clad in a plain, clean, pilgrim's garment, a straw hat upon his head, the staff in his hand, a wooden ladle with which to drink in his girdle, and provided by friends and kindred with all necessaries for his journey, he secures his house from pollution by an admonitory cord, and sets forward. Carefully he guards his purity on the road, and every where finds quarters where external inscriptions promise him reception and welcome. On reaching the shrine, he visits the temples, under the guidance of a Kami priest, there performs the prescribed devotional rites, and receives written absolution, called oho-harari, from the chief priest.

In every house there is a small miya, (oratory,) before which burns a lamp; and flower-pots, together with sacrificial vessels, containing offerings of tea, cakes, clean rice, and the like, are placed. In every garden there is a somewhat larger miya, dedicated to a patron Kami. Here pious Japanese pray morning and evening; and never do they sit down to a meal without giving thanks. Large temples are called Yasiro; and they are thus described.

Yasiros are usually erected on agreeable sites. . . . They consist, in addition to the main temple, of a number of chapels, and other buildings, allotted to various purposes connected with religion. They are approached through a peculiar kind of triumphal arch, and celebrated, much frequented temples have several such arches. . . . The edifice and decorations are intermingled with gardens, skilfully laid out, pieces of water, groves, and clumps of trees; the whole resembling a sacred grove, such as the imagination may conceive to be the abode of a deity.

...

Large open vestibules or halls precede or surround the temple, serving as places of rest and recreation for pilgrims and others. The main temple, however large, is extremely plain, built entirely of wood, and, it is said, after the model of the original Miya, at Ise. It rests upon posts, raising it, at least, six feet from the ground, is encircled by a balustrade, approached in front by a broad flight of steps, and covered with an overhanging roof of shingles, straw, or reeds. . . . At the entrance is a stone basin full of water, where the approaching worshipper washes his hands, no one being supposed so pure or clean as not to require this small lustration. . .

The houses of the priests stand within the grounds of the temple.. The priests, called Kaminusi or Kannusi, meaning landlords of the gods, are married; their wives are priestesses, and have their allotted proper offices in the rites of religion.

The votary, duly washed, gravely advances to the porch or the open gallery under the eaves, where, with a knotted cord, he strikes a bell, and thrice claps his hands, thus announcing his presence to the Kami, whom he is come to worship. Then, either standing at the entrance, with head reverently bent and folded hands, or else prostrate on the mat, he offers up his silent prayer or thanksgiving, or his simple expressions of veneration for the Kami of the temple. After which he deposits money in a cash-box, the proceeds of which constitute the chief support of the priests attached to the Yasiro, and departs.

The temples contain no idols. The only symbol of divinity that they exhibit is the Gohei, which consists of strips of paper. Besides this is seen a metal mirror, designed to intimate the purity and clearness of soul required by the Kami in their votaries.

The pollution of a pilgrim's home during his pilgrimage would render this act of devotion, we believe, worse than nugatory.

We apprehend that the word clearness, (Klarheit,) which does not appear perfectly intelligible as here used, must mean clearness from trouble or grief, as most writers upon Japan agree that it is contrary to all Sintoo principles to disturb the Kami, by approaching their temples with a sorrowful heart, a happy frame of mind being the most acceptable offering.

It might have been supposed that a religion upon and in which the government of the country is founded would be exclusive. But this has not proved the case in Japan. It has been seen that Christianity and the zealous missionaries were freely tolerated, that their success in making converts was viewed with indifference, until a usurping Ziogoon, not the essentially Sintoo sovereign, the heir and representative of the sun goddess, the Mikado, saw in them the political enemies of himself and his dynasty. Buddhism and the doctrines of Confucius were similarly admitted, and have not been similarly put down. The latter is, indeed, only the creed of the learned and polished; but Buddhism, though it cannot be said to have superseded the Kami-worship, since this national religion is, and must be, professed by every individual Japanese, the Buddhist priests themselves scarcely excepted, has so blended, so incorporated itself with this national religion, as to have much altered and corrupted its character, introducing, amongst the noxious innovations, the worship, or at least the use of idols. The Kami worship itself is now split into sects. Some of the priests only are said to be still pure Sintoos; the great body of the nation being of the sect termed Ricoboo Sintoos, answering to Eclectic Sintoos. This may now be called the prevalent religion of Japan; but there are in the country numerous other sects, of differently blended portions and degrees of Kami worship and Buddhism, the lower orders following the most Buddhist and most idolatrous; but all Japanese, as before said, are, and must be, Kami worshippers, and pilgrims to the sun-temple at Ise.

