in
which their sole aim is to shine, pigmies are more tolerated than
giants, as people prefer looking down to looking up!

Lord Allen and Sir Andrew Barnard dined here yesterday. They appear to
enter into the gaiety of Paris with great zest, go the round of the
theatres, dine at all the celebrated _restaurateurs_, mix enough in the
_beau monde_ to be enabled to observe the difference between the
Parisian and London one, and will, at the expiration of the term
assigned to their _sejour_ here, return to England well satisfied with
their trip and with themselves.

Lord A---- has tasted all the _nouveaux plats a la mode_, for at Paris
new dishes are as frequently invented as new bonnets or caps; and the
proficiency in the culinary art which he has acquired will render him
an oracle at his clubs, until the more recent arrival of some other
epicurean from the French capital deposes his brief sovereignty.

But it is not in the culinary art alone that Lord Allen evinces his
good taste, for no one is a better judge of all that constitutes the
_agremens_ of life, or more _au fait_ of the [* omitted word?] of
contributing to them.

Sir A. B----, as devoted as ever to music, has heard all the new, and
finds that the old, like old friends, loses nothing by comparison. It
is pleasant to see that the advance of years impairs not the taste for
a refined and innocent pleasure.

CHAPTER XXI.

Mr. Rogers and Mr. Luttrell spent last evening here. The minds of both
teem with reflection, and their conversation is a high intellectual
treat to me. There is a repose in the society of clever and refined
Englishmen to be met with in no other: the absence of all attempts to
shine, or at least of the evidence of such attempts; the mildness of
the manners; the low voices, the freedom from any flattery, except the
most delicate and acceptable of all to a fastidious person, namely,
that implied by the subjects of conversation chosen, and the interest
yielded to them;--yes, these peculiarities have a great charm for me,
and Mr. Rogers and Mr. Luttrell possess them in an eminent degree.

The mercurial temperaments of the French preclude them from this
calmness of manner and mildness of speech. More obsequiously polite and
attentive to women, the exuberance of their animal spirits often
hurries them into a gaiety evinced by brilliant sallies and clever
observations. They shine, but they let the desire to do so be too
evident to admit of