The French are either not fond of, or they do not much patronise, engraving in the stippling manner: "au poinctilliet"--as they term it. Roger is their chief artist in this department. He is clever, undoubtedly; but his shadows are too black, and the lighter parts of his subjects want brilliancy. What he does "en petit," is better than what he does upon a larger scale." In mezzotint the Parisians have not a single artist particularly deserving of commendation. They are perhaps as indifferent as we are somewhat too extravagantly attached, to it. Speaking of the FRENCH SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING, in a general and summary manner--especially of the line engravers--one must admit that there is a great variety of talent; combined with equal knowledge of drawing and of execution; but the general effect is too frequently hard, glittering, and metallic. The draperies have sometimes the severity of armour; and the accessories, of furniture or other objects, are frequently too highly and elaborately finished. Nor is the flesh always free from the appearance of marble. But the names I have mentioned, although not entirely without some of these defects, have great and more than counter-balancing excellences.
In the midst of all the graphic splendour of modern Paris, it was delightful music to my ears to hear WILKIE and RAIMBACH so highly extolled by M. Bénard. "Ha, votre Wilkie--voilà un génie distingué!" Who could say "nay?" But let BURNET have his share of graphic praise; for the Blind Fiddler owes its popularity throughout Europe to his burin. They have recently copied our friend Wilkie's productions on a small scale, in aqua-tint; cleverly enough--for three francs a piece. I told Benard that the Duke of Wellington had recently bespoke a picture from Mr. Wilkie's pencil. "What is the subject to be?"--demanded he, quickly. I replied, in the very simplicity of my heart, "Soldiers regaling themselves, on receiving the news of the victory of Waterloo." Mons. Bénard was paralised for one little moment: but rallying quickly, he answered, with perfect truth, as I conceive "Comment donc, TOUT EST WATERLOO, chez vous!" M. Bénard spoke very naturally, and I will not find fault with him for such a response; for he is an obliging, knowing, and a very pleasant tradesman to do business with. He admits, readily and warmly, that we have great artists, both as painters and engravers; and pointing to Sharpe's John Hunter and The Doctors of the Church--which happened to be hanging just before us--he observed that "these, efforts had never been surpassed by his own countrymen." I told him (while conversing about the respective merits of the British and French Schools of Engraving) that it appeared to me, that in France, there was no fine feeling for LANDSCAPE ENGRAVING; and that, as to ANTIQUARIAN art, what had been produced in the publications of Mr. Britton, and in the two fine topographical works--Mr. Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire," and. Mr. Surtees' Durham--exhibited such specimens of the burin, in that department, as could scarcely be hoped to be excelled.[197] M. Bénard did not very strenuously combat these observations. The great mart for Printselling is the Boulevards; and more especially that of the Boulevards Italiens. A stranger can have no conception of the gaiety and brilliance of the print-shops, and print-stalls, in this neighbourhood. Let him first visit it in the morning about nine o'clock; with the sun-beams sparkling among the foliage of the trees, and the incessant movements of the populace below, who are about commencing another day's pilgrimage of human life. A pleasant air is stirring at this time; and the freshness arising from the watering of the footpath--but more particularly the fragrance from innumerable bouquets, with mignonette, rose trees, and lilacs--extended in fair array--is altogether quite charming and singularly characteristic. But my present business is with prints. You see them, hanging in the open air--framed and not framed--for some quarter of a mile: with the intermediate space filled by piles of calf-bound volumes and sets of apparently countless folios. Here are Moreri, Bayle, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, Charpentier, and the interminable Encyclopédie: all very tempting of their kind, and in price:--but all utterly unpurchasable--on account of the heavy duties of importation, arising from their weight.
However--again I say--my present business is with Prints. Generally speaking, these prints are pleasing in their manner of execution, reasonable in price, and of endless variety. But the perpetual intrusion of subjects of studied nudity is really at times quite disgusting. It is surprising (as I think I before remarked to you) with what utter indifference and apathy, even females, of respectable appearance and dress, will be gazing upon these subjects; and now that the art of lithography is become fashionable, the print-shops of Paris will be deluged with an inundation of these odious representations, which threaten equally to debase the art and to corrupt morals. This cheap and wholesale circulation of what is mischievous, and of really most miserable execution, is much to be deplored. Even in the better part of art, lithography will have a pernicious effect. Not only a well-educated and distinguished engraver will find, in the long run his business slackening from the reduced prices at which prints. are sold, but a bad taste will necessarily be the result: for the generality of purchasers, not caring for comparative excellence in art, will be well pleased to give one franc, for what, before, they could not obtain under three or five. Hence we may date the decline and downfall of art itself. I was surprised, the other day, at hearing DENON talk so strongly in favour of lithography. I told him "it was a bastard art; and I rejoiced, in common with every man of taste or feeling, that that art had not made its appearance before the publication of his work upon Egypt." It may do well for
"The whisker'd pandour and the fierce hussar"--
or it may, in the hands of such a clever artist as VERNET, be managed with good effect in representations of skirmishes of horse and foot--groups of banditti--a ruined battlement, or mouldering tower--overhanging rocks--rushing torrents--or umbrageous trees--but, in the higher department of art, as connected with portrait and historical engraving, it cannot, I apprehend, attain to any marked excellence.[198] Portraits however--of a particular description--may be treated with tolerable success; but when you come to put lithographic engraving in opposition to that of line--the latter will always and necessarily be
... velut inter ignes
LUNA minores!
