THE QUEEN IN PARIS.

of all classes have attended on her steps, have sentative of the freedom of Europe that her crowded to the thoroughfares and the theatres uncle saw the great war in which her grandwhere she might be seen, and have filled the father engaged brought to a successful close. air with their cries of Vive la Reine !" Paris Perhaps, as we begin now to suspect, that war is become about half English. We can only might have been avoided; for it was in the refer our readers for particulars to the graphic first instance entered into against the princidetails to be found in the morning papers, and ples of freedom, and in behalf of the then analready devoured by them long before our tiquated despotism of Europe. Our fathers journal can reach them, of Her Majesty's re- and grandfathers did not comprehend that sidence at St. Cloud, of her visit to Versailles, the man whom they stigmatized as the child of her inspection of the Universal Exhibition, of the magnificent ball given in honor of Her Majesty, of the manner in which she was received at the theatres, and of all the other incidents of these great and memorable festivities. We cannot offer even an abridgment of them, and must content ourselves with making the few remarks the event suggests.

people more convinced of their own power. To say that the throne of Napoleon is equally secure would be wrong, but it owes all its security to his confidence in the people, and their attachment to him.

and champion of Jacobinism, was in his origin the child of freedom and the champion of the people. He fell by forgetting his origin; and his nephew, who is the heir to his power, is established in greatness by recollecting it. Louis Napoleon always appeals to the people, and relies on the people. He does not look to If not in actual time, yet, measured by the grees for support. In the beginning of his the old system, nor on long-descended pediordinary progress of events and by the custo- career, Louis Philippe professed to do the mary march of society, it seems as if ages must same; but as he became secure-as be ceased have elapsed between the reign of the first to fear the elder Bourbons or the Ponapartes Bonaparte, our contest with him, and the pre--he went back to old courses, and relied on sent peaceful visit. To what is this very Bourbon principles and forts, instead of ingreat and extraordinarily rapid change to be creasing freedom, to preserve his power. He attributed? The meeting and harmony of was mistaken, establishing by a sufficient exthe Sovereigns is emblematic of the continual perience the now certain fact, that no political communication and harmony of the two great power can be lasting which is not based on people. Both have one object in view; both the affections and opinions of the bulk of soare earnestly intent, each in its own sphere ciety. This is the essential element of Goand according to its own attributes, in promot-vernment in both countries. Never was a ing civilization and securing liberty. They throne more secure than that of Queen Vicattain their object in common. The inven- toria-never a Sovereign more beloved, or a tions in art in one, and the discoveries in science in the other, contribute to the mutual progress. Looking at their railways, their use of steam, their books developing similar truths, their journals narrating the same events, their corresponding political institutions, and their mutual trade, their pursuits may be now said two people as illuminated by the history of Looking at this present condition of the to be much more similar than diverse. Both their past progress, which was never at any are now united by the strong ties of mutual time foreseen nor provided for, we regard it interest; and the wonder is not that they less as a part of their political history than as should now be so friendly, but that they should one stage in the general development of civiliso long have been inimical. Notwithstanding the different titles borne of intelligence and the growth of knowledge, zation. Society, including the development by the Emperor and the Queen, and notwith- is not civilized by political institutions, but by standing the different mode in which they natural laws. Its growth-the increase of mounted their respective thrones, and notwith- population and all its mighty consequences— standing the different form and name of their is Nature's work. It has gone on-without respective Governments, we believe that one any sensible, and certainly without any ingreat element of the present close union is the explicable, deviations-in one career from the desire of both nations for perfect political free- beginning of time; and if in the future a simidom. In its name both have entered into lar course is to be continued-if the reign war with Russia, and in both countries the now, as De Tocqueville has taught, of the deSovereign is the representative of a society mocracy is commencing-if the voice of the far advanced and rapidly advancing towards many, not of one or the few, is to guide public that condition. Her Majesty is the descendant of a long progress hitherto made, that this will be injuaffairs, there is no reason to believe, from the line of kings, whose chief title to respect, and rious to royalty or to the upper classes of whose permanent safety, have been their avow-society. Adam Smith remarked that the al that they were but the first magistrates of meanest peasant in modern Europe was better a free people. It was as the head and repre- provided with comforts and necessaries than

