Opera, are either German or Italian; and it will place French pretensions in rather a ludicrous point of view, when it is known that even their Comic Opera is indebted for most of its best music to Italians: Cherubini, Nicolo, Dellamaria, and others of less note! One name they possess, and one of which they may well be proud-GRETRY, the gay, the tender, the witty, the unaffected. Nor must Mehul and Boildieu be forgotten. But if a national reputation for excellence in any particular art may be obtained by the possession of two or three men of a certain genius, whose works, and, perhaps, whose names are unknown out of the country which gave them birth, then might England herself stand boldly forth, nor fear to come successfully out from the struggle for musical superiority over her boasting and uncompromising rival. But England must be content to rest her fame on the simplicity, tenderness, truth, and beauty of her ballad tunes; while that of France must not aspire beyond her Romances, and those little Vaudeville airs, so admirably adapted to the expression and effect of epigrammatic couplets.*

A real lover of the Arts loves them for their own sake. With him a fine picture is still a fine picture, whether it be Italian, English, French, or Dutch. He decides on its merits before he enquires about its school. He entertains no exclusive prejudices in favour of the Arts of his own country. Not so the French. They talk eternally about the Fine Arts, but their ideas seldom wander beyond the Fine Arts of France. They appear almost to be ignorant of their present existence beyond the walls of Paris. Even the classic names in painting are scarcely ever alluded to but as comparisons, generally to the advantage of their own artists. A mere inspection of any of their reviews of their works of art will prove this; and there it may be seen how every pigmy, who bespatters an enormous

canvas with outrageous mixtures of scarlets, violets, yellows, blues, and greens, is immediately upheld as the vanquisher of a Paul Veronese, and the equal, at least, of Raphael. The grand tableau is the subject of every one's thoughts and conversation for at least a week, or till it is cast into shade by another grand tableau a foot higher or wider, and nothing else is to be heard of but the supremacy of the French in the Fine Arts. That the French attempt much in matters of art is not to be denied, nor can it be contested that their efforts are often rewarded with a certain degree of success; but that they have attained to that point of superiority of which they are unceasingly boasting, and which, upon their own bare assurance, they would have the rest of Europe accord to them, may be disproved by the slightest examination of any thing they have yet produced.

They set forth their gallery of the works of modern French artists, at the Luxembourg, as a collection of their best; surely, therefore, they cannot accuse us of unfairness in selecting it as an example. Now will any one picture there stand a comparison with the works of any of the great Italian masters? Decidedly not. It may be objected that this is a hard and an unfair test: but, no: the unlimited pretensions of the French authorise us in judging them by a severe standard; and when they stun us with their boasts of the unrivalled productions of the French school, we may be allowed to reject David, Gérard, or Girodet, as the points of perfection (though all men of considerable talent) and to appeal to Titian, Guido, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.

With respect to their Exhibition lately closed, comprising the result of three years' labour, it is not too much to say, that it was the worst collection of pictures ever brought together for public inspection. We have oc

ing,in history, not even one worthy of selection-it is necessary, in order to render this sketch of the present state of the Fine Arts in France complete (and not the less so for being a rapid one) to notice their claim to superiority in three of the minor departments of Fine Art,-Medalling, Miniature painting, and Painting on Porcelain. In these their superiority is willing ingly acknowledged, because it is justly merited. The French medallists are unrivalled; in all the various kinds of miniature portrait-painting they excel; and in the very difficult art of copying pictures on porcelain (if we except the Chinese, who, for truth of imitation and brilliancy of colour, excel even the French) they surpass all other people in the world. The French have lately taken it into their heads to boast of their superiority over other nations (and with a particular reference to the English) in the useful arts! This boast is rather a novel and a very unexpected one; and, while we wish them the full enjoyment of all the pleasure they can derive from it, we must admit that they deserve high praise for the attempts they are making, and the habits of useful industry they begin to appear desirous of acquiring. A quarter of a century back, the whole circle of their useful labours embraced the manufacture of snuffboxes, tooth-pick cases, and scented pomatums. The beauty and perfection of these articles acquired for them a reputation tout-à-fait Euro péenne, and, even to this day, these are the objects in which they particularly excel. But the Revolution having scattered vast numbers of Frenchmen about various countries of Europe, chiefly in England, these ingenious people soon perceived the inferiority of their own country in all those arts and institutions which promote the comfort of life, and confer dignity on man. English snuffboxes, it is but too true, were ill-fashioned and clumsy; English toothpick cases in the very worst taste; and English pomatums, to say the best of them, detestable; but the constitution of England, her wise and equal laws, the unparalleled charms of English domestic life, and above all, her useful, well-directed, and productive industry, excited their admiration, and they, naturally an imita

