here concentrates everything that riches, art, or industry can procure, not for show, but to relax his mind, or gratify his senses. Certainly the impression produced on a stranger, who enters an English dwelling for the first time, must be favourable and agreeable. As an Englishman dislikes ornament and gaudiness in his dress, he always studies simplicity in the fitting up of his house, though everything is in the highest degree recherché. The neverfailing carpet on the floor, of the finest wool, is interwoven with plain but tasteful patterns; the furniture, of polished mahogany, is of an elegant form; and the cushions, well dusted, are fine, though not of a showy colour: the grate and fire-irons are as bright as a looking-glass and without a single spot; the paintings or engravings, suspended to the walls, please the eye without being so numerous as to fatigue it. In everything solidity is combined with fashion: clocks, plate, the metal ornaments of the furniture, are at once massive and fashionable; the latter without the former would be nothing more than frippery: neither agreeable nor genteel. Disorder is, in the opinion of the English, highly uncomfortable; everything has its fixed, its appointed place; order in the proper arrangement of different forms creates an elegant ensemble, and when this symmetry is spoiled, it is as bad as overcharged or tasteless ornaments. Cleanliness is the highest comfort of all classes, and from the nobility down to the farmer or artisan the most extreme care is taken to secure it. Prince Puckler found, on an estate, a henhouse so nicely fitted up, that there are many poor people in Ireland, or on the Continent, who would be very glad to have such a dwelling. One may justly envy the English their comforts, for they appear thereby to acquire a right to ridicule the way of living and arrangements among foreigners. Thus we remember to have seen a caricature with the subscription, "German comforts." It represented a German lying at his ease on a feather-bed, smoking out of a long pipe, and reading a dirtily printed newspaper-the Correspondent of Hamburg; and who, for greater convenience, had placed a utensil near his bed, which would frighten a healthy Englishman, if he perceived it in his bed-room. The dislike which the English entertain for the lower classes of Irish is partly caused by the fact, that they disdain to practise their principal comfort, cleanliness. As a matter of course, the comforts of a dwelling-house vary according to rank and the degree of riches. The opulent man adorns the walls of his apartment with works of art, which in general are as well chosen as dearly paid for, and effectually refute an assertion formerly current, that the English were without taste or talent for the fine arts; the fallacy of which, without speaking of Hogarth, has been sufficiently proved by Reynolds, Lawrence, Wilkie, Chantrey. In the letters of a defunct, the author of which, owing to his love of parks and villas, visited the handsomest country seats of the English nobility, we only read a description of the pictures, which are there unfortunately concealed from the view of the majority of amateurs ; but we are, however, convinced, that it was neither a love of show nor bad taste, but, on the contrary, discernment and knowledge, that presided at the choice of these collections. The poorer classes content themselves with engravings: with copies of the works of Wilkie, Hogarth, or of the portraits of Lawrence, &c. If these be wanting, the coppers and kitchen utensils, well scoured, and polished as bright as a looking-glass, are placed on shelves, where they agreeably relieve the eye by the contrast they form with the white walls. Nowhere in Europe is country-life, for all the classes that apply themselves to agriculture, more agreeable than in England. Near that high degree of household comfort, which modern industry has rendered accessible even to the poor, is always to be found the art of embellishing nature, and of profiting by those charming situations which the undulating soil of the happy and fruitful island, traversed by ranges of gentle hills, so frequently offers to heighten rural enjoyment. Thus England became the cradle of an art, which, it is true, has been imitated on the Continent, but never carried to the same extent and perfection it has there attained. The English park is the handsomest garden ever laid out; for, instead of attempting to imitate nature en étin, they aim at embellishing it, and profiting by the beauties which already exist. In the pleasure-ground of a rich Englishman, this intention is scarcely perceptible, though every point de vue is taken advantage of, to produce an agreeable impression. Attempts to imitate nature by small grottoes, hills and waterfalls, Grecian temples and ruins, appear to John Bull grimace: he would find this as ridiculous as a Cockney who, in Sunday clothes, should attempt to play the gentleman with the subservient air of the counter. Even the little landed proprietor or the