the barbarous monarchs of antiquity. Cer- of the Queen's reception there. Of the potainly, since Smith's time, the upper classes, litical significance of this event we have forincluding royalty, have lost nothing by the merly spoken, but there are other points of many great inventions which added to the view from which it also deserves to be regarded; comfort and dignity of the multitude, and ele- and here, in this ugliest of great cities, besvated the whole of society. If Her Majesty tridden by the foulest night-mare of municipal share with the meanest of her subjects the misgovernment ever tolerated by an intelligent great advantages of travelling by railways, she people, we ought certainly to feel glad that is infinitely better off than was Her Majesty's our Queen can at last see for herself what predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, riding to Par- has lately been done to improve Paris. For an liament on horseback behind her Chamberlain edile of greater genius than the Emperor, we for want of a better conveyance, or visiting suppose, is reserved the task of reconstructing her nobles on horseback by slow relays. Her French liberties: but it is not a little to have mode of travelling, and that of Queen Victo- rendered at once healthy, convenient, and ria's, wafted to Paris by steam, though the same magnificent, the capital of such a country as mode is used by millions of her subjects, implies France. He has undoubtedly accomplished a most significant difference in favor of royalty wonders there. He has not merely beautified -teaching that, as it permits the development a corner of the capital, as his great unele did, of society, it shares fully in all the manifold but has metamorphosed the whole of it into a advantages. We may include even personal commodious as well as splendid city. He has safety, for assuredly the "divinity that doth hedge in a king" has neither been weakened nor narrowed as gas and steam-machinery and the general progress of knowledge have diffused their advantages over every part of society.

Some persons seek to spread alarm through the upper classes at the progress of the multitude, and some even amongst the multitude, who are as little informed as their superiors of the causes of the gradual and general elevation, serve the cause of their opponents by continually implying that their success will be hostile to the upper classes. This is an error; and both classes may derive consolation, and may be taught the one to cease repressing improvement by violence, and the other promoting it by the same means-by the reflection that the progress one tries to hasten and the other to stop, is a natural development equally elevating and equally beneficial for all. No persons-no institutions-designedly brought about the present peculiar and friendly relations of the people. They have gradually grown up from many causes, including even the many and ruinous wars by which the two nations have endeavored to injure and destroy each other. These have at least taught them that each is worthy of the respect of the other, and taught them both that each can only secure freedom and justice for itself by doing justice to the other and promoting its freedom. The presence of Queen Victoria in Paris as a guest of Louis Napoleon is of itself a memorable event, but it is most memorable as a symbol of the great change which half-a-century has wrought in the civilization of Europe.

From the Examiner, 25 Aug.

RECEPTION OF THE QUEEN IN PARIS.

We gladly employ the pen of a friend now in Paris to celebrate the gayeties and glories

sent the pickaxe and the hatchet through the most dense and most antiquated quarters; levelling, clearing, opening; and every where replacing foul uninhabitable labyrinths, by wide boulevards and splendid streets. Nor has care been omitted, amid a general upturning of earth and overturning of bricks, to leave standing everything ancient that was really worth preserving. Every church has been repaired; fountains have multiplied past counting; and while the great palace of the old kings of the country has been completed, the pleasure parks of the city have at the same time been beautified. Above all, too, the markets have been extended over areas better suiting with the wants of the population, and wider thoroughfares, even subterranean railroads, have been constructed, to convey the produce and remove the refuse with facilities unknown to us. Here surely was something well worth setting before a Queen who enjoys only divided Empire, in her metropolitan city, with a Lord Mayor and a Corporation whose chief function it appears to be to waste larger revenues than those which have sufficed for this adornment of Paris on sheer guzzling and gormandizing and other abominations.