MANNERS OF THE PARISIANS.

Maurs Parisiennes. (Parisian Manners.) By Ch. Paul de Kock. Vols. 5, 6, 7, and 8. Paris, 1839.

In the happy delineation of social peculiarities, in the faithful portraiture of the characteristic differences which distinguish his countrymen from the rest of the great European family, Paul de Kock must be admitted to stand pre-eminent, if not altogether unrivalled. Nor is it in the choice of his subject, or in the general treatment of that subject alone, that the secret of his descriptive power would seem to reside. This latter excellence is rather to be estimated in those occasional, by no means un

frequent, masterly and exquisite touches of wit and observation, by which a whole class is embodied and condensed in the individual; and the feelings, the peculiarities, the foibles, and, it may be, the virtues, of any given portion of society, concentrated in the action or expression of one. Unlike the majority of writers who have laboured in this department of descriptive art, he does not, for the mere purpose of effect, fasten on the exception, or rely, for a questionable and precarious success with his readers, on the meretricious aid of opposition and strong contrast. Hence the breadth, the genial tone, and general resemblance of his portraits of society-the truth and universal applicability of his individual characters. Do we wish for the striking and comprehensive description of a very numerous class of the Parisian people, we find it in his " Grisettes ;" if for the peculiarities of a less considerable, because now nearly extinct, but still existing and easily recognizable portion, the aged survivors of the ancien regime, the consulate, and the empire, who, in the seclusion of their self-imposed retreat, have, like Rip van Winkle, allowed the world and its inhabitants to change, but have neglected to change with it, and are consequently bewildered on their once again emerging from their long-continued slumber into the former scenes of their youth and splendour, turn we to the good "Viellard de la Rue Mouffetard."

It is only, however, when disporting in his proper element, his own legitimate chaos, as old Burton would express it, the living vortex of French manners and peculiarities, that Paul de Kock is thus happy and pre-eminent. There are other depths, in which he no sooner ventures than he either sinks or flounders about at random. His attempts at delineation of the English character, for instance, are invariably and egregiously defective and unfortunate. That his English characters, which, by the way, he is fond of introducing, should, in every case, be conceived in the spirit of sarcasm and ridicule, is not our ground of complaint, as we are well disposed to make all reasonable allowance for national prejudice and misconception; but, in all these instances, his usual tact and powers of observation would appear to be at fault; his Englishmen are every thing but English witness the somewhat laboured attempt at humour, the character of "Lord Boulingrog," in the "Misadventures of an Englishman," in the fifth volume before us. Nor is our author a whit more fortunate in another of the tales, or rather sketches, namely, of "Sir Hasting," wherein the main pleasantry of the character appears to consist in the exclamation of "Goddem!" and the occasional mispronunciation by him of the French language, as "un particoulourité," and " il était superior!" &c.; our author, no doubt as a sweeping characteristic of the English character in general, describing, moreover, "this Englishman" as having "abundance of

vanity, and, like all his countrymen, being especially desirous of excelling the French in every thing.

But as our present object is rather a survey of his excellences in the description of French manners than a criticism of his minor defects, among which we are aware that a certain licence of detail, more especially in his earlier productions, may perhaps be reckoned, but from which the later efforts of his pen are comparatively free-an amendment which, without any mawkish affectation of severity, we observe with satisfaction-we return to his lively sketches of "Parisian Manners." And here we may remark that, in exact ratio with the excellence we have before assigned to him in the delineation of local peculiarities and national habits, is the difficulty of a correct, or, indeed, a tolerably accurate translation of his style increased. There are few French writers that present, on this head, so many difficulties as does Paul de Kock; and it is to the absence of a correct acquaintance with the delicacies and peculiar idioms of the language of his novels, an intimate acquaintance which necessarily falls to the lot of but few translators, that we must look for the failure of the few attempts that have, from time to time, been made at an English version of some of his numerous works.

"The Schoolmaster of Couberon" is a sketch, in De Kock's best style, of the adventures of a village pedagogue, whose egregious vanity and ambition of display induce him to quit the seclusion of his village occupation, to refuse the advantageous matrimonial offer made to him by the father of one of his rustic female pupils, and to accept that of a would-be fine lady and basbleu, in order that, by dint of his learning and pedantry in the capital, he may draw upon himself the notice of the government, and obtain the appointment of superintendent of public instruction at the very least.

