209 TRAVELS, AND MANNERS OF NATIONS. DESCRIPTION OF THE LADIES OF PARIS. THE From H. M. Williams' Letters. HE fetes of the court, it is afferted by the few perfons remaining in France, by whom they were frequented, were but tawdry fplendour compared with the claffical elegance which prevails at the fetes of our republican contracters. As a fpecimen of these private balls, I fhall trace a short sketch of a dance lately given by one of the furnishers of stores for fleets and armies, in bis fpacious hotel, where all the furniture, in compliance with the prefent fashion at Paris, is antique; where all that is not Greek is Ro man; where stately filken beds, maffy fophas, worked tapestry, and gilt ornaments, are thrown afide as rude gothic magnificence, and every couch resembles that of Pericles, every chair thofe of Cicero ; where every wall is finished in arabefque, like the baths of Titus, and every table, upheld by Caftors and Polluxes, is covered with Athenian bufts and Etrufcan vafes; where that modern piece of furniture a clock is concealed beneath the claffic bar of Phoebus, and the dancing hours; and every chimney-iron is fupported by a sphinx, or a griffin. The dress of his female vifitors was in perfect harmony with the furniture of his hotel; for although the Parifian ladies are not fufpected of any obftinate attachment to Grecian modes of government, they are most rigid partizans of Grecian modes of drefs, adorned like the contemporaries of Afpafia-thè loofe light drapery, the naked arm, the bare bofom, the fcandaled feet, the circling zone, the golden chains, the twisting treffes, all display the most inflexible conformity to the laws of republican coftume. The most fashionable hair-dreffer of Paris, in order to accommodate himself to the claffical taste of his fair customers, is provided with a variety of antique bufts as models; and when he waits on a lady, enquires if the chufes to be drest that day à la Cleopatre, la Diana, or la Pfyche? Sometimes the changeful nymph is a vestal, sometimes a Venus; but the last rage has been the Niobé, of late fat and lean, gay and grave, old and young, have been all à la Niobe; and the many-curled periwig, thrown afide by the fashionable clafs, now decorates the heads of pretty fhop-keepers. The fair Grecians being determined not to injure the contour of fine forms by fuperfluous incumbrances, no fashionable lady at Paris wears any pockets, and the inconvenience of being without is obvi ated by sticking her fan in her belt, fliding in a flat purse of morocco leather, only large enough to contain a few louis, at the fide of her neck, and giving her fnuff-box and her pocket-handkerchief to the care of the gentleman who attends her, and to whom the applies for them whenever fhe has occafion. D D For a fhort time during the winter, in defiance of frost and fnow, the coftume of a few reigning belles was not à la gree, but à la fauvage. To be dreffed à la fauvage, was to have all that part of the frame which was not left uncovered clad in a light drapery of flesh colour. The boddice, under which no linen was worn, (fhifts being an article of drefs long fince rejected at Paris, both by the Greeks and the favages) the boddice was made of knitted filk, clinging exactly to the fhape, which it perfectly difplayed; the petticoat was on one fide twisted up by a light feftoon; and the feet, which were either bare or covered with a filk ftocking of flesh colour, fo woven as to draw upon the toes like a glove upon the fingers, were decorated with diamonds. Thefe gentle favages, however, found themselves fo rudely treated whenever they appeored, by the fovereign multitude, that at length the fashions of Otaheite were thrown aside, and Greece remains the ftanding order of the day. But to return to the contractor, and his ball-after feveral hours had paffed in dancing cotilions, which the young women of Paris perform with a degree of perfection-a light nymphish grace unfeen elsewhere-and after the walfe, which is now never forgotten at a Paris ball, had proved that the ftedy heads of Niobés were not to be made giddy, the company were led to a supper furnished with eastern magnificence, and decorated with attic taste. After fupper the folding doors of the faloon were thrown open to a garden of confiderable extent, beautifully illuminated with coloured lamps, and its trees bending with lavish clusters of fruits of every feafon, and every climate, formed of ice, while fountains poured forth ftreams of orgeat, lemonade, and liqueurs. But while thefe imitators, of Greece and Rome are revelling in Afiatic luxury, you hear them lamenting most pathetically the fubverfion of the ancient regime; that regime which would at least have had thus much of juftice, that it would have retained these perfonages in the anti-chambers of the faloons they now occupy; to