"Paris certainly never presented itself under so splendid an aspect as at present. It seems as if the great and expensive labors of the last three years in beautifying the capital, completing its projected streets and palaces, and replacing its old shapeless houses by edifices of the first architectural beauty along the boulevards and in all places of public thoroughfare-it seems now as if all had been designed and executed for the glorious reception that has just been given to Queen Victoria. That reception was not confined to her Majesty's entry, magnificent as it was. The fête, the decorations, the illuminations are kept up from day to day and from night to night, and

the manifestations of popular welcome, instead done so sufficiently) the magnificent prepaof being confined to the first evening, have on the contrary increased, and are now much more cordial, noisy, and enthusiastic than at first.

faction.

rations made along the Boulevard for the reception of the Queen on Saturday. A hundred francs was a common price paid for a seat at a window. Well, the Royal cortege It must be taken into account that the was late. In fact it was nearly dusk, and those French are not accustomed to hurrah. They who had spent both their money and time in only cry Vive so and so, or Vivat, which is waiting could not but feel that they had thrown more critical than clamorous. An English both away. The English would have borne crowd indulging in a hurrah, and throwing up this with good-humor, but the French by no their caps, conveys outwardly an expression means did so. It created an ill-humor which of so much greater enthusiasm than the same did not quite disappear till the second or thirdamount of French cries, that Englishmen are day. Then, again, what would an English apt to be disappointed at French popular re- mob care for the Queen's dress, or for the deceptions. But there is no mistaking the na- meanor of her suite? Not a pin. Yet I can ture of the welcome given to Queen Victoria assure you from personal observation, that by the Parisians. The entire Boulevard has Queen Victoria entering Paris in a straw bonbeen decorated with expensive, here and there net and an equipage of no pretensions mightily indeed with colossal, marks of homage, paid disappointed the crowd assembled to welcome for the most part by individuals. These suf- her; whereas the same Queen Victoria, dressed ficiently mark the feeling of the bourgeoisie. for the Opera, and looking queen-like as she The upper classes, too, with some exceptions does on such occasions, was greeted along the such as party feeling can account for, have Boulevard with shouts of applause and satisshown equal desire to honor our Queen. If there be an exception we must descend a little While thus analyzing and recording the senlower for it. It may with truth he admitted timents of the Parisians, I ought to add that that the French populace do not display the the capital assembles within it those most hossame enthusiasm for the English alliance of tile to the person and the policy of the Emwhich the Queen's presence in Paris is a sym-peror. He is far more popular in the provbol, as the population of London displayed to- inces; and if the peasantry could only be as wards the Emperor and the French alliance. sembled, they would give a reception much The reasons for this are many and obvious. more enthusiastic than the civic multitudes. The French above all love to feel themselves Even on the present occasion the banlieu, or in a proud position, and it cannot be said, that country for twelve or twenty miles round they do so at present. The loss of liberty is Paris, sent not only their National Guards, but a cause of humiliation to many, and England's all their young and prettiest women to welhaving known how to preserve hers is a source come the Queen, in fête dresses, and with of some jealousy which one can hardly re- garland bouquets. This array of young woprove. Then the war has not satisfied the men, who crowded the Champs Elysées, were French. We, English, are more confident if much disappointed by the late arrival on Satnot more magnanimous. We know the he- urday's cortege. roism of our soldiers, and believe and trust to The Legitimists war from hostility to the Imit, notwithstanding delayed results. The perial regime at its outset. Many of their French are more impetuous, and more de-leading names offered striking examples of pressed under the absence of complete victory. adhesion. But of late, since ideas and efforts The adjourned success of the war thus flings of fusion have gained ground, Orleanist rana shade, in French estimation, on the Anglo- cor has to a great extent taken possession of French Alliance itself. It is to be sure a flagrant dereliction of principle, a total setting aside of the great ends of war, to fix attention and desire upon the mere glory acquired; but yet, it is to be feared, this does make part of the French character. Even after all the experience they have had, there is nothing, not even their own liberties, that they would deny to a hero, while there is nothing, not even their own prosperity and well-being, that they would not sacrifice rather than rest tranquil under an inglorious reign.

There are, moreover, peculiarities of taste and humor in the French, which Englishmen do not always know how to meet or appreciate. I need not describe (the daily papers will have

the old Royalists, and they have been generally malcontent. Possessing, however, not much wealth, and peasantry and priesthood being well-disposed to the existing government, the Legitimists are not politically to be feared. Of Orleanist rancor I can give you an example; the Examiner has had some articles in behalf of the Institute, blaming the severity of the Emperor towards that learned body. And the Examiner was right. But is it decorous, that upon such an occasion as the visit of the Queen of England to Paris, when every edifice, public and private was illumined, the Institute should have been the only one that scorned to light a jet of gas or a farthing candle in honor of England and its alliance?

