oor. The fact is, there is no religion in Paris; even clever
M. Philipon, who satirizes everything, and must know, therefore, some
little about the subject which he ridicules, has nothing to say but,
"Preach a sermon, and that makes a religion; anything will do." If
ANYTHING will do, it is clear that the religious commodity is not in
much demand. Tartuffe had better things to say about hypocrisy in his
time; but then Faith was alive; now, there is no satirizing religious
cant in France, for its contrary, true religion, has disappeared
altogether; and having no substance, can cast no shadow. If a satirist
would lash the religious hypocrites in ENGLAND now--the High Church
hypocrites, the Low Church hypocrites, the promiscuous Dissenting
hypocrites, the No Popery hypocrites--he would have ample subject
enough. In France, the religious hypocrites went out with the Bourbons.
Those who remain pious in that country (or, rather, we should say, in
the capital, for of that we speak,) are unaffectedly so, for they have
no worldly benefit to hope for from their piety; the great majority have
no religion at all, and do not scoff at the few, for scoffing is the
minority's weapon, and is passed always to the weaker side, whatever
that may be. Thus H. B. caricatures the Ministers: if by any accident
that body of men should be dismissed from their situations, and be
succeeded by H. B.'s friends, the Tories,--what must the poor artist do?
He must pine away and die, if he be not converted; he cannot always be
paying compliments; for caricature has a spice of Goethe's Devil in
it, and is "der Geist der stets verneint," the Spirit that is always
denying.

With one or two of the French writers and painters of caricatures, the
King tried the experiment of bribery; which succeeded occasionally in
buying off the enemy, and bringing him from the republican to the royal
camp; but when there, the deserter was never of any use. Figaro, when so
treated, grew fat and desponding, and lost all his sprightly VERVE;
and Nemesis became as gentle as a Quakeress. But these instances of
"ratting" were not many. Some few poets were bought over; but, among
men following the profession of the press, a change of politics is an
infringement of the point of honor, and a man must FIGHT as well
as apostatize. A very curious table might be made, signalizing the
difference of the moral standard between us and the French. Why is the
grossness and indelicacy, publicly