the story with variations in at least fifty books, every author having been present at the time. We may pass over the sneering chapter M. Lecomte devotes to M. Jullien and his success, for there is no doubt the monsieur did us a good deal of good in a musical point of view, and we do not think it becomes a compatriot to treat him so de haut en bas. At any rate, Jullien has shown his taste by being grateful for the patronage he received among us, and has not repaid us by insult, as so many of his countrymen have done. The mention of Jullien naturally leads our author to a consideration of our public amusements, and he very comically expresses his surprise that, though it is only one shilling to go to Cremorne Gardens, the "tottle" swells up wofully ere you have entirely "seen the elephant.” But the entrance ticket only affords you the restricted pleasure of walking about a space limited by boards, hedges, and beds of flowers. To see the balloon on the adjoining green, one shilling; to see the menagerie, shilling; to sit down in the kiosque, shilling; to hear the band, shilling; the circus, shilling; the wild woman, shilling; and so on. If you are thirsty, sundry shillings; if you are hungry, many shillings. So that, unless you are alone (and how could you go alone?), multiplying the persons by all these shillings, you soon realise the story of Hop-o'-my-Thumb with the pebbles. The reference to food and drink calls up their antidote, medicine, which M. Lecomte declares is brandy among us. When in Italy, some native ladies he was in company with, on being offered a cup of tea, politely replied, "Thank you, we are not ill." But in England tea shares with beer equal rank as a beverage, as a digestive for the vast quantities of beef eaten. But brandy, as we said before, is the universal remedy. But, after all, M. Lecomte does not come up to a writer on England, whose work came across us the other day, and who gravely states that at lords' tables the water decanters are always filled with gin, to spare the blushes of the ladies, who would not like to be seen drinking ardent spirits. Although M. Lecomte professes such an aversion to England, it is plain that he must have visited our country several times, for he was intimately lié with Count d'Orsay, whose character he very tenderly appreciates. Still, that does not prevent him telling a malicious anecdote about him, which is too amusing to be omitted: D'Orsay owed some hundreds of pounds to a silversmith in the City. This debt annoyed him. A rich Indian arrived from Calcutta, who talked about buying a service of plate, and the count introduced him to his creditor. Our Indian orders nearly 10,000l. worth, and the order is executed in a few weeks. Well, one fine morning he disappears. Great alarm on the part of the silversmith, who falls back on the introducer of the decamped nabob. Hence, endless scenes, and lastly, disquieting menaces for the liberty of the count. At length, one morning-I witnessed the scene—the silversmith falls flat on his debtor and guarantee, with eyes starting from his head: he insists on being paid, or, unless he receives the bond of a lord he named that very day, M. le Comte would be condemned not to set foot outside Gore House except on Sunday. Now, it was in June, the fashionable season par excellence. D'Orsay reflected in his bath, while the silversmith, all scarlet, vociferated in the cabinet, and pointed out the seedy bailiffs, who were already blockading the house. "So, I have said it, Sir Count," the man with the silver hot-dishes shouted, "this evening at five I must have Lord P.'s guarantee, or you will pass the season invested in Gore House. My bloodhounds will not allow you even to breathe the fresh air in Kensington Gardens." And the tone was most insolent. The count was still reflecting, and said not a word. The silversmith was about to leave, and had already clapped on his hat. Suddenly D'Orsay bounded from his bath. "Stay!" he exclaimed; "it is useless to think about Lord P.'s guarantee. We have quarrelled. But I have something far better. You shall be satisfied.” The tradesman stops and takes off his hat. D'Orsay, dripping with water like a Triton, takes up a knife from a writing-table, and walks up to a glass case containing a general's uniform. "You see that coat," he said, as he opened the door, "this embroidery, these decorations? In that coat my father died! It is sacred to me like the uniform in which Nelson was killed aboard the Victory, a relic shown at Greenwich Hospital." The silversmith looked, without exactly knowing what would come of it, and already somewhat mastered by these great words and the count's commanding tone. "Well?" he muttered. "Well, I have decided to make a great sacrifice to satisfy you. Take this," he added, cutting the thread which fastened one of the buttons, and handing it majestically to his creditor, who was palsied with surprise. That is one of the nine buttons which served to fasten this noble coat across my father's chest. I entrust to you the one nearest his cross of honour-a cross Lord Byron gave him, and which was found on the field of Waterloo. Come, that is worth more than the guarantee of all the