26 
the clerk in the city, turn a dark cor- 
ner now and then, forget awhile your 
mother’s habits, and for a moment for- 
sake your friends. Indeed, for an 
Trishman upon a first visit, it is curious 
to remark, how very unfrequently. 
young men, when they meet during 
the day, enquire where their friend 
dines or spends the night: confused 
looks and eqnivocal answers soon 
shamed me out of the question. 
However, to return to Paris and its 
restaurateurs: almost the first I was di- 
rected to was the Salon Frangais, on 
the left of the Palais Royal; and, in 
truth, if not from choice, every travel- 
ler should visit it from curiosity. The 
charge is one to two francs; for them 
he chooses, from no very brief bill of 
fare, a soup, three dishes, desert, and 
a pint of wine. The attendance, too, 
is ready; service clean,—you have 
silver where plate is common;. and 
certainly the cookery is not bad. The 
house is convenient, the rooms are 
large, and for style and decoration,— 
pannelled glass and gilt relief,—de- 
cidedly surpass any place of public 
entertainment I entered. It was built 
and furnished for the chancery of the 
late Duke of Orleans; but the revolu- 
tion came, and it went, with all other 
royal and noble property, to sale en 
the public account, and became what 
it still continues. ‘To pass over many 
establishments of the kind, and others 
of better rank, at once turn inte Very’s, 
in the Palais Royal,—just now, per- 
haps, the greatest resort in Paris,— 
and for five francs you may have for 
dinner vermicelli soup, turbot, sauce 
omar, sweet- bread and green vegetable 
sauce, a mutton stcak a la chevreuil,— 
by the bye, it were worth a trip to 
Paris to eat a chevreuil of Very’s,— 
and then, if you have a sweet palate, 
order beignets de pommes, and pay five 
francs. As for wine, it is there at 
every price: six francs enjoys Cham- 
paigne, mousseaux, or iced  lafitte. 
Such is Paris; and what would such 
fare cost at Jacquicr’s? 
It was at Very’s, I think, that the 
gentleman paid fora silver fork in his 
bill. This circumstance reminds one 
of an observation commonly made by 
almost every visitor,—of the difficulty 
in France of determining pretensions 
to rank by behaviour and appearance. 
With us, for indications of deference, 
we have the proper distinction of 
dvess, ease of manners, and style of 
speceh; among the French, with the 
An Tvishman’s Notes on Paris, No. V. 
[ Aug. T,. 
exception of the low order of society, 
one may almost say all are alike; at 
least the only presumption is dress, 
and that one occurs but rarely. Hence: 
the frequency of a branded knave in 
the pillory, or convicted wretch at the 
galleys, who has been respectably 
known and fashionably entertained. 
The cause of such community of men, 
Manners, and conversation, offers 
matter for curious enquiry: a passing 
solution came inte my head, and it is 
the strictness of the grammar. Our 
language, from the freedom of our 
habits, is quite untrammelled, and. 
equally various. As every one does 
what he likes and how he pleases, so 
every one, in the use of words,. and 
even in the way of their connexion, 
follows the impulse of his own mind ;: 
and, be the sound and signification 
what they may, if the author appear 
master of his subject, in time he will 
grow an authority. That much bene- 
fit has been derived from the license 
is unquestionable: not only is our 
tongue thus most copious and rich, but 
we have a greater variety of styles for 
every subject and passion, and in 
styles themselves a happier diversity 
for,—I might add,—every sensation 
and peculiarity, than another language 
can boast. During the last fifty years, 
however, we have gained but little in 
this respect, while many erude and 
hasty additions seem to. have thrown 
us back a stage to barbarism. For- 
merly, when the authorities for verbal 
improvement imagined a sense fon 
which we had not a phrase, or disco- 
vered a nicer word than an old ex- 
pression, they were careful to divest 
their choice from another language of 
its foreign accordance, and it came 
from their tongues clothed in English 
accidence. This was natural and 
good; but, now-a-days, the hardest 
foreign words,—obseure Greek and 
Latin, particularly,—are unmercifully 
dealt about, like so many bastards, in 
the bare sounds of antiquity ; and one 
is almost maddened into a notion, that 
things retrograde instead of advance. 
This remark is a digression, and is here 
dropped with a painful notice, that 
these rude innovations are mostly 
made by philosophers, as they are 
termed,—at least by authors on science; 
and, however creditable to the age, or 
useful to the people, their ingenious 
discoveries, it is a pitiful confession, 
that among them a classical writer is 
most rare. Now, in French, every 
word 