which anti-chambers they would with a counter-revolution most probably return. One is obliged to offer up an invocation to patience, when condemned to listen to their declamations against that new order of things to which folely they owe their elevation.' Thofe who have been too rapidly enriched by the revolution have endeavored to hide the obfcurity of their origin, by mimicking the tones of those who have titles and honors to regret, till aristocracy has defcended fo low, that it will foon perhaps be exploded, like any other fashion, when taken up by the vulgar. Many of the fair wives of titled emigrants, or blooming widows of murdered nobles, who have made fuch fecond marriages, that we might well apostrophize them in the language of Hamlet : "Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Makes marriage vows As falfe as dicers' oaths." Thefe very ladies, who have taught their new-made liege-lords to ape their counter-revolutionary follies, will at length be ashamed of their aristocracy, when they find how fuccefsfully they are rival led in those fentiments by their milliners and mantua-makers. A writer of a late political pamphlet has given an admirable reafon why our Parifian belles will foon lay afide the tone of eternal lamen tations for the overthrow of defpotifm. "Seven years," fays he, "have already elapfed fince the epocha of the revolution: feven years is a period of fome length in the history of a youthful beauty, and a lady will foon not be able to regret the monarchy, under the penalty of paffing for old." I believe every perfon who has studied the female heart, will agree with this writer, that the republic has a tolerable chance upon this principle of obtaining ere long many fair profelytes. The fans, fparkling with fpangled fleurs de lys, will then be brok en; the rings, bearing the infignia of royalty, will be melted down; and the porte feuilles, and bon-bonnieres, with their fliding-lids, difplaying the forbidden images of regal greatnefs, will no longer be borne about in a fort of triumphal manner, not from a fentiment of forrow, by those who, attendant on their perfons, and basking in their fmiles, are privileged to difplay more than that general regret for their unhappy destiny which humanity feels; but from a fenfation of vanity by thofe, who perhaps never breathed the fame atmofphere; never, even at awful distance, gazed upon the originals of thofe pictures which they now affect to cherifh as the tender memorials of peculiar favour. These relicks, we may venture to predict, will be offered up in one mighty facrifice at the fhrine of the repub. lic, the moment it is well understood that to be a republican is to be young. Public balls, as well as concerts, were held last winter at the Theatre Français, which, after having been long fhut up, was repaired, embellished, and baptized by the Greek name of the Odeon; and that no jealoufy might exift between the balls and concerts, on account of this claffical nomenclature, the balls immediately received the appellation of thiafes. But the moft fingular fpecies of amufement which the laft winter produced were fubfcription-balls, entitled des bals á la victime. Such, and fo powerful was the rage for pleasure, that a certain number of its votaries, who, during the tyranny of Robefpierre, had loft their neareft relations on the scaffold, inftituted, not days of fuch folemn, fad commemoration, as is dear to the fuperftition of tendernefs, when, in melancholy proceffion, clad in fable, and wreathed with cyprefs, they might have knelt, a mourning multitude, around the fpot where the mutilated bodies of their murdered parents had been thrown by the executioner; and bathed the fod with thofe bitter tears which filial affection, or agonized love, fhed over the broken ties of nature, or of paffion-no !-the commemorative rites which thefe mourners offered to the manes of their maffacred relations, were feftive balls! To thefe ftrange, unhallowed orgies, no one could be admitted who had not loft a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a brother, or a fifter, on the guillotine; but any person with a certifi cate of their execution in his pocket-book, not only obtained admiffion, but might dance as long, and as merrily as heart could wish. Had Holben been present at fuch a spectacle, no doubt he would have enriched his death-dance with new images, and led forward each gay nymph by an attendant headless fpectre. The indignant cry of public opinion, however, was at length heard above the music of the walfe and the cotillon; and the bal à la vigime exifts no longer to bear its powerful teftimony to a depravation, not merely of manners, but of the heart. TH ON PORTUGUESE SCULPTURE. From Murphy's Travels in Portugal. HE new Square, or Praça do Comercio, in Lisbon, is fix hundred and fifteen feet long, by five hundred