PARIS IN 1851. BY SIR FRANCIS HEAD, 1792-1875. AUTHOR OF "BUBBLES FROM THE BRUNNEN OF NASSAU." "as I pursued my journey, I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with Age grown double, Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to herself." OTWAY. AUTHORIZED COPYRIGHT REPRINT FROM MR. MURRAY'S PROOF SHEETS. PREFACE. NEARLY forty years ago I happened to be in Paris for three or four months. Lately, on a very short notice, I had occasion to go to it again. Being detained there rather more than three weeks by an oculist, whose prescriptions confined me to the house several hours a day, I eked out the rest of my time by taking a few notes. In passing through London I had hastily obtained eight or ten letters of introduction; but, as on reading Galignani's excellent guide-book, I found that every thing I could reasonably desire to see would, on application in writing, or on the production of my passport, be thrown open to me with almost a single exception-I returned the whole of them, preferring to throw myself on the hospitality of the public authorities of Paris, rather than be indebted to, and probably embarrassed by, private favours. During my brief residence in the French metropolis, excepting three days, I dined and breakfasted by myself. I never entered a theatre; only once a café. I neither paid nor received visits. In short, I totally abstained from any other society than that which I had the happiness to enjoy in the public streets. My amusements solely consisted in collecting literary sticks, picked up exactly in the order and state in which I chanced to find them. They are thin, short, dry, sapless, "crooked, headless, and pointless. In the depth of winter, however, a faggot of real French Sticks-although of little intrinsic value-may possibly enliven for a few moments an English Fireside. I therefore with great diffidence offer them to my readers, and, hoping the fuel I have collected for them may be deemed worth burning, I beg leave most cordially to wish them "A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR." N. B. As the foot-notes in these volumes contain nothing but translations-for the assistance of those who do not understand French-of the sentences to which they refer, the general reader may ride over them without notice. |