or three lean dogs that kept running backwards and forwards at right angles to each other. Herds of half-starved pigs were guarded in the same way. Indeed the only animal that had not at least one human or canine attendant was a goat, occasionally to be seen by itself-tethered.

As we proceeded, I was surprised to observe into what a series of very small fields the ocean of country through which the train was flying had, since I last beheld it, by the operation of the late laws of France against primogeniture, been subdivided. It appeared as if I was travelling through Lilliput, or through a region of charitable allotments for children; and when I considered that the legal security of these little properties has diminished with their dimensions, I could not help feeling that, if poor Goldsmith had been in the train, he would have admitted the fallacy of those beauti

ful lines

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

Excepting occasionally a slated high-roofed château, in bad repair, and now and then a picturesque cemetery, the whole population appeared to present one uniform character. Everybody-men, women, and children, whether riding, walking, ploughing, harrowing, digging, washing, or doing nothing -were all dressed in blue; and yet this single colour, representing human nature, was everywhere contrasted with bright yellow rape in blossom, beautiful greens of various shades, patches of glittering water, and here and there diminutive rectangular spaces of brown fallow land. It was a peaceful placid scene; nevertheless I could not help every now and then involuntarily recollecting the fair surface of France a battlefield, leaving around, before, behind it, and especially on both sides of the great pavés, broad furrows of desolation and of trampled crops, such as had marked the retreat of the French, and the advance of the allied army, from Waterloo to Paris.

After flying along for about 200 miles through a uniform but highly interesting picture, there began to appear in the fields, like brilliant flowers, women, young and old, dressed in pink or crimson bodices. They were weeding, and even digging; in fact, they were at what might truly be called

hard labor. The train, however, as it passed, seemed beneficently to emancipate them; and thus for many seconds, with scorched sunburnt faces, and with the implements of husbandry in their hands, they stood, for as long as we could see them, gazing at it, in various attitudes of repose.

At about ten leagues from Paris we rapidly passed the remains of a railway-station that had been burnt in the revolution of 1848; and again, in about four leagues more, the black charred ruins of the station at Pontoise. That the conflagration had not attained its object, namely, liberty, equality, fraternity, was strikingly illustrated to my mind, by the appearance, in the middle of a field, of a woman working hard with a pickaxe !

Throughout the region of little fields I had traversed, it was, however, but too evident that equality had very nearly been attained; or, in other words, that everybody had succeeded in preventing any one from possessing much more than was necessary for bare existence, thereby excluding those fine reaping-machines, ploughing-machines, and other economical mechanical powers which Science is gradually introducing, and which our Socialists, Red-Republicans, and ultra-levellers would do well to recollect can only be applied to farms covering a great breadth of land, and worked by considerable capital; and I was moreover reflecting on the intellectual poverty of such a state of rural existence, and, morally speaking, how true was the observation that "Paris is France," when a young man with mustachios, who had entered the carriage at the last station, politely offered me "Le National" newspaper of that morning. The important subject before my mind, and the real scene before my eyes, were so much more interesting than any thing I could read in print, that I would willingly have declined his offer. I, however, did not like to do so, and accordingly, still ruminating on the picture I had witnessed, of an agricultural population living from hand so mouth, with probably no better instructor than the village curé, I opened the newspaper, and read as follows:

Translation.- "The vacation (Easter holidays) of the National Assembly terminates to-day. A great number of the representatives of the Majority have profited by the congé which has just expired to visit their

departments, where they have been able to consult the spirit (l'esprit) and the desire of the population."

The newspaper, of course, proceeded to state that "the desire of the population" was "in favor of universal suffrage, and the non-eligibility of the President."

With the newspaper in my hand, and with my hand resting on my knee, I was calmly reflecting on what I had just read, when a slight movement among my fellow travellers, who all at once began to take down their hats from the roof, and their sticks and umbrellas from a neat little dormitory in which they had been consigned, announced to me we were near our terminus; and accordingly, shaking off my reverie, I had scarcely followed their example when the speed of the train began evidently to relax, and in a few minutes, passing close to the Barrière St. Denis, we went slower, slower, slower still, and the delightful little paragraph of my journey had scarcely ended-as all paragraphs ought to do-by a full stop, when the noise of opening doors and of feet descending, and then hurriedly trampling along a wooden platform, joyfully informed me that although the sun, which had risen while I was fast asleep in a fourpost bed in Dover, was still three or four hours high above the western horizon, I was safe and sound in Paris!

