uently, gets upon stilts and assumes an air of pretentious
affectation. The writer has evidently forgotten, in her over-scrupulous
regard for the artistic and picturesque, that nothing is so attractive
as simplicity. And Madame d'Aunet is always most charming when she is
most natural--that is, when she is herself; when she writes
spontaneously, and fully possessed by her subject, without casting
anxious glances at the reader to see if he admires this polished period
or catches that apt allusion. Therefore, we are compelled to indicate as
a defect--which, if not very great, might as well have been avoided--a
certain affectation and coquetry of style, displaying the solicitude of
the artist rather than the frank simplicity of the story-teller.
Something of this fault the English reader notes in Mr. Kinglake's
"Eoethen."

In speaking of Belgium and Holland, Madame d'Aunet lets drop some
felicitous expressions, some pregnant and rememberable phrases, which
give the reader an exact idea of the manners of the inhabitants and of
the land they dwell in. The touch is delicate, but always firm and
true.

As to the Hollanders, she says:--

"These people have not the love of cleanliness, but its cultus."

Referring to the two Dutch towns which are the most rigorously watched
over, she says:--

"Saardam is a page, and Broek a vignette, from the history of Holland.

"The people of Broek have neither the taste for, nor the love of,
cleanliness; it is with them a fanaticism, a fetichism. A certain means
of ensuring from them a favourable reception is the avoidance, not of
vices, but dirt."

In Norway, Madame d'Aunet visited Christiania, Drontheim, and other
localities; but it is Man rather than Nature that interests her. Nor did
she penetrate far enough inland to gain a satisfactory conception of the
character of the Norwegian scenery. In the heart of the Dovrefeld
Mountains are grand and sublime landscapes of peak and ravine, cataract
and forest, not inferior to the most famous scenes in Switzerland.
Norway can boast of the finest waterfall in Europe: that of the
Maan-ily, or Riukan-foss, which is as majestically beautiful as the
cascade of Gavarni or the falls of Schaffhausen--which, indeed, has
sometimes been compared to Niagara itself.

Mons. Gainvard's expedition quitted Hammerfest, the northernmost town in
Scandinavia, and after a voyage of some weeks in duration, approached
the gloomy coast of ice-bound Spitzbergen. Th