1831.] [ 653 ] 



NOTES OF THE MONTH ON AFFAIRS IN GENERAL. 



How utterly impossible is it to change national temperaments. The 

 French are again hawking their frippery of ribbons and medals round 

 Europe. A French paper, by the characteristic title of Le Voleur, 

 announces to delighted mankind, that the decoration of the Legion of 

 Honour is to be bestowed upon " several distinguished foreigners, and, 

 among others, upon Sir Walter Scott, Goethe, Cooper, Sismondi, Ber- 

 zelius, B. Cormenbach, Sir Astley Cooper and Thorwaldsen." We are 

 to presume in this matter two things : that France is constituted the 

 grand European tribunal of merit, and that the persons in question will 

 look upon themselves as prodigiously honoured by the pitifulness of a 

 bit of red ribbon tied to their buttonholes ; an honour, by-the-bye, as 

 common in France as esquire to a name in England. The vanity of the 

 thing should be confined to military men, who have a taste for those 

 matters, and the "Decoration," as it is called, worn by the rabble of 

 the Napoleon soldiery, should not be suffered to insult the dignity of 

 science and literature. 



But we are sinking into this foolery even here, and the public are still 

 molested with proposals for a " bit of red ribbon" for the members of the 

 Royal Society and half a dozen other societies. This, of course, will be 

 scouted by the remaining good sense of their members. But what are 

 we to think of the new corps of warriors summoned to the levees of 

 St. James's. We give, from a tailor's advertisement, the mise en cam- 

 pagne of this eminent battalion " Deputy Lord Lieutenant's coat 

 9. 9s. ; pantaloons, 2. 12s. 6d. ; epaulettes, 5. 5s. ; sword, 3. 3s ; 

 sword-knot, 1. lls. 6d. ; sash, 5. 5s. ; sword-belt, 18s., and cocked- 

 hat, 4. 14s. 6(1," We congratulate the levees, on this addition to their 

 brilliancy, and the country on the acquisition of a legion who will, 

 doubtless, render signal service in case of an invasion from the moon ; 

 the bill itself too is a curious specimen of the art of making up a military 

 reputation : we see the sword costing little more than half the price of 

 the sash or the epaulettes, and the laced coat costing three times the 

 sum. What foolery is all this, for the dress of men whose whole office 

 is civil, where it is not a sinecure. But this is the court dress ; as if the 

 levees were not overdone with red coats already, and looked much more 

 like a parade in front of the horseguards, or the crowd in the commander- 

 in-chief 's waiting room, than the assemblage of British gentlemen round 

 a British king. Even this crowd must be increased by covering the 

 simple country squires, who perform Deputy Lieutenant, with scarlet 

 and buckram and bullion, and hanging sabres by their sides, and making 

 them look as like field-marshals, heaven help the mark ! as tailorism and 

 tinsel can make them. 



Shakspeare was wrong in his maxim, that " if a man wishes to be re- 

 membered six months after he is dead he must build churches." Napoleon 

 was not eminent for his services in this style, and yet he is talked of still, 

 or rather, he has started into a sudden revival ; himself, his snuff-taking, 

 his battles, his empresses, his embroidered coats and his chargers, bay, 

 white and black, have sprung up at once before the world's eye after 

 ten years of slumber, and all the theatres of France, where he was ana- 

 thematized, and of England, where he was a politic enemy, now teem 

 with Napoleonism. Co vent Garden has for a fortnight filled its enormous 



