67B Motithli/ Review of Literalure. [^Dec. 



good education, so long as he preserves his ' character' (reputation) dexterously, 

 passes for a ' perfect gentleman.' In the exclusive society of London there are 

 j^et finer ' nuances.' A man, for instance, who were to manifest any timidity or 

 courtesy towards women, instead of treating them in a familiar, confident, and 

 ' nonchalant' manner, would awaken the suspicion that he was ' no gentleman ;' 

 but should the luckless man ask twice for soup at dinner, or appear in evening dress 

 at a breakfast, which begins at three in the afternoon and ends at midnight — he 

 may be a prince and a ' millionnaire,' but he is ' no gentleman.' " 



Or this? — "The manners here are so old-fashioned, that the master of the 

 house every day drinks to ray health ; and we have no napkins at table, for 

 which pocket handkerchiefs, or the corners of the table-cloth, are obliged to 

 serve as deputies." 



Or this — when some scare-crow of an Irish lad shewed the Prince the way to 

 some sight? — "To see this figure scramble over the rocks like a squirrel, singing 

 all the while bits of ' Tommy' Moore and Walter Scott, was certainly charac- 

 teristic. As he led me to the cave, at a point where the passage was rather 

 slippery, he cried, ' Oh, you can come on very well ; I brought Sir Walter Scott 

 here, and he climbed over the worst places, though he had a lame foot.' He 

 could talk of nothing else ; and recited rapidly four lines which Scott or Moore, 

 I forget which, had composed in the cavern," &c. This is little like si. foreigner' s 

 mistake, but very like one of the " Row." 



Does this, again, speak the foreigner ? — " The common people in England 

 care little about rank — about foreign rank nothing. It is only the middle classes 

 that are servile ; they are delighted to talk to a foreign nobleman, because they 

 cannot get at their own haughty aristocracy. The English nobleman, even the 

 least of the lords, in the bottom of his heart, thinks himself a greater man than 

 the King of France." This is true to the letter — but scarcely discoverable by the 

 passing foreigner. 



" One of the oddest customs (at church) is, that every body during the short 

 prayer at coming and going turns himself to the wall, or into a corner, as if he 

 were doing something not fit to be seen." — Very like an English jibe. 



Poor Lady Morgan, with all her good nature, gets shewn up — every whipster 

 thinks her fair game. She was projecting a tour through Germany, and " Sir 

 Charles," the Prince says, " begged him (the Prince) to get his philosophical 

 work trarislated, that he might not figure in Germany only as his wife's aide- 

 de-camp, but fly on his own wings." While iu Ireland, he visited O'Connellj 

 at Derrinane Abbey, and gives an animated sketch of the then grand Agitator — 

 tells extraordinary tales of the Earl of K. and sundry others, many of them 

 gathered from Harrington's Memoirs. 



After describing at some length the misery, &c. of Ireland, he concludes 

 thus : — 



" Such is Ireland ! Neglected or oppressed by the government, debased by the 

 stupid intolerance of the English priesthood, and marked by poverty and the poison 

 of whisky, for tlie abode of naked beggars ! — I liave already mentioned that even 

 among the educated classes of this province, the ignorance appears, with our notions 

 of education, perfectly unequalled : I will only give you one or two examples. To-day 

 something was said about magnetism, and no one present had ever heard the slight- 

 est mention of it. Nay, in B m, in a company of twenty persons, nobody knew 



that such places as Carlsbad and Prague existed. The information that they were 

 situated in Bohemia did nut mend the matter : — Bohemia was not less unknown ; 

 and, in short, everytliing out of Great Britain and Paris was a country in the moon. 

 ' And where do you come from ?' asked one. — ■'■ From Brobdignag,' said I in jest. 

 — ' O ! is that on the sea ? Have they whisky there ?" asked another. The son 

 of my host, whom I have repeatedly mentioned, asked me one day very seriously 

 as we met some asses, whether there were any such animals in my country ?— 

 ' Ah ! but too man}',' replied I." 



Come from what quarter it may — and possibly it may still be genuine — the 

 book is one of the most lively and amusing we have seen for some time. 



