stuccoed on the outside: their roofs are covered with red tiles; and almost every window has a balcony, ornamented with architraves, or some other design. It is true that the city itself bears no kind of comparison with London in point of cleanliness and comforts; still the architecture prevailing in the palaces, theatres, and other public buildings of a modern date, possesses a boldness and magnificence superior to our own capital. Many of their façades are adorned with handsome projecting porticos of different orders, as may have been thought most suitable to the building to which they belong: and if they are not altogether unobjectionable in point of architectural purity, they are, nevertheless, much to be preferred to any of the modern structures even in Rome and other Italian cities. The habitations (or hotels as they are called in France) of persons of distinction are usually entered through a wide gateway, which leads to the court-yard within, and thence to the various apartments; as is the case in Florence, and other places on the continent. The interior streets of the city are very narrow; but the suburbs or boulevards which surround it are wide and spacious, and by having rows of trees on each side of them they assume, in some instances, the resemblance of a grove or mall. In rainy weather, the water drops from the roofs of the houses for want of water-pipes, in a manner very annoying to pedestrians; and the want of a foot-pavement for the safety and accommodation of those who walk, appeared to me a serious inconvenience in a large and populous city. In the night-time the streets are extremely dark, arising

from the small quantity of lamps allotted to them, which are suspended in the middle of the highway in a very singular manner-that is, by a rope stretching from one house to the other opposite. The lamps are let down by a pulley to be lighted; so that carriages are compelled to stop for a while, if they happen to be passing at that time. The rope is fastened and locked up in an iron funnel or case, which is fixed in the wall of the house, five or six feet from the ground, and which no person can open but the lamplighter.

The Seine is about 400 feet wide on an average, handsomely banked with large freestone, and runs through the metropolis, dividing it into two parts, which communicate with each other by nine bridges; those which lead to the small island called la Cité, in the middle of it, are very inconsiderable. This river often contains but a small quantity of water, which appears thick and muddy and being, at the same time, very narrow, when compared with the noble Thames it cannot be said to be much better than a ditch; likewise the water it affords is reckoned unwholesome for drinking.

Among all the Bridges at Paris, the only one that appeared to me in any degree remarkable is that opposite the place of Lewis XV. which consists of five arches of avery light construction;-they form segments of a circle, and are so extremely flat, that the centre arch, whose span is eighty-eight feet, only rises eleven feet from the springing. The side-arches bear the same proportions. On the top of the bridge is a handsome balustrade; and against the

piers, which are eleven feet wide, are circular buttresses all the way up.

The first great object of public attention, particularly to foreigners and artists, is the central museum, or the immense gallery of the Louvre; containing such a collection of paintings as is not, and I might almost dare to say never was at any former period of the world, to be seen at one view together. Let any person imagine a room 1500 feet in length, and the whole of the walls on each side hung with the most choice and celebrated pictures of every description, selected from the first galleries in the Italian states, combined with the productions of other countries-and the conception alone must amaze him. The width of the room bearing no proportion whatever with the length, when viewed at either of the extreme ends, the perspective makes it appear as if you were looking through a telescope.

In different parts of the gallery young artists are seen labouring from morning till night, in laudable endeavours to imitate the works of those great masters which are before them. At all reasonable times they have free access to this exhibition, and are permitted to take into the gallery their easels, and other implements necessary for the prosecution of their studies.

Considering these extraordinary means of improvement, it is but natural to suppose that the progress in the art of painting must be rapid at Paris: yet were I called upon to give a fair and impartial opinion on the works of the existing artists in France, I should, without wishing to de

grade the one or magnify the other, declare them to be, in my own judgment, many years behind the Academy of this kingdom in almost every branch of this arduous profession. Again, in travelling through Italy, experience soon teaches that no examples, however excellent, will lead the student to perfection, unless they be accompanied with real genius. Thus we see the Italian painters of the present day the merest daubers in the world, with the most perfect specimens of the first masters continually before their eyes: and yet, in times past, the schools of Italy have produced the ablest painters, sculptors, and architects; of which we need no other proof than those renowned works they have left behind them—the everlasting monuments of their fame!

But, to return to the gallery.-Magnificent as the sight of this prodigious collection must appear to every beholder, he cannot help lamenting, in some degree, the means by which the larger part of it was acquired....." The gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples," the sacred altars, the silent convents, the public buildings, and the private dwelling, all have been plundered and profaned to make up the sum and measure of this most stupendous spectacle! Nor can a lover of the arts, from motives of a very different nature, refrain from regret, when he feels, which he must do the moment he enters the gallery, that it is not calculated to display this most valuable and splendid assemblage even to moderate advantage. On each side it has windows which come within three or four feet of the floor; so that the rays of

light nearly form right angles with the pictures opposite, instead of being thrown upon them in some more oblique direction; and the pictures hung against the piers, between the apertures, have but just light enough, bad as it is, to shew their subjects, not in the least the brilliancy of their colouring. I never could view a picture under these circumstances with any degree of satisfaction.Now, if the light could not have been introduced from above, still the effect might have been greatly improved by dividing the whole length of the gallery into separate chambers, and shutting up the lower part of the windows; then the paintings might have been placed against the cross-partitions, by which means they would have received the light in a much more advantageous manner: and a door-way being left in the centre of each room, the vista of the gallery might have been preserved; while the extent of the object, in my own opinion, would rather have been increased than diminished by the endless suit of apartments visitors must have passed through,

To attempt any thing by way of illustration of the pictures would be absurd, as their names alone are numerous enough to fill a volume. Raphael, Guido, Rubens, Titian, Paul Veronese, Corregio, Claude de Lorrain, Pousin Vandyke, Holbeen, Rembrandt, Julio Romano, Caracci, Teniers, Wouvermans, Lebrun, and nearly all the celebrated painters of a former age, have contributed to this display of genius. I cannot, however, forbear mentioning one of the paintings in particular, because I think it has not its equal in