farmer will not entirely exclude this rural comfort from his dwelling. If he has not room enough to lay out a little pleasure-ground, or to plant a grove, he has at least before his door the green plot, the pretty well-mowed bowling-green, the grass of which is so fresh and luxuriant that one seldom sees any like it on the Continent. The traveller will remember with pleasure to have seen many of these well-kept plots, which as he drove rapidly along the high road were pleasing to his eye. The The attachment of the English for these rural comforts is nearly as old as the nation. The feudal lord, in the time of the Plantagenets, was the more anxious to find pleasure in his castle, because his pride made him prefer to live there, rather than at court. enclosed park, though it then served principally to preserve game and deer, bore some resemblance, by its shady winding paths and numerous fish-ponds, to the modern pleasure-ground. We need only mention the park of Woodstock, or fair Rosamond's bower, as the lays of the middle ages and popular songs describe it. Conveniency in the dwelling-house appears then, as far as it was possible, to have been attained. At least, one must draw that conclusion from the description Prince Puckler gives of Warwick Castle, which is still well preserved in feudal magnificence. The halls and fine furniture of the middle ages there described are far superior to anything of the kind that has been preserved in Germany or France, and the reader is forcibly reminded of the individual facts cited by the historian Hallam to prove the comforts enjoyed in those times in England. It is true that it was different with respect to the North Britons, or Scots. Æneas Sylvius wrote in the fifteenth century, "the merchants at Nurnberg are better lodged than a king of Scotland;" but in the middle ages the Scotch were quite different VOL. III. N from the English, and strongly separated by manners and hostility. -Now if an Englishman has all these comforts combined in his dwelling, he enjoys the highest degree of pleasure, when he sits round the fire, with his family; and, even should he not speak a word, it affords him entertainment enough to see the fire. A fireside is to him the ideal of pleasure; when he pronounces that word, he immediately thinks of his family, and the train of ideas puts him in a good humour. The English are indeed, par excellence, as they say themselves, the marrying nation; they, therefore, find as little fault with the marriage-hunting of their ladies as they do with the careless marriages of their idle poor, and even Pitt was often obliged to submit to the reproaches of the opposition for his bachelor's life: the English are, besides, by the melancholy tincture in their temperament, as much inclined to sentimentality as to spleen. Truly, their family life is an honourable and amiable trait in the national character. Even the coldest Englishman will become cheerful and confiding at the fireside; pride will give way to a well-founded self-respect, heightened by hospitality; unfeigned kindness is shown to every one who is received into the circle round the fire, instead of the reserve which custom, fashion, and national character prescribe in social intercourse. In short, English humour, wit, and sense are seen in their proper light by the blaze of the coal fire, and one may take it for granted, that strangers who have travelled in England and afterwards reviled the nation, never had an opportunity of sitting round a fire with an English family. For the rest, this attachment to domestic life offers a stronger guarantee for morality than the high Anglican church, which is, in some respects, as rotten as the once glorious rotten boroughs. No wonder that the said fireside is often a favourite theme with which novel-writers connect the descriptions of persons and situations, that have gained so much praise for English literature, though they may be accused sometimes of being too long. Certainly there is no reader who does not experience a pleasurable feeling, on reading Goldsmith's description of his good vicar enthroned near the fireside with his family around him and his little ones on his knee. It would be advisable for foreign novel-writers who place the scene of action in England, not to forget that fireside, when they wish to display their humour, if they be fortunate enough to possess any. The feeling of the most complete security from the aggressions of policemen or fellow-citizens, as well as a free unconfined will in his house, which is granted to the English by the common law, do not contribute a little to this pleasure; it is indeed not considered as one of the comforts, but their undisturbed enjoyment is thereby assured, and that self-respect which is connected with them is augmented or preserved. Should he be tormented by creditors, he has the agreeable prospect of entering the Fleet, or some other prison, and thus against his will acquiring the rights of the corporation. In the mean time, he may, near his fireside, forget his cares and quietly enjoy his comforts, for no bailiff will dare to enter his dwelling without being let in. If he did so, he might with full right treat him as a housebreaker, and, if he pleased, shoot the unwelcome guest, like a gallant adventurer. John Bull is not a little proud of the privilege, "My house is my castle;" and it gives him pleasure to boast of it on every favourable occasion, and practically to demonstrate it before all the world. When Sir Francis Burdett was to be sent to the Tower by order of the House of Commons, and the officer of parliament, to whom admission could not be refused, had not yet appeared, there arose a popular tumult before the house, on which occasion Castlereagh thought it necessary to order some troops out. Sir Francis Burdett, on his side, did himself the pleasure of placing pieces of cannon at the windows and pointing them at the troops, and Castlereagh, on being informed of this, quietly said, "They could not prevent Sir Francis Burdett from doing it." Unfortunately, the suspicion with which an Englishman views everybody who enters his house, deprives the foreign traveller of much enjoyment; for John Bull does not willingly let anybody cross his threshold who is unknown to him, or who has not been recommended to him, or, in fine, who has not business to transact with him. Thus, the treasures of art which English wealth has collected from all parts of Europe, are shut up from the stranger, who is the more tantalized by the letters of Prince Puckler Muskau, whose station gave him access to them. But even the defunct was once in danger of being treated as a thief, having, to gratify his curiosity, without the knowledge of Lord R, smuggled himself into his park by bribing the gate-keeper. Another time he was even obliged, to satisfy his passion for parks, to climb over the wall like a gallant poacher. Though in this way the scale of comforts is so tolerably filled that John could bear his cloudy days and even the defeat of his party, there still remains a comfort, the want of which even in the happiest circumstances would render him very uncomfortable, and destroy all his good-humour; namely, a newspaper with his breakfast. He would rather do without toast with his tea than be deprived of his gigantic morning paper; for a breakfast without a journal is for him an election without an election dinner, or an Irishman without a bull. John Bull does not, it is true, place such implicit faith in that oracle, the press, as Jay's Parisian badaud, who kept his bed because he read in the newspapers that he had broken his leg; but, however, he reads them with such conscientiousness, that he does not overlook a letter. He not only wishes to see his political opinion reproduced in them every morning, but he reads with so much the more pleasure the "Chronique Scandaleuse" of the town, the less he troubles himself about scandal in society; the more careful and suspicious he is concerning his property, the more he is amused by accounts of robberies, housebreaking, and swindling; though he never risks his money in bets, or gives his wife cause to fear that he should break a leg at a fox-hunt, he never misses reading the interesting sporting intelligence, comprising accounts of hunts, races, cockfights, &c. Neither does he omit the verses and the fatal accidents, of which regular accounts are sent from the most distant parts of the kingdom, and in which the English take so much interest, that they become as tiresome to the stranger as the importance they attach to the success of a favourite racer on the turf. Although John Bull may have, besides, a particular whim for some individual comforts, he will feel himself pretty well off with those we have described. There are, indeed, some secondary things wanting, for instance, a dressing-case for travelling: how ever, this belongs rather to the dandy, and the real John Bull can as well do without it as the army could dispense with those store-waggons, laden with hair-brushes, which the soldiers of Soult once captured, but which were probably only intended for a few regiments of dandies and exclusives, such as the Guards, &c. Now, should he feel himself tolerably well off with all those comforts, though he may long for one or two more, he will assume the air of a philosopher, and think, with Goldsmith, "Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long." A DREAM. THE balm of sleep fell o'er me, and I dreamt- A fair and lovely land, round which the sea Æolian, charmed the listening scene-'twas sweet Around, the trees waved with their beauteous fruits,- With ecstasy I wandered How sweet, thought I, to dwell in such a place, And, oh! if there were one to dwell with me,— Scarce the wish Was uttered, when forth she came to meet me, Another Eve, in all her maiden beauty. Oh! she looked lovely, as her fine blue eye Met mine, and down her alabaster neck Her golden hair in wavy ringlets hung. "And art thou here, my love, and wilt thou stay? And be beloved! Here in this place we'll dwell ;- |