I beg the Examiner to remember this, and to not procured something wonderful to display, mark the animus which it indicates, as well as and the expense of lighting alone must be the pettiness it displays. enormous. But with two millions of visitors

Among the fetes offered to the Queen, the added to the one million of residents, as the ball at the Hotel de Ville, and the fete-de-nuit statistics of the police show, the shop-folk in the gardens of Versailles, will be the most cannot but get a good return for even such remarkable. The water-works by lamp and extraordinary outlay. The Exposition indeed torch-light are much finer than by day. And is a shop-world of itself, in which the Queen no doubt every kind of magnificence will be and Prince appear to revel. They go day afgot up for the occasion. And yet the most ter day. It has certainly made wonderful splendid sight that Paris affords, is precisely progress since what may be called the failure the one that Queen Victoria cannot enjoy. of its first opening, and it has now really beThis is a quiet stroll through the streets of an come, what it scarcely was then, worthy of evening. There is scarcely a shop that has close and prolonged examination."

well mention a fact which may possess some interest in future years, if it do not at present; when the reason of the name Standard being appropriated to a conservative journal may be sought. When the prospectus of the present paper appeared, it was with the motto from Livy[?]:

MORGAN ODOHERTY,-It would be very interesting and now that poor Wilson is no more, the time seems very opportune-if the Blackwoods would favor the world with a list of the contributors to Maga as far as they are known, and up to Wilson's resignation of the office of editor. I think there can be no doubt but that Signifer, pone signum; hic optume manebiDr. Maginn originated the notion of the redoubt- mus." This motto was continued in the adverable engign; but the idea was so simple, and so tisements of the paper till the very eve of its easily adhered to, that many writers afterwards publication; but it never appeared in the paper took up the notion; and the character, I believe, itself. The cause of its omission was much disowes much of its reality to the various jocular cussed, and many thought at the time that it spirits who each contributed some new yet har- was because the motto appeared to point to Mamonizing feature to the grotesque structure. Of ginn, the well known "Signifer" of Blackwood, the truth of this fact the present writer can speak as the editor; whereas, though he was connectof his own knowledge. He himself contributed ed with the paper, it was only as a subordinate. one or two papers among the Hore Cantabrig--Notes and Queries. ienses, introducing the merry Morgan to Cambridge. These papers were sent anonymously, yet they were not only inserted, but referred to afterwards by the veritable Morgan (whoever he might be) as part of his series. This proves the truth of MR. WARDEN's conjecture, that there must have been "more than one writer." Indeed, I believe there were many, homogeneous as the character may seem; nothing being so fallacious as an attempt to discriminate styles, more especially when there is any wish in the

writers to harmonize with each other.

R. P.

When Maginn was first taken into connection with Blackwood, although I had but little personal acquaintance with him, I had good opportunities of knowing his proceedings, and I was not without interest in them. If I had access to the early volumes of the Magazine, I could point to the first article which he contributed; a severe, but unfair critique, in which he turned his knowledge of Hebrew to account. In the course of years I became less acquainted both with him and with the Magazine; but I never doubted that he was Signifer Odoherty," and I am quite atisfied that any one who now doubts it must fabor under some great mistake.

In connection with this nom de guerre, I may as

LUXURY OF THE ANCIENTS IN ROSES.-To

enjoy the scent of roses at meals, an abundance of rose-leaves was shaken out upon the table, so that the dishes were completely surrounded. By an artificial contrivance, roses, during meals, descended on the guests from above. Heliogabalus, in his folly, caused violets and roses to be showered down upon his guests in such quantities, that a number of them, being unable to extricate themselves, were suffocated in flowers. During meal-times, they reclined upon cushions stuffed with rose-leaves, or made a couch of the leaves themselves. The floor, too, was strewed with roses, and in this custom great luxury was displayed. Cleopatra, at an enormous expense, procured roses for a feast which she gave to Antony, had them laid two cubits thick on the floor of the banquet-room, and then caused nets to be spread over the flowers, in order to render the footing elastic. Heliogabalus caused not only the banquet-rooms, but also the colonades that led to them, to be covered with roses, interspersed with lillies, violets, hyacinths, and narcissi, and walked about upon this flowery platform.Wüstemann.

From The Press.