The duty that majestically arose rather than rushed uppermost in my mind was to obtain my portmanteau; however, trusting as in such cases I always like to do-implicitly to its honour, I felt confident it would find me out, and accordingly, banishing it entirely from my thoughts, and submitting myself to an apparently very well arranged little system of martial law, I with great pleasure marched here,— halted there, turned to my left,-marched, until halting again I found myself deployed into line with my fellow travellers, standing before a long table on which, sure enough, I beheld the pieces of red string I had tied round both handles of my property for the purpose of readily recognizing it.

On the production of my "billet de bagage," and of my key, it was, pro formâ, opened, re-locked, and finally carried by a porter into a square full of omnibuses and carriages of all descriptions. To what part of Paris it was to go, it of course did not know, nor did I; and as I bashfully felt rather unwilling to disclose this fact, I very readily nodded assent

to the conducteur of a neat looking omnibus on which was inscribed" Hôtel de Meurice."

"I know we shall be well off there," said I, partly to myself and partly to my portmanteau, "and at our leisure we can at any moment better ourselves if we should desire to do so.' It appeared that a great many other people, and a great many other portmanteaus, and other articles of baggage, thought exactly as we did, for I and my property had scarcely taken our respective places inside and out, when various lumping sounds on the roof, and various ascending feet on the steps, continued to follow each other in quick succession, until in a few minutes the interior, and I believe exterior, of the carriage were stuffed as full as ever they could hold, and then away we all rolled and rumbled.

Between the hats, bonnets, and shoulders of the row of people who sat before me in mute silence, I occasionally caught a glimpse, sometimes of something yellow,-then of something green, then of a pane of glass or two, then of a portion of a shop window, then of part of the head of a gentleman on horseback; but when, driving under an archway, we entered the little yard of the hôtel de Meurice, with becoming modesty I frankly acknowledged to myself, that although in a handsome carriage I had just driven through the noblest, the finest, the most magnificent, and, in ancient and modern history, the most celebrated streets, boulevards, and "places" of Paris, I was unable to impart, either verbally or in writing, much information on the subject.

"With the assistance of a little time and reflection I hope to do better!" and suiting my action to the words of my thoughts, I was just going, as I got out of the 'bus, to look once around me to observe what the yard might contain, when I found myself surrounded and addressed by two or three waiters, who, with some fine bows, informed me, in French, that the table d'hôte had just been served, and that if I would like to dine there I could at once take my place.

"OH, Do!" whispered a well-known voice within me, and accordingly, influenced by it, following one of the "garçons" into a large, long, handsome room, I glided behind the backs, chairs, and bent heads of one row of people, and before the faces, glasses, tumblers, bottles of wine, knives, forks, and deep plates of another row of ladies and gentlemen, each of

whom was more or less intently occupied in sipping or supping out of a silver spoon-soup. At the further end of this hospital of patients, all obediently taking the same medicine, were a few vacant chairs, which, almost before I could sit down, were filled by my fellow travellers.

As soon as the well-arranged feast was over, several persons arose from their chairs, and, joyfully following their example, I recovered possession of my hat and stick, and then, escaping into the yard, and walking out of the Portecochère, I became in one moment what, during almost the whole of the repast, I had been yearning to be an atom of the gay, thoughtless, happy crowd that in every direction were swarming along the streets of Paris.

It would, no doubt, have been correct and proper that, regardless of the vain occupations of man, or of the ephemeral fashions of the day, I should have commenced my observation of the city of Paris by a calm, philosophical comparison between its architectural formation six-and-thirty years ago, and its present structure. I had fully intended to do so; but my eyes would not allow my mind to reflect for a moment on any subject, and accordingly I had hardly proceeded ten yards before, I am ashamed to acknowledge, I found myself gaping into a shop-window at a large doll, with a white handkerchief in her hand, and on her lap, a paper, on which was written,—

"MA TETE EST EN PORCELAINE:

J'AI DES SŒURS DE TOUTES GRANDEURS. "'*

Within, seated at a table, were three young women, very well dressed, never looking towards the street, but talking to each other, and sewing for their very lives. Beside me stood gaping, like myself, an old woman holding in her hand a roll nearly three feet long, and a soldier with a parcel in the folded sleeve of his one-armed uniform coat.

On leaving the window, my attention was attracted by light green, dark green, light yellow, dark yellow, blue, and parti-coloured omnibuses, driven by coachmen sometimes in bright yellow, sometimes in pea-green hats, and in clothes of such brilliant colours that the equipages, as they successively

*My head is made of china:

I have sisters of all sizes.