I cannot take leave of A CITY, in which I have tarried so long, and with so much advantage to myself, without saying one word about the manners, customs, and little peculiarities of character of those with whom I have been recently associating. Yet the national character is pretty nearly the same at Rouen and at Caen, as at Paris; except that you do not meet with those insults from the canaille which are but too frequent at these first-mentioned places. Every body here is busy and active, yet very few. have any thing to do--in the way of what an Englishman would call business. The thoughtful brow, the abstracted, look, the hurried step.. which you see along Cheapside and Cornhill ... are here of comparatively rare appearance. Yet every body is "sur le pavé." Every body seems to live out of doors. How the ménage goes on--and: how domestic education is regulated--strikes the inexperienced eye of an Englishman as a thing quite inconceivable. The temperature of Paris is no doubt very fine, although it has been of late unprecedentedly hot; and a French workman, or labourer, enjoys, out of doors--from morning till night those meals, which, with us, are usually partaken of within. The public places of entertainment are pretty sure to receive a prodigious proportion of the population of Paris every evening. A mechanic, or artisan, will devote two thirds of his daily gains to the participation of this pleasure. His dinner will consist of the most meagre fare--at the lowest possible price--provided, in the evening, he can hear Talma declaim, or Albert warble, or see Pol leap, or Bigotini entrance a wondering audience by the grace of her movements, and the pathos of her dumb shew, in Nina.
The preceding strikes me as the general complexion of character of three fourths of the Parisians: but then they are gay, and cheerful, and apparently happy. If they have not the phlegm of the German, or the thoughtfulness of ourselves, they are less cold, and less insensible to the passing occurrences of life. A little pleases them, and they give in return much more than they receive. One thing, however, cannot fail to strike and surprise an attentive observer of national character. With all their quickness, enthusiasm, and activity, the mass of French people want that admirable quality which I unfeignedly think is the particular characteristic of ourselves:--I mean, common sense. In the midst of their architectural splendor--while their rooms are refulgent with gilding and plate-glass; while their mantle-pieces sparkle with or-molu clocks; or their tables are decorated with vases, and artificial flowers of the most exquisite workmanship--and while their carpets and curtains betray occasionally all the voluptuousness of eastern pomp ... you can scarcely obtain egress or ingress into the respective apartments, from the wretchedness of their locks and keys! Mechanical studies or improvements should seem to be almost entirely uncultivated--for those who remember France nearly half a century ago, tell me that it was pretty much then as it is now. Another thing discomposes the sensitive nerves of the English; especially those of our notable housewives. I allude to the rubbishing appearance of their grates--and the dingy and sometimes disgusting aspect of carpets and flowered furniture. A good mahogany dining table is a perfect rarity[199]--and let him, who stands upon a chair to take down a quarto or octavo, beware how he encounter a broken shin or bruised elbow, from the perpendicularity of the legs of that same chair.
The same want of common-sense, cleanliness, and convenience--is visible in nearly the whole of the French ménage. Again, in the streets--their cabriolet drivers and hackney coachmen are sometimes the most furious of their tribe. I rescued, the other day, an old and respectable gentleman--with the cross of St. Louis appendant to his button-hole--from a situation, in which, but for such a rescue, he must have been absolutely knocked down and rode over. He shook his cane at the offender; and, thanking me very heartily for my protection, observed, "these rascals improve daily in their studied insult of all good Frenchmen." The want of trottoirs is a serious and even absurd want; as it might be so readily supplied. Their carts are obviously ill-constructed, and especially in the caps of the wheels; which, in a narrow street--as those of Paris usually are--unnecessarily occupy a foot of room, where scarcely an inch can be spared. The rubbish piled against the posts, in different parts of the street, is as disgusting as it is obviously inconvenient. A police "ordonnance" would obviate all this in twenty-four hours.
Yet in many important respects the Parisian multitude read a lesson to ourselves. In their public places of resort, the French are wonderfully decorous; and along the streets, no lady is insulted by the impudence of either sex. You are sure to walk in peace, if you conduct yourself peaceably. I had intended to say a word upon morals: and religion; but the subject, while it is of the highest moment, is beyond the reach of a traveller whose stay is necessarily short, and whose occupations, upon the whole, have been confined rather among the dead than the living.