lords in the three kingdoms. Before a month you shall be paid." And, after saying this, the count goes back to his bath, turns quietly to me, and says: "You were speaking, I believe, of the Lord Mayor's show ?" "But-but suppose you do not pay me in a month ?" the creditor murmured, very timidly. "Well, then-then you can keep the button of my father's uniform," D'Orsay said, pulling the bell, and indicating the tradesman to the valet, who lugged him away. I could not but admire such a use of the gift of fascination. The count's grand air, his almost desperate act, his confiding and resolute tone, the great words and great names-uniform, general, father, cross, embroidery, Nelson evoked, and Byron and Waterloo mixed up in the affair-all this had fascinated, subjugated the City Jew; he went away, without venturing to say the security was not good, and he was in the right. A fortnight later the Indian, who had only made a sudden trip to Scotland, turned up again, paid everything, and D'Orsay wrote me that he had had the button sewn on again, near the cross of honour. We have reached our limits, or we might cull many more amusing extracts. One must suffice to show that our author is perfectly satisfied with the impartiality he has displayed as regards England: On arriving at the last page of these sketches, I ask myself if I have exaggerated in any degree, and I reply to myself, No! I have looked at London life, such as it appears to a continental, brought up to other manners and customs, fashioned in other tastes, animated by other instincts. I have certainly not dreamed of contesting the political grandeur, the industrial power, the financial force, and rare nationality of mind. But I proclaim England sterile in everything that forms the intellectual, elegant, artistic life of our Continent; and I declare it all iron and coal. Beyond that it is only a copyist without conviction; it has neither ears to hear, nor eyes to see. It pays musicians and painters exorbitantly, but it only purchases them the vain pleasure of appearing to understand them. Besides, the country is a deplorable abode for any man who was not born in it. There, neither the body nor the mind is at ease. I only need one proof, more eloquent than anything I can say; and that proof is a fact. You never find a Frenchman, German, Russian, or Eastern, fixed in England for his pleasure. The Continent, on the other hand, pullulates with English, who, having made a fortune, hasten to fly their country, and enjoy among us the pleasures of existence. Let those who have found my remarks too caustic reply to that. A word in parting, M. Lecomte. You and certain of your countrymen cannot help recognising the superiority of England, and you set to work with malice prepense to blacken us. You must look at us through darkened glasses, for our grandeur, like that of the sun, dazzles your weak vision. You are thousands of leagues behind us in the path of progress, and you cannot hide the fact from yourselves; while you know that the few miles of blue water dividing us from you are an impassable barrier for your vaunted cohorts. If you cannot conquer us fairly as man to man, you try to ridicule us; but it is only like the viper biting the file. You may say what you please of Englishmen; hold them up to ridicule, calumniate them, draw the most exaggerated caricatures of them and their habits, and they forgive it all. All the revenge we take, in the name of the nation, is to lay your statements before the readers of Bentley, and we have no doubt that they will be received with the hearty laugh they deserve. LOVE ME LESS OR LOVE ME MORE. BY J. E. CARPENTER. WHY thus leave me madly doubting, Is thy heart with grief o'erladen ? I have lived, and can, without thee- 493 NOTES ON THE IONIAN ISLANDS. CORFU. CORFU, that most beautiful of islands, the gem of the Ionian cluster, the island which the Venetians, who held possession of it for more than three centuries, called the "Fior di Gioventù," or "the blossom or the enjoyment of youth"-whose surface is either planted with numerous groves of olive-trees, or covered with continuous tracts of vineyards, and in whose most deserted parts the myrtle groves take the place which in other less favoured regions is abandoned to the bramble or the weeds of rank luxuriance-whose plains are rich with all the culture of the corn, flax, and vegetable productions or fruits which can thrive in a most prolific soil-is a place which, of all others, I call to mind as the most favoured by Providence of any, if we except the islands which are under the sway of Great Britain's queen. Of the extent to which the plantation of the olive is carried one may fancy the greatness when one considers that the Venetians, during the time of their sovereignty over it, gave a premium of one dollar-at that time a large sum-to every individual who planted an olive-tree. The ease with which the small plant was obtained, and the cupidity of the Greeks, was such, that it is constantly affirmed there that ten millions of olive-trees are now growing in the island of Corfu. Beneath their shade the roads, which during summer are so hot when unsheltered, make the most agreeable and delightful