tive people, diligently set about the task of imitation. The present peace, by facilitating the communication between the two countries, has been of considerable advantage to them. Their legislators, their men of science, their artists and artisans, have visited England; her laws have been explained, her manufactories exposed to them; English social life, its very mechanism (so to express it), has been laid open to their inspection, and from all these they have had the good sense to profit. But like Voltaire, who after pilfering the best scenes of his best plays from Shakspeare ridiculed and abused him,-as a thief (to use Mrs. Montague's powerful illus tration) sets fire to the house he has robbed to prevent detection,-most of these gentlemen, who have greatly benefited their country by the information in various matters freely afforded them, have gratified their illconcealed jealousy of their instructors by the publication of a little volume or a little pamphlet-full of slander and misrepresentation. This, however, may, in some instances, be accounted for in a way less discredit. able to the French character than would, at first sight, be supposed; it is not always to be attributed to an ungracious or ungrateful return for the hospitality accorded them, nor to a wilful bias towards misrepresentation: the truth is, that many very intelligent Frenchmen who have visited England and written about it are totally ignorant of the languagea circumstance which must necessarily involve a traveller in the grossest errors and misconceptions; and some other persons, the mere hirelings of the book-stalls of the Palais Royal, have set about their task with three eminent disqualifications-ignorance, want of understanding, and their own rank in life,-which latter has bounded their views of English society, manners, &c. to what the streets, the third or fourth-rate coffee-houses, or an introduction to some servants hall through a lucky acquaintance with the French cook or valet, may have afforded them. But to quit this digression.

If the French do not excel in the Useful Arts, they deserve praise for what they have hitherto accomplished, and the desire (apparently a seri ous one) they evince to do more. It

and so long as it was deserved it was unaffectedly acknowledged by every other nation. It was freely admitted, and in its fullest force, by the English themselves; and through the period of the Revolution, and till the conclusion of the last peace, La politesse Française remained a phrase traditional in England as it is still in France. Now the circumstance which has most forcibly struck the most enlightened travellers from all quarters, who have visited France within the last few years, expecting to find the people the paragon of politeness, is the enormous depth below their reputation at which they actually are placed. This is to be accounted for in three ways:-first, people depend less upon hearsay than formerly; they judge with their own eyes; they take nothing upon trust, and describe things as they find them;-secondly, other nations are greatly advanced in politeness, a circumstance in itself sufficient to render the distinction less obvious;—and lastly, French politeness is really fast decaying. This is a melancholy truth, but a truth it is. So far, indeed, as politeness is the work of the dancing-master, they are still super-eminent: they bow, and sidle, and shuffle, and grimace, and in conversation use an abundance of unmeaning phrases, the conventional signs of politeness; but this is not the true quality; it is merely poli, polish, an artificial quality communicated to the surface, and which does not exist beneath it. The very word itself, poli, they use indifferently to express polite and a polished outside; and are not aware that mere manners alone no more constitute politeness, than mere gloss does the value of a metal. The true politeness is a combination of delicate feeling with good

lite: the foreigner, unless he be a fool, perceives that the comparison is made to his disadvantage,-that he is held as an inferior in the estimation of the Frenchman,-and consequently becomes ill at ease with himself, for a time at least. A polite Frenchman will not hesitate to abuse a whole nation, for some supposed inferiority to the French, in the very face of a native of it; and considers that the terms of French politeness are amply fulfilled if he concludes by assuring Monsieur," that he is charmed and delighted with him, and that he has the honour of declaring that he is a very striking exception to the general rule." Now here the blow has been struck-the amour propre of the foreigner has received a wound:-he feels that his country is undervalued, and the shallow exception gives him no pleasure. The politeness is formal and conventional; the incivility is real. Yet this the French do not consider as incompatible with what they call politeness. Now a polite Englishman, if he cannot say a civil thing, will be silent. It is needless to multiply instances; but an anecdote related by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in which true and false politeness are exquisitely distinguished, may not be misplaced here.

- an intuitive sentiment of kindness and propriety. It is unpretending. A polite man, by a natural impulse, as it were, and without any manifestation of effort, at once sets you at ease with yourself and with him. This, modified into a thousand various forms, is the general effect of politeness. Does French politeness perform this? Without hesitation it may be answered-No.

The very

boast a Frenchman will make to a foreigner about French politenessno matter for the form of words in which it may be conveyed-is impo

Reynolds, when a young man and just rising into notice, was invited by two noblemen to call upon them. He went to the first, was announced, and with great ceremony ushered into my lord's presence, who, with many profound bows, expressed his deep sense of the honour Mr. Reynolds had done him. He instantly conducted the painter round the room, obligingly pointed out his best pictures to him, requested his opinion of them, and listened to him with the most condescending attention. The visit lasted for nearly an hour, and my lord conversed with him all the time about Vandyke and pictures, pictures and Vandyke, and when Reynolds took his leave my lord even bowed him to the very hall door. He went away deeply impressed with a sense of his lordship's condescen sion towards a painter- towards a man of his own comparative littleness. He paid his next visit. He found the nobleman in his library, who just receiving him with "Ha! Mr. Reynolds, I'm very glad to see you,"