M. Mathias was a man about forty years of age, diminutive, thin, and with a stoop in his gait, contracted by long babits of study and application, a peculiarity which, at a distance, made him appear deformed. His features were strongly marked, his eyes small and grey, his nose large, his mouth wide, compressed, and frequently ironical in its expression; his hair was already turning grey, and becoming scanty on the middle of his forehead; in a word, M. Mathias might, without calumny, be said to be decidedly ugly; and yet, when his features brightened up with animation as he spoke, when the love he bore to learning gave warmth to his discourse, then would his eyes become brilliant, his cheek lose its habitual paleness, and the whole of that face, so little attractive and agreeable but a few minutes before, become of a sudden almost captivating, so much of life and expression did it then assume.

M. Mathias was but a poor schoolmaster in the village of Couberon. For his scholars he had but a few little peasant boys and girls, who left the school so soon as they had learned to read a little and to write indifferently. All this was a source of tribulation to M. Mathias, who had passed his life in study, and who would have wished, at least, that the treasures of science, which he had amassed, might have proved profitable to others, as they had failed to be so to himself-for M. Mathias was very poor; he had expended the little money he possessed in the purchase of books; he had studied whilst others

were diverting themselves. Then age had advanced upon him without his perceiving it, for time flies quickly with the studious. In a word, M. Mathias had found himself compelled, for an existence, to turn schoolmaster at Couberon.

But M. Mathias, who was proud of his acquirements, had his own day. dreams and self-illusions, a weakness from which the learned are not more exempt than the rest of the world. He had said to himself, when he first undertook the superintendence of the little village-school at Couberon: "By dint of patience and exertion I shall produce scholars who will be talked of in the world. The peasants of this village will no longer express themselves in rude and unpolished phrase, as do all those of the environs of Paris; this will cause remark; people will be anxious to ascertain the reason of this exception to the general rule. When a ploughman is heard speaking Greek, or a milkwoman offering her cream for sale in Latin, every one will be for having the phenomenon explained; they will trace it to its source, and then it will shortly be known that there exists, in the modest and unassuming little village of Couberon, a man of learning, versed in all the sciences, and possessing in his brain a whole encyclopædia of knowledge. They will seek ne out in my retreat; for people will say: A man of universal learning is not formed to vegetate among churls and peasants.' I shall have places and appointments offered me, and I shall distinguish myself by my acquirements; I will enter the Academy, and complete their Dictionary. I will send presentation copies to all the sovereigns of Europe, at the same time requesting them to read one page of it at least every day. Each of them will present me with an order of knighthood, a ribbon, or a pension; and I confess I don't exactly see where my fortune is to stop."

Unluckily for M. Mathias, nothing whatever of the kind had come to pass. His scholars had not nibbled at science, however well baited. When he had spoken to them of the Greek roots, they had imagined that he was talking about carrots and turnips; when he had attempted to teach them Latin, they had fallen asleep; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he had succeeded in teaching them a little French. Nevertheless, the villagers entertained a great veneration, a profound respect, for their schoolmaster, whom they looked upon and recognised as a personage infinitely superior to themselves. They would listen to him with pleasure of an evening, when, assembled together in the delightful woods of Montfermeil, or beneath the aged trees of the forest of Chelles, they reposed, for a short time, from their labours of the day. Then would M. Mathias sometimes take his seat amidst the gaping peasants, and address them :

"Chelles, in former times, possessed a splendid abbey. It was there that Chilperic deposited his treasures for safe custody. But, long before that time, on the very spot where we are now, dwelt the Druids who gave oracles. ... But the most famous oracle of all was that of Delphos ... although the ancient sibyl of Cumæ had also a great reputation. She left nine volumes on the subject of her art. A worthy old woman, who had found them, carried them to the elder Tarquin, at Rome. As he drove too hard a bargain, she threw six of them into the fire, and asked the same sum of money for the three remaining. They were consumed in a conflagration of the Capitol."

Some of the peasants would look at each other with staring eyes; but many more would shut their's; or, perchauce, one of them, taking advantage of a pause made by M. Mathias, would venture to exclaim:

"Ah, indeed! and so they burned the oracles... in the . . . And d'ye think now we shall have rain to-morrow, Monsieur Mathias?"

The schoolmaster would thereupon sigh heavily, or, perhaps, shrug his shoulders; but the pleasure of displaying his erudite learning would quickly gain the mastery over his vexation .....

Some little time after this, a pretty country-house, situated between Couberon and Montfermeil, was purchased by a lady of some forty years of age, named Madame Dubois. She was the widow of a rich merchant. She had