, and
the subordinations of civil society. These are all prohibited; and are
replaced by fustian declamations, tending to promote anarchy and discord
--by vulgar and immoral farces, and insidious and flattering panegyrics
on the vices of low life. No drama can succeed that is not supported by
the faction; and this support is to be procured only by vilifying the
Throne, the Clergy, and Noblesse. This is a succedaneum for literary
merit, and those who disapprove are menaced into silence; while the
multitude, who do not judge but imitate, applaud with their leaders--and
thus all their ideas become vitiated, and imbibe the corruption of their
favourite amusement.

I have dwelt on this subject longer than I intended; but as I would not
be supposed prejudiced nor precipitate in my assertions, I will, by the
first occasion, send you some of the most popular farces and tragedies:
you may then decide yourself upon the tendency; and, by comparing the
dispositions of the French before, and within, the last two years, you
may also determine whether or not my conclusions are warranted by fact.
Adieu.--Yours.

Arras.

Our countrymen who visit France for the first time--their imaginations
filled with the epithets which the vanity of one nation has appropriated,
and the indulgence of the other sanctioned--are astonished to find this
"land of elegance," this refined people, extremely inferior to the
English in all the arts that minister to the comfort and accommodation of
life. They are surprized to feel themselves starved by the intrusion of
all the winds of heaven, or smothered by volumes of smoke--that no lock
will either open or shut--that the drawers are all immoveable--and that
neither chairs nor tables can be preserved in equilibrium. In vain do
they inquire for a thousand conveniences which to them seem
indispensible; they are not to be procured, or even their use is unknown:
till at length, after a residence in a score of houses, in all of which
they observe the same deficiencies, they begin to grow sceptical, to
doubt the pretended superiority of France, and, perhaps for the first
time, do justice to their own unassuming country. It must however, be
confessed, that if the chimnies smoke, they are usually surrounded by
marble--that the unstable chair is often covered with silk--and that if a
room be cold, it is plentifully decked with gilding, pictures, and
glasses.--In short, a French house is generally more sho