solicited to bear her powerful testimony in its favour; but Mrs. Saunderson told her Majesty plainly she dare not wash her Majesty's linen with any other but Castile soap; and to the shame of numerous ladies of the court, who actually certified with their own hands-we mean of course their own handwriting to its excellence, while they thus professedly patronized the new, they were discovered to use none but the old. The dispute grew into importance; the King and the Court must support their patent,-they had been paid for it. The Lord Mayor was sent for, and rebuked by the King and the Lords for his partial proceedings in favour of the old soap, to the disparagement of the new; and a poor old woman, who had not been able to control her tongue, was brought before them from Southwark, for abusing the new soap-" she was well chidden and dismissed.' The Lord Mayor had really hard measure, for the good man had done all he could -he and the court of Aldermen had actually joined the Lieutenant of the Tower and several Knights, and held at Guildhall two grand washing-days, where any one might come and wash before the assembled chiefs, and prove, by actual experiment, the superior qualities of the soap. But the women made common cause, and clamoured so fiercely and vociferously, that his Lordship, and the court of Aldermen, and the Lieutenant of the Tower, and the Knights, seem all to have been panic-struck, and apparently took to their heels, without looking behind them. For this pusillanimous retreat his Lordship, in particular, received a shrewd reprimand.' My Lord Privy-seal, (who by the way was the Lord Mayor's brother-in-law,) was 'to give it him at the board, and did it very sharply.' The result was finally, the gentlemen soap-boilers were obliged to abandon their patent, and the old company to repurchase, and have the duties doubled. LIFE. THERE are who think this scene of life A frightful gladiatorial strife, A struggle for existence, Where class contends with class, and each To earn his own subsistence. Its passions and its quarrels; Nor sell for bread their morals.- From Pleasure's Cornucopia; Plunge in the busy current-stem TRAVELLING ODDITIES, NO. II. THE enterprising traveller is one who much resembles what we have read of the bloods and Mohawks of earlier times; but who, with the pious fear of Sir Richard Birnie and Mr. Halls before his eyes, pants to quit his native soil for the express purpose of "astonishing the natives" elsewhere. They are the "roysterers," as Shallow has it, of the earth. At Eton, in their own elegant phraseology, they have not feared to come to the scratch with the Windsor bargemen; have led gown against town at Oxford; have long as gloriously figured in the lobbies of the theatre in the vindication of the fair fame of certain calumniated female visitors of those receptacles of peculiar virtue and chastity, as to the annoyance of all who boast not the honour of such an association; they receive a familiar wink from the exhibitors of the prize ring ere they set-to; speak indulgently of Thurtell's crimes; own Pierce Egan as their "magnus Apollo;" and, with sundry potent and nervous oaths, express their scorn and detestation of any thing French or foreign. At a table-d'hôte they are easily recognized by their elbows being planted firmly on the board; grasping a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, with the most delicate dish at table secured by the coudées franches with which it is flanked, and swearing at the waiter a sort of grace before they exclusively apportion for their own gratification the plate they have monopolized. Yet of all travellers these are the easiest discomfited where they do not encounter the too mild or meek, the too gentle and well bred to the unprotected female, or the infirm man, they are the most obnoxious and tyrannical of associates; but when they meet with such as are ill disposed to own their influence, who firmly and decidedly resist their rudeness or reprove their brutality, who, aware of the ample means existing amongst Continental nations for the instant as effectual repression of insult, threaten to recur to it-it is well to observe the alacrity of sinking which the would-be heroes possess their blustering is changed to sulkiness; their brutality to fear; and with nothing to redeem their native vulgarity and awkwardness, they attract the contempt, if they cannot the pity, of those who but lately trembled before them. I remember travelling with two gentlemen of this class from London to Calais some years since. In person they were remarkably fine young men, extremely audacious in their language and manner, with much of low fashion in their dress and address, and of still lower fashion, I suspected, in their purses and their pockets. They had their places on the roof of the coach to Dover, but a smart shower induced the coachman to allow one of them to enter inside, where his conduct to the females it contained was as offensive as it was with difficulty repressed. We were unsolicitedly informed, however, by the intruder that he and his companion were gentlemen, who were upon a shooting excursion into the north of France. He talked largely of peers and commoners; favoured us, unasked, with extremely rich anecdotes of the last levee; smiled at his recollections of his friends Lady, Lord, and the Duke of; swore that he never met with a more pleasing person in conversation than Louis XVIII.; and