and fifty feet broad, bounded on three fides by buildings, and on one fide by the Tagus. The north wing is occupied by the royal exchange and custom-house. A continued arcade extends the whole length of the wing, which affords communication with the feveral offices and ftores. In the distribution of these apartments, both externally and internally, convenience and strength are all the architect appears to have had in view, and indeed very little more is neceflary for any custom-house. Here are no palaces for commiffioners to dwell in, nor dark cells for clerks to write in, nor cellars floating with water to hold dry goods; whoever wishes for these improvements, will find them, and a great deal more, in the new cuftom-houfe of Dublin. Equeftrian Statue of Jofeph I. In the centre of the above fquare is an equestrian statue, of bronze, of Jofeph the firft; a work of no inconfiderable merit, and the only one of the kind that was ever erected to any of the sovereigns of Portugal. The marquis de Pombal was the promoter of this work; intending thereby to hononr his royal master, and at the fame time to add a sprig of laurel to his own brow. The portrait of his minifter, executed in bronze, was placed on the fide of the pedeftal, but it continued there no longer than he maintained his power; it was torn down immediately when he loft his master and his place, by those who a few days before paid homage to the original. We cannot but admire the indifference he evinced when informed of this circumftance: I am glad of it, faid he, for it was not like me. When we confider the humble ftate of the arts in Portugal, and the difficulty of executing fuch a magnificent statue, we must allow that great praife is due to thofe who had the conducting of it. The model was made by a sculptor named Joaquim Machado de Caftro, who alfo defigned and executed the emblematic groups at the fides of the pedestal. It is from the latter every artist and amateur will judge of the merits of this fculptor, particularly the group at the north fide, which must be allowed to poffefs great tafte, delicacy, and fpirit. The figure and the horse are alfo very noble productions; but in cafts of this kind we must not look for excellence in the detail, as the delicate touches of the chifel are always loft in the foundry; if the general form and the masses will bear the teft of criticifm, we can expect no more, and in this respect De Caftro has acquitted himself in a masterly manner. Nor has Bartholomew de Cofta, the founder of this ftatue, been deficient of abilities, as far as related to his part; he caft the whole in one piece, without failing even in a fingle member; a circumstance which, one excepted, has not, perhaps, occurred in any other work of the kind of equal magnitude, fince the restoration of the art of cafting equestrian statues in bronze. And yet I am not certain if this be not larger than the exception we allude to; namely, the equestrian statue of Louis the fourteenth, in the Place de Vendome at Paris; which, if it ftill exist, is twenty-one French feet in height, and was caft in one piece by Balthazar Keller, a native of Zurich. But De Cofta not only caft the above ftatue, but also conveyed it from the foundry, and raised it on the lofty pedestal on which it ftands. The fculptor and founder are both natives of Portugal; the latter has been honoured and rewarded for his ingenuity, by being promoted to the rank and pay of brigadier in the fervice; and it is allowed by all who know him, that his talents do honour to that high rank. But Mechado de Caftro, the fculptor, who has an undoubted claim to the principal merit of the work, as the defigner and modeller of it, is neglected and forgotten: indeed, there is not one Portuguese in a thousand who knows that he was the author of it; and though his talents entitle him to be ranked with the first artists of the age, he is fcarcely known in his native country. true, that his majefty created him a knight on that occafion; but fince then he has been left to pine in obfcurity in an attic cell. A fhort time before I left Lifbon I was affured, from refpectable authority, that he petioned a gentleman high in office to have the floor of his wretched apartment repaired. It is Portugal, like Ireland, is become celebrated for the manner in which at all times fhe has treated her native fons of diftinguished merit. We find in the annals of both nations men, whofe works have enlightened fucceeding generations, perfecuted, defpifed, and the rays of fcience given to illumine mankind, expiring in a prifon or an hofpital, like an exhaufted lamp. The great prince Henry was reviled and fcorned by those who confidered themselves as the great men of his country, as Galileo was by the Italians, and looked upon as an aquatic knight errant, whilft (to speak in the language of allegory) |