1827.] Letter on Affairs in general. 413 



Vertpree plays the part of the femme-chatte ; and electrifies tho Parisians 

 almost as much as Mazurier did in the man-morikey. 



The King, it appears, has loft Brighton and, 1 take it, for ever. No- 

 thing but his Majesty's ignorance of the real present state of that ultra 

 resort of cockneyism could ever have induced him, six weeks since, to go 

 there. Brighton has got up under the patronage of " fashion" sufficiently 

 now independent of fashion to live. The convenient distance from 

 town ; the excellence of the roads ; and the great perfection of the con- 

 veyance organised ; must- 'particularly while the extent and population of 

 London goes on, as it does, increasing insure its safety. Great numbers 

 of persons in business, now keep houses in Brighton all the year round ; 

 and, by merely rising at any day at six in tho morning, are in town time 

 enough to transact business upon 'Change at twelve. This could not be 

 managed, if the distance were only twelve miles farther, or the coaches 

 one mile in the hour slower ; and besides the great work is done the 

 place is built, and frequented, and ready. Still, the King, I suspect, has 

 seen his lost of it ; and how with such a residence as Windsor at his dis- 

 posal he could be expected to endure a sinoke and confinement, equal to 

 that of Ilolborn, or Red Lion Square ; with cake-house company, crowded, 

 and vulgar affectation, worse than that of the Star and Garter at Richmond, 

 or Hampton Court, on a Sunday; it is difficult almost to imagine ! For 

 myself, I think it, incomparably, the most detestable sojourn in all 

 England. But this is only the necessary result of the popularity which it 

 has enjoyed. If the mountains of Wales could become " fashionable," in 

 ten years they would be just as filthy. 



A new Diorama, said to be of extraordinary merit, is exhibiting now in 

 Paris. The subject is a view of Edinburgh ; and the artist has chosen the 

 night of the great fire (which occurred two years since) for the moment of 

 his design ; exhibiting, at once, a bright moonlight sky, with the red glare 

 of two hundred burning houses flashing against it. The management of 

 these very difficult mixed lights ; with the breaking out of the flame occa- 

 sionally in new parts of the picture, and the rolling of the thick columns 

 of smoke, mixed with sparkles and flakes of fire, over the city, are said to 

 form one of the happiest effects that have yet been produced in this very 

 beautiful style of exhibition. 



Speaking of "burning," I notice that the Protestant students of Trinity 

 College, Dublin, have burned Mr. Piunkett, the Irish Attorney General, in 

 effigy, for supporting the claims of the Catholics. Really a man who is 

 compelled to live in Ireland has rather a difficult game to play, just now ! 

 the Catholics would have burned the honourable and learued gentleman 

 perhaps not in effigy if he had voted against them. 



The French Globe, of the 1st of March, gives a curious account of an 

 experiment lately made upon M. Vallarice's new plan for air carriage; to 

 exemplify which, I believe I mentioned two or three months ago, Mr. V. 

 has constructed a tunnel, or cylinder, upon a small scale at Brighton. It 

 appears that this model if I may so call it of the thing to be done, con- 

 sists of a cylinder, twenty-seven feet m circumference, and two hundred 

 feet long ; from one end to tho other of which, the Duke of Bedford, 

 Lord Holland, and a French gentleman of the name of Flahaut, were 

 carried, by the operation of Mr. Vallance's principle, upon a sort of car, 

 with wheels, but at the rate only of six miles an hour. The relator 

 observes, that the principle was far from having fair play ; inasmuch as 



