ferent opinions of societies, as at that time | tained favor in these eloquent aristocratic constituted, to do justice to all the women assemblies. that were then met with, distinguished in their own circles and their own little worlds, and who rivalled with one another in charms, in wit, and in emulation.

of whom attracted even the attention of the young heir to the throne under the Monarchy of July, are well known. It would be sufficient to quote a few names, but discretion forbids.

Without the circle of the court of King Louise Philippe it is impossible to seize upon and describe the numerous forms which vanity assumed in the ever-renewing confusion and agitation of the day. It was the great era for dressing for effect and for coquetry without disguise,

In 1831, the wealthy bourgeoisie made the Opera their home; they took the place there of the great families and the great names of

the Restoration.

More than one young woman established her reputation as a lady of fashion in a box of the Royal Academy of Music. There are some beauties with whom the brilliancy of the lights and the staring of the crowd impart additional animation to their countenances and enhance their attractions.

Who has not had the indiscretion to allow his lorgnette to rest upon a charming lady full of smiles, with black eyes and eyebrows, whose neck and shoulders presented the most exquisite outlines and the most graceful movements? Her expressive physiognomy depicted almost instantaneously the lively emotions which she received from the theatre, and the pleasure which the homage by which she was surrounded gave to her. The most wealthy and distinguished young men, as well as many old men, proverbial for their gallantry, rivalled with one another in the vigor of their assaults upon her youth and heart, in despite of the foot-lights and a husband. Nor was she wanting in spirit to repel these assiduities. "Take care," she said to a septuagenary one day, who was harassing her with his attentions, "je vais vous céder."

manners, a sensibility susceptible of deep emotions, but only for positive things, or where their interests were concerned, constituted the distinctive features of the more or less political and more or less fashionable women of the time of Louis Philippe.

Some, of good birth, charming manners, and high spirits, indulged in eccentricities of conduct not altogether feminine. One of these, who was indefatigable in field sports, a first-rate rider, ready to engage any Madame Patin who should cross her path with sword or pistol, who smoked egregiously, and never cared to control the fantasies of either her heart or her head, had still the power to attract round her