D., you old humbug! what do you mean by uttering your shallow vulgar criticism on the greatest nation of Continental Europe? You know nothing of their history, except that they were beaten at the battle of Waterloo; you can't speak a word of their language; you can't read one of their newspapers; you are supremely ignorant of their character and institutions, and yet you treat them as a mob of hairdressers, dancing masters, and cooks (and not good cooks either), and exult in the time-honoured conviction that one Englishman can thrash two Frenchmen. Dowlas, attend to me, I am going to talk about taste—a word that ought to excite shame and anguish in your mind. For a quarter of a century you have been smothering the world with printed fabrics of fantastic and horrible ugliness. Millions upon millions of yards of these abominations have found their way into every nook and corner of the world. Remote tribes of wandering Tartars and the squaws of painted Choktaws have clad their bodies and depraved their souls with your outrageous patterns. Bales marked with the well-known D. (oh, how could you, Mr. Dowlas, Sir?) have carried their baleful influence into the innocent populations of the Peaceful Ocean. The least hideous of these productions are those you have stolen (and spoiled) from the French, and if there is any improvement in your patterns of late years, it is entirely to be attributed to your piracy of French designs.
The fact is, that France has become the Mistress of Arts to the world. If England lives in a fever of industry, she lives in a fever of invention. Every novelty we have is due to her restless creative spirit. In arts, in letters, in philosophy, she scatters abroad new ideas with unsparing profusion; other nations, following with unequal steps, treasure up what falls, and claim it as their own. This exuberance of fancy is only the result of the universal artistic feeling which seems to animate her citizens. You cannot go anywhere in Paris without being conscious of this. Every shop window is a picture. Look at that pastrycook's. A few pieces of china and half-a-dozen bon-bon boxes form a composition that is really charming. Is there any one from Marlborough House could do it as well? Only think of the tons of three-cornered tarts and Bath buns that form the decoration of a London confectioner's. And yet this pretty arrangement is due to the intuitive taste of the little scrubby ignorant daughter of the people who serves in the shop. I will not draw your attention to the quiet becoming style of her dress, because you have often confessed to me in private your admiration of Parisian toilettes, though in the presence of Mrs. D. you loudly affect to prefer the dowdy manner adopted by that lady in common with the most part of her countrywomen. I will, therefore, make no further mention of ladies' costume, only protesting that, in my opinion, all Frenchwomen in their degree dress to perfection, and that an ugly bonnet is no certain proof of wisdom or goodness as is generally supposed.
Turn to the houses, and compare their gay ornate appearance with the dismal monotonous streets of London. Every one has its separate character. The portal is of sculptured stone, always decent and often of beautiful design. A little bit of carved cornice, a simple moulding round the windows gives individuality and interest to the upper part without any of the astounding architectural eccentricities of Regent Street. Enter, and you will find the furniture of even the humbler occupants varied, characteristic, and pretty. Where ornament is attempted, it is well chosen and sparingly introduced. A beautiful cabinet, a few small pictures, a group or two in bronze, some exquisite china—quite a contrast to the overwhelming magnificence of English upholstery. I know, Dowlas, you gave a carte blanche to Jobkins and Son for your house in Mecklenburgh Square. Well, well—if the subject is a painful one we will not pursue it; though I must say that I think six copies of the peacocky young woman in fetters, called for some inscrutable reason the Greek Slave, rather too much for two drawing-rooms (couldn't you send up a pair to the best bed-room, and one to the butler's pantry?) and I may also take this opportunity of informing Jobkins, Junior, who does the "tasty" business of his firm, that merely multiplying expensive tables and chairs, and daubing everything over with gold, though it may satisfactorily swell the bill, shows a miserable want of fancy and cleverness in a decorator.
I quite admit the solidity and conscientiousness of English workmanship. We buy a frightful table in Bond Street, and, behold, it will last for ever. The drawers in Dowlas's house are as delightful to open and shut as they are horrible to look at. English boots will outlast French boots, and English gloves French gloves. Whatever may have been the case years ago, it is a great mistake to suppose that these articles are better now in Paris than in London. The great difference is shortly this[5]—our artists are tradesmen and their tradesmen are artists. In all articles of simple usefulness we have an unquestionable superiority, but where something more than convenience or durability is required our designers seem quite helpless. A certain funeral car will occur to many as an example of this truth, and, perhaps, by malicious persons, will be taken to shew how much or how little is to be expected from Government Schools of Art.
The Tourist is aware that no one can walk about Paris without seeing abundant evidences of the coarsest moral and social feeling, and claims an infinitely higher position for his own countrymen and countrywomen in this respect. He also recollects that he has already ridiculed the dress of Frenchmen, and sees that this may be supposed inconsistent with a sweeping panegyric on French taste. But this is an exception that proves the rule. A Frenchman's theory of dress is wrong. He always wants to be conspicuous and picturesque. Hence, nothing is too singular and showy for him. He gets himself up, as if for the stage, with velvet and fur and beard and moustache, and exhausts the resources of his inventive mind for new and still more piquant combinations. When he turns his attentions to the chase, the result is something worth seeing, and no mistake, as will be more plainly seen by a picture of a party of sporting gentlemen going out shooting. But these comicalities are eschewed by the genuine "swells," who adopt our sober English notions of masculine costume, and, indeed, dress exactly like Englishmen. The advice of Polonius to Laertes will literally apply to the matter at the present day:—
"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.
But not expressed in fancy—rich, not gaudy—
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that—"