not a flashy volume, made up of sentiment and prejudice-of undigested opinions and superficial knowledge. The writer is obviously a thoughtful, family man, who has made a point of understanding what he discusses, and (as he might himself say) of discussing whatever point it was desirable to understand. In speaking of the methods of travelling in the provincial parts of France, he says:

"This mode of travelling by the voiturier is now generally adopted by travellers of the first respectability; and, where the whole voiture is engaged,

differs in no respect from travelling in a private carriage, except that the right of property in the horses and carriage is but temporary, and the coachman does not wear a livery. I am acquainted with persons, who would not choose to be considered otherwise than as persons of distinction, who have travelled in this way. I have seen attestations of the good conduct of the coachman, or voiturier, signed with names, some of which were known to me, and sealed with armorial bearings, according to the English use abroad. I dwell on this point, because voituriers are unknown in England, and the mode of travelling is in low repute abroad; where, from the way in which it is practised, it is impossible it should be creditable.

"In France and Italy there are but few stage-coaches, and no good ones but between the towns on the Channel and Paris. The post-houses furnish no carriages, but horses only. In every great town there are persons, whose trade is to keep carriages ready for those who want to take journeys, but have no carriages of their own. Two or three places being engaged, the voiturier, now afloat, makes up his cargo as he can: rather than have any vacant space in his carriage, he will sell it at a low rate to such as can afford to pay but low prices: he then makes up in dead lumber what is wanting in weight of live stock; and the good people, thus assembled, thus encumbered, proceed as they can, under the auspices of the conductor, who presides at their meals. All this accounts very well for some English making a difficulty in avowing their having travelled by the voiturier, and for the French aubergistes and others, confounding, at first, all inmates of carriages of the same denomination. I do not suppose that any respectable English family has travelled in the manner above described. I do not know that any single persons have done so. It is evident that a voiture engaged for the sole use and service of him who hires it, is quite another thing."

The author describes himself to have suffered, in a pecuniary way, in many instances, from having deferred the examination of accounts until he was just about to leave a place, and from having omitted to scrutinize, at the time, the charges of whatever things were furnished to him. Our countrymen seem to be considered lawful game as soon as they set foot on Continental ground. Towards this, many feelings, no doubt, combine, among our worthy neighbours, the French. Old national jealousy; deep-rooted hatred, arising from the prominent part we took in the late war; the vulgar belief of our superior wealth-and we suspect a native love of over-reaching ;-all these causes conduce to mark us out as the victims of Gallican chicanery, and, if we must continue the game of expatriation, should, at least, set us circumspectly on our guard. Our author's hint touching the frequent rascality of voituriers, might advantageously be enlarged, so as to include the dealings of travelling English with foreigners generally-" See every thing, write down every thing, and, above all, have time at command."

The account given us of the writer's laudable endeavours to introduce, or rather to insinuate, during his residence at Avignon, coal fires and English cookery, is very amusing.

"The French, who have seen the atmosphere of smoke in which London is enveloped, and the sea-coal pouring its volumes of smoke up the chimney, have disseminated throughout France a certain horror of coal fires. There are, near Lyons, mines of coal, of a quality superior to any I have yet seen, like the Wednesbury, but better. I had some difficulty in making the blacksmith comprehend what ought to be the form of such machines as grate, poker, fender-Things by their names I call;' though, to my blacksmith, I was obliged to use every sort of paraphrasis. My poker was made with a hook at the end of it, the fender had a handle to it; the bars of the