The Works of Professor Wilson. Edited by his Son-in-Law, Professor Ferrier. "Noctes Ambrosianæ." Vol. I. London: Blackwood and Sons.

not enter upon it. Our critical estimate of the genius of Professor Wilson must be deferred until the series of his republications be completed. We shall here confine our attention to the first volume now before us.

The "Noctes Ambrosianæ" was the most THERE are few more important chapters in remarkable serial contribution to any of our the critical history of English literature than periodicals. Essayists have written in various those which record the influence of Scottish reviews and magazines, and collected their intellect on public opinion south of the papers, but their writings were of " a connected Border. After the house of Stuart became character." The "Noctes " of Blackwood had politically defunct the mind of Scotland gradually was Imperialized, and the union was transformed into a social reality. Moral philosophy, which was neglected in England was actively pursued in the north, and the University of Edinburgh sent forth a crowd of alumni to vindicate their country's intellectual renown. Political economy was raised into a science, and Mackintosh was not far wrong when he said that the three most influential works of modern times were, Grotius's "De Jure Belli et Pacis," Montesquieu's" Spirit of Law," and Smith's" Wealth of Nations." In practical politics, and in the literature of party, the Scottish intellect had abundant representatives. We need only name the Edinburgh Review to suggest a galaxy of reputations, which will occur to every reader's

memory.

a variety without any previous precedent, and without any successful imitation. It contained many excellent songs, both comic and sentimental. It had discussions on themes of sublime interest, mingled with the passing politics of the hour. The classics of antiquity, and the magazines of the month, were commented on and " cut up" with equal cleverness. From Homer to Hazlitt, there was scarcely a single literary reputation that was not made the subject of disputation. It was a display of Scottish genius talking de omnibus rebus, with a trenchant commentary de quibusdam aliis. Tory Scotland would have its say on everything upon earth, just as well as Jeffrey and his blue-and-buff men. Ay! and Tory Scotland would show that while it could meet the Whigs upon economy, statistics, poor laws, and all the ologies, it could sing songs, and strike the old lyre of Caledonia in a style that the Whigs could never rival. Gallantly did the literary Scotch Tories enter into the contest. Right bravely they upheld their cause,

renown. In leading them on to the fight of intellect Professor Wilson, in the " Noctes," stood foremost.

There was a period (circa 1810) when there might have been grounds for asserting that the active and interprising intellects of Scotland were on the "Liberal" side in politics. It is beyond dispute that numbers of the rising and gloriously did they win names of high minds of the north were powerfully biassed by the success of the "blue-and-buff" flag. Though the opposition to the Edinburgh was largely aided by Sir Walter Scott and other But (alas in all criticisms there must ever eminent Scotsmen, still the Quarterly was from be that monosyllable !) how will the " Noctes" the first emphatically a London periodical. It stand the test of reprint in a generation that was reserved for the enterprising founders has already forgotten many of its topics, and and brilliant supporters of Blackwood's Maga- has buried the antipathy and fierce hatreds to zine to show what mines of intellectual wealth which those brilliant papers bore witness? were owned by Scotch Tories. After the first It would be rash to pronounce from one three years of Blackwood, the notion that the volume merely how the four of the revised Whigs possessed all the wits of the Scotch" Noctes" will be received by the public. In metropolis was universally dispelled.

many reprints the public get "too much," as is the case of Miss Edgeworth's novels, and some other instances. Nevertheless, after examining the first volume before us, we feel warranted in expressing our opinion that the "Noctes" will amply sustain its first reputation.

Amongst the foremost of those who contributed to that result was the gifted person whose works in a revised form are about to be submitted to the mature judgment of the reading public. It would be hard, indeed, if Christopher North" did not take his position in this age of reprints. Authors with far less In criticising the "Noctes," it must not be pretensions have "collected" their writings, forgotten that the papers were written for a and the friends of Professor Wilson are only magazine, and were addressed to a public of doing justice to his memory in piling up a a most miscellaneous character. To propound literary cairn to his name. How high that high criticism, and discuss lofty themes in a cairn should ascend, and in what proportions hearty colloquial Scotch fashion, was the main it may be praised by English, as contrasted point aimed at by Professor Wilson, and none with Scotch admirers, may hereafter be a will dispute that he achieved his object. His question for discussion. At present we shall idealization of the character of Hogg into the