asserted that Prince Esterhazy and the Countess Sant' Antonio were possessed of the most exquisite taste. At Dover they quitted us for the night (haply, Wright's was not sufficiently d-la-mode for them); but in the packet, the next day, we beheld our quondam friends amongst the liveried and fille-de-chambre occupants en avant. "De Gustibus" we knew there could be no dispute: the King used to dine at Combe's; Lord Coleraine preferred Somers' Town as a place of residence; the Duke of Devonshire has often condescended to visit the Lodge of Antiquity; the Ex-King of Sweden (poor fellow!) travels without a diligence, and without a portmanteau; Braham has entertained mighty men under his roof; and therefore our surprise was the less at the humility of the gentlemen. Perhaps there is nothing more worthy of observation than the rapid and acute discernment of Frenchmen into the character and real pretensions of foreigners as of natives our perceptions are blunt as the last Quarterly in comparison; one glance at the countenance of the passport-profferers is quite sufficient for their purpose. "Passez, passez, c'est bien, Monsieur.""Arrêtez vous un moment, mon ami, avec le gend'arme là."—"Faites place pour Mademoiselle!"-" Monsieur Villiam Grin de Sheep side, vouz pouvez aller."-" Pardon, Monsieur, votre passeport est en ordre, sans doute; j'ai l'honneur de bien connaitre Monsieur," are the expressions which hastily succeed each other. The scrutiny of these official Lavaters is never at fault; they know a leg instantly; a contrabandiste is recognized without looking her in the face; a denizen of Whitechapel is dismissed with cold civility; a would-be fashionable ecrasé by an indifference of tone; and a gentleman cannot but feel grateful for their ready and polite attentions. Their tact was not deceived by the sporting gentlemen; they were detained; and when I next met them at the Douane (commissionaires were not then so privileged as they have been since), they muttered energetic curses at the privation of their Joe Mantons, which had, it seems, been seized by the authorities; still they blustered, and swaggered, and threatened, and swore, while our trunks were examined, until the gruff" Allons! allons, Messieurs!" drew from them, rather unwillingly, the key of the portmanteau, in which they enjoyed a tenantcy in common. A hearty laugh from the Gendarmerie attracted our attention. Their worldly wealth was given to public view-one ragged and care-worn shirt; and a pair of horse-pistols, with a quantum sufficit of powder and of ball. In every particular this is fact. The return-packet bore them back to their native shore, with the reasons of the Authorities in writing; and, no doubt, special recommendations in regard to their brief visitors. In Switzerland, such are regarded as a peculiar and privileged race; and, where their pranks offer not serious danger to themselves and others, are treated with the same indulgence the native Cretin receives at their hands. If fatuity approaching to idiotcy be a justifiable claim for respect (and it is so in the Valais), I esteem this class of my countrymen certainly as well entitled to it. In the moral and orderly Cantons of Geneva and of Vaud which border the Leman, where theatrical exhibitions are most rare, maisons de jeu unknown, pugilism detested, where Crockford's and the Fancy would soon be ushered forth rejected guests by the courtesy of the Police, the talent for "a spree" must be alone confided in, if the enterprising traveller wishes for fame or for display. They tell strange stories of us, and of our eccentricities. It was but the other day that the whole of the Police was under arms at Lausanne to prevent a foolish fellow attempting to de cide an engagement he had entered into of leaping from the roof of a house to that on the opposite side in the Rue St. Pierre, which was about as feasible as Lord Eldon's singing a cantata; Sir Joseph Yorke's speaking unsailor-like English; the Duke submitting to what is often termed humbug, or Don Miguel liking an Englishman. The enterprise was was with difficulty prevented by force, after entreaty, persuasion, and remonstrance had been tried in vain. The people of Geneva, since the establishment of steam-boats on their beautiful lake, are particularly partial to the making its tour, and admiring the magnificent scenery by which it is on all sides surrounded. They are the only Swiss (if Swiss they can be termed correctly) who possess a feeling for the grand and sublime in nature, and who profess a taste for the picturesque; accordingly, each Saturday morning the decks of the "William Tell," or the "Winkelried," are crowded with citizens of that limited republic, determined on the pursuit of pleasure; and as they are a refined and talented people, possessing good-nature and wit, they seldom experience the disappointment of Seged in their plans; and tale, and anecdote, and song-the wish to please and to be pleased-are all combined to give effect to the innocent and happy design. The day was fine, the refreshments good, excellent music was heard upon the waters as they issued forth one morning on an excursion, and "all went merry as a marriage-bell," until it was discovered that there was an Englishman on board; a philosopher of the North; one trusting rather to accident than to concert for enjoyment; one relying more upon himself than others for pleasure; a gregarious, but not a social