252 
opening, or astreet adequate to the popu- 
lation and the traffic, from Charing-cross 
to St. Paul’s : which certainly ought so to be 
opened, that from one we should have both 
a convenient progress and a clear view to 
the other. There is, also, a principle 
suggested in it, from which we shall not 
withhold our marked reprehension. The 
grand improvements in the neighbourhood 
of the Park, and the erection or expansion 
of splendid palaces (and this letter-writer 
would have one palace that, with its ap- 
pendages, should cover a mile of ground) 
ought to exclude, it seems, according to 
him, the common mob; that rags and 
wretchedness might not approach, as at 
present, the confines of regal and princely 
splendour. St. James’s Park should be 
open only to the well-dressed public! Now, 
for our parts, if rags and wretchedness 
cannot be prevented in this flourishing and 
wealthy community !—we would wish them 
to be brought under the eyes of royalty and 
opulence as much as possible—that they 
may at least be aware how much misery 
there is for them to relieve ; and we should 
be sorry to cease to see the threadbare part 
of the community occasionally resting them- 
selves on the benches of the Mall, or tak- 
ing their pennyworths of milk from the 
tow. We love the splendour, but we hate 
the seclusion of princely edifices ; and shall 
begin to abhor, instead of admiring, the 
improving grandeur of our architecture, if 
the consequence is to be an abridgment of 
the liberties and recreations of ‘ the com- 
mon file.” There is too much of this both in 
town and country; and we are sorry to see, 
what we think our gentry may some time 
or other have cause to be sorry for them- 
selves, that the expansion and the splen- 
dour of their mansions is too frequently 
accompanied by a walling out of the very 
eyes of the commonality from all partici- 
pation in the improvements which their 
taste and expenditure are spreading around 
themselves. Here, a lofty rampart is 
erected around their demesnes— there, a 
path across their parks, which for centuries 
has shortened the way of the rustic la- 
bourer from village to village, is to be shut 
up by these new improvements, or turned in 
circuitous direction, lest asmock-frock, or 
a patched jacket, should come “ between 
the wind and their nobility.”’ This is not 
meeting the spirit of the age—this is not 
the way to endear the higher to the lower 
classes of the community. Nor are we 
much enamoured with the letter-writer’s 
project for a Committee of Taste to super- 
intend the improvements o/ the metropolis, 
although Sir C. Long should be at the 
head of it: because we believe that such a 
committee (like all other committees of 
government appointment) would, ultimate- 
ly, become a mere political job; and that 
taste would have much less influence in its 
operations than party interests, and per- 
sonal considerations and intrigue. 
Monthly Review of Literature. 
[Oct. 1, 
Memwirs of the Court of France, from the 
Year 1684 to the Year 1720, now first 
translated from the Diary of the Marquis 
de Dangeau, with historical and critical 
Notes. 2 vols. 8vo.—We are gorged to 
satiety with Memoirs of the Court of Louis 
XIV.; and disgusted with the evidence, 
that there are even Englishmen who can 
make that frivolous oppressor and reckless 
homicide still a sort of idol; and gild 
him with the name of great. He was a 
king of drawing-rooms—but a Jaggernaut 
also : aroyal BeauNash, who, unfortunately 
for mankind, had the revenues of a great 
nation to dispense, in his mastership of the 
ceremonies ; and what he could not expend 
in the gaudy luxuries of the saloon, and his 
revels, he had talent enough to exhaust in 
the worst possible way—in the parades of 
slaughter, and the splendours of desola- 
tion. Fora part of his reign, indeed, he 
contrived to be popular; for the vulgar 
(great and small) are fond of raree-shows ; 
and he took care they should have plenty 
of these. They found, however, at last, 
that they had been “ paying too much for 
their whistle ;” and the name of the Grand 
Monarque, towards the close of this long 
reign, was meditated on at least, if not 
breathed, with “‘ curses not loud but deep.’’ 
His death was a theme of universal gratu- 
lation ; and the nation mourned in exulting 
smiles. There are drivellers, however, 
among us, (dead to the feelings of humanity, 
and dazzled by the toys and gewgaws with 
which the childishness of matured, as well 
as of infant years, can continue to be 
amused), who still continue to prattle 
about magnificence, and patronage of arts, 
and splendour of courts, and dancing- 
school urbanity, and liberality to flatterers 
and to toad-eaters, and Asiatic pomps, and 
covering a nation with gorgeous palaces— 
and can gravely doubt whether these do 
not more than counterbalance the miseries 
with which he overwhelmed so large a por- 
tion of the human race—subjects, as well as 
the people of foreign realms. Commerce 
and manufactures flourished, we are told, 
during his reign. Yes, for awhile, they 
did: but the people starved, and his prodi- 
gality turned the fountains of wealth and 
prosperity into sources of bankrupt misery 
and embarrassment. The arts flourished, 
also, beneath his sway: they did so, as far 
as they could minister to adulation and the 
indulgence of royal vanity. But what 
owes the world of art even, that it ought 
to be proud of, to the patronage of Louis 
XIV.? The gallery of the Luxembourg, 
in which the unfading colours of Rubens 
still dazzle the eye in all the adulatory 
splendour of profane and incongruous alle- 
gory, shews that this species of patronage 
waited not for birth from the quickening 
munificence of this bedizened monarch. 
The city-like palace of Versailles, in which 
forty thousand dependants and retainers, 
of all ranks and classes, fawned and fed 
(while 
: 
