his great city, the capital of an
extensive, populous, and wealthy district we have witnessed acting so
wretched, as would disgrace the floor of a village barn. We have been
much surprised by seeing the performers repeatedly laugh in the face of
the spectators, a thing which I should least of all have expected in
France, where usually, in similar cases, the whole nation is tremblingly
alive to the slightest violations of decorum. And yet Corneille, the
father of the French drama, was born in this city: the scene that is
used for a curtain at the theatre bears his portrait, with the
inscription, "_P. Corneille, natif de Rouen_;" and his apotheosis is
painted upon the cieling. These recollections ought to tend to the
improvement of the drama. The portrait of the great tragedian is more
appropriate than the busts of Henry IVth and Louis XVIIIth, which occupy
opposite sides of the stage; the latter laurelled and flanked with small
white flags, whose staffs terminate in paper lilies.

Corneille and Fontenelle are the citizens, of whom Rouen is most proud:
the house in which Corneille was born, in the _Rue de la Pie_, is still
shewn to strangers. His bust adorns the entrance, together with an
inscription to his honor. The residence of his illustrious nephew, the
author of the _Plurality of Worlds_, is situated in the _Rue des bans
Enfans_, and is distinguished in the same manner. The whole _Siecle de
Louis XIV_, scarcely contains two names upon which Voltaire dwells with
more pleasure.--Rouen was also the birth-place of the learned Bochart,
author of _Sacred Geography_ and of the _Hierozoeicon_; of Basnage, who
wrote the _History of the Bible_; of Sanadon, the translator of Horace;
of Pradon, "damn'd," in the Satires of Boileau, "to everlasting fame;"
of Du Moustier, to whom we are indebted for the _Neustria Pia_; of
Jouvenet, whom I have already mentioned as one of the most distinguished
painters of the French school; and of Father Daniel, not less eminent as
an historian.--These, and many others, are gone; but the reflection of
their glory still plays upon the walls of the city, which was bright,
while they lived, with its lustre;--"nam praeclara facies, magnae
divitiae, ad hoc vis corporis, alia hujuscemodi omnia, brevi dilabuntur;
at ingenii egregia facinora, sicuti anima, immortalia sunt. Postremo
corporis et fortunae bonorum, ut initium, finis est; omnia orta occidunt
et aucta senescunt: animus incorruptas, aeternus, rec