being; one, in fact, who, they had reason to know, would prefer carving out amusement for himself, and in his own way, to accepting it as prepared by others. To prevent this foreign lump leavening the whole mass, and spoiling their well-concocted arrangements, it was agreed that all the attentions they could display should be lavished on the stranger. Politeness and courtesy, the compliments of men, and the smiles of women, meat and cakes, and wine, were all freely bestowed upon the Briton; Burgundy, Bourdeaux, and Champagne were fully discussed; and " as he drank buge draughts of Rhenish down," the Anglican gloom wore off, his passions were aroused; and, as his senses became somewhat disordered, his vanity imputed to a sense of national or individual merit, the distinctions accorded at the best from kindly feelings to a foreigner, or, at the worst, from policy. He sang, he ranted, and he swore; abused the Swiss as a vile and mercenary race; depreciated their forests, their mountains, and their floods; denounced them as spiritless and talentless; the slaves of foreign influence, and but nominally free; yet his temperate hosts (for such they had been to him) heard him in displeasure but in silence. There were many, very many to one, and that one was a stranger and unknown. He then vaunted the glories of England, and the prouder attributes of Englishmen; he was the Columbus of an ancient and renowned people, just landed amongst savages, and on shores hitherto unknown and unexplored; he looked upon himself as Godlike, in comparison with the ignorant and debased hordes he visited-" yet this availed not." He vaunted and he threatened-" yet this availed not." He dared them to the fight; his single arm against the hundreds-" yet this availed not." Some turned in sorrow and in contempt; but all prudently kept aloof from" the mighty master;" until irritated by their indifference, infuriated by their reserve, or mistaking both for fear, he seized a cudgel, and commenced an attack to right and left on all which came within his reach, moral or material-men and mirrors-glasses, bottles, and windows:-he would have stopped the very steam-engine itself, had not such of the passengers and crew as he had not put hors de combat, resolved upon a general and simultaneous rush upon their single opponent. He was subdued, pinioned, and guarded; and they pursued their way in comparative peace, only occasionally disturbed by the energetic and unflattering expressions of fruitless rage, and now powerless hostility; but the pleasure they had promised themselves had been effectually destroyed, and their plans of enjoyment essentially defeated. They returned to Geneva, vexed, bruised, wearied, and disappointed; and consigned their disturber into the custody of the police, to await that punishment which in Geneva any public offence to manners is ever certain of attracting. He was condemned in an enormous fine, (which he as instantly discharged,) with an order to quit the territories of the Genevan republic within twenty-four hours. From the latter part of his sentence he appealed in soliciting his judges to limit the term allowed him for banishment to one-fifth of that specified, coolly observing, “that in less than that he could traverse the entirety of their state, and yet have more than sufficient leisure to arrange his affairs and bid farewell." He was taken at his word, and politely conducted by the gens d'armerie to Dejean's hotel at Secheron, the boundaries of the canton; and, during his brief progress, wonderfully enriched the vocabulary of his conductors by certain emphatic expressions, which, as a precious present, they only display to those who are capable of appreciating their value; they are reserved for the use or abuse of Englishmen, when they refuse to consign their passports on the bridge, or otherwise contest the power of the Executive at Geneva. Such specimens of our country's manners are happily rare; but where they do occur, they fail not to influence largely the degree of welcome which would otherwise be accorded to those who merit it, and derogate greatly from that social comfort the unoffending would otherwise be permitted to enjoy. In Switzerland, (republic though it be,) a great distinction of ranks prevails, and society is graduated into a variety of classes which are essential obstacles to effecting the wish a foreigner may possess of becoming acquainted with the character of the people in general. The ancient nobility of the land (although deprived of honours and of title, and even of wealth, by the revolutions of former or more modern times,) stand the first; landed proprietors, bankers, merchants, the civil authorities, wholesale shopkeepers, hucksters, the master artizan, the labourer, the mendicant, are distinct castes. Amalgamation is seldom permitted, and party spirit runs high. The infection of exclusion has extended itself in as forceful a degree to their British visitors, but under different regulations; and it is amusing to observe, as it is ridiculous in itself, the severe definitions by which their pretensions are decided, amongst themselves, with the heart-burnings and jealousies, "hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness," which are poured forth on every side by those who in their own country have no acknowledged rank, but who impose upon foreigners by factitious pretensions, and upon each other by claims 2 G Nov.-VOL. XXIII. NO. XCV. |