walks, and lead to many scenes which form most favourite resorts of the English inhabitants. Of these I recollect principally Paleo Castruzzi and Panta Leone. The numerous bays which lie on the eastern side of the island are favourable for those who enjoy during summer the sailing in the yachts which are usually kept near the harbour, in a mooring called the Mendrachio. The names of the small harbours which are most frequented are Benizzia, Callichiopoli, Govino, Fort Molyneux, and a large harbour which is above it, and Ipso. There are some others between this last and the extreme point to the east of the island, which are also great resorts. The harbour of Cassope, which is the most eastern point, and but two or three miles from the coast of Albania, was fortified during the time of the Venetian sway by a large fortress, which has been allowed to go to decay. In all these small craft can lie commodiously, and it is the principal resource of the English military and residents to repair to one of them during the heat of the day in summer, and, taking their provisions with them, to pass the day under the shade of the olive-trees, and exchange the hot closeness of the town for the freshening breeze of the country. The beautiful scenery, the wild range of the Albanian hills, rude, rugged, and, even up to the month of June, having their tops covered with snow; the calm, beautiful, dark purple of the surrounding sea; the view of San Salvador, clothed to its summit with olive-trees, stretching nearly across the north part of the island; the island of Vido, lying in the centre of the bay, forming its grand fortification; the prospect varied by the island scenery, which comprises so many groves of the olive, mingled with the cypress, the ilex, and wild myrtle; the varied outline of the views in the interior, all these are seen from the different places of harbourage which I have cited. At the summit of each of the highest points of view in the landscape is to be seen a small chapel, or convent, always situated, in conformity to Greek custom, in the most secluded spot that can be found, but not on that account less visited or held sacred by the worshippers of the Patriarchal Church. Indeed, it may frequently be noticed by the traveller in Greece that a small open box is left by the door of one of these small places of worship, containing coins, which those who "pay the passing tribute" of respect to religion deposit voluntarily, without the fear of their being taken up by any one, such is the reverence paid to their religion by a people, in other respects, neither exemplary in moral feeling nor in honesty. The aqueduct, which conveys the water from a mountain stream in the country to the town of Corfu, is an admirable contrivance, for which the Corfiotes are indebted to Sir Frederick Adam. Of the town of Corfu the principal part worthy of note is the esplanade, or green, which lies between the town and the citadel. The series of houses on the side nearest the town is ornamented by arcades, which afford a most grateful shade in the summer, and which are quite spacious enough for foot-passengers. They are supported by lofty pillars, and remind one of the arcades which surround the Piazza di San Marco in Venice. On the eastern side of the esplanade is the palace inhabited by the lord high commissioner, which is built of Maltese stone, and the interior of which is roomy, and the chambers laid out in magnificent style, but the exterior has no particular grace. The extended plain is used chiefly by the military for their practice in drill during the morning, and for the playing of their band in the afternoon. The walks which lie on the south are plentifully planted with beautiful geraniums, aloes, and exotic shrubs, and form a pleasant lounge for the inhabitants of the town. A walk, planted with high elm-trees, leads from the town to the citadel, and at the end of this is a fine statue of the famous Schullemberg, who made such an admirable defence of the town when it was besieged by the Turks in 1716, that the histories state twenty thousand Moslems fell victims, and the general of the Turkish forces had to withdraw finally from the harbour. There is also, at the western end, just before the road leading to Castrades, a statue of the Sir Thomas Maitland to whom we were first indebted for the organisation of the Ionian government, and a statue of whom is to be seen also at Zante and at Cephalonia. It is very remarkable that at the outskirts of the town the only few gardens which are at all cultivated with vegetables or fruits for the table are in the hands of some industrious Maltese; and industry is one of the qualities which seems altogether wanting in the ingredients of the Corfiote character. Certainly nature does so much for the soil, that their love of indolence is fostered by seeing with how little exertion they can earn the means of subsistence; also the number of holidays and saints' days which occur during the year, and on which none of them will work, is opposed to the regular habits of industry habitual to the inhabitants of most other parts of the globe. The town is well fortified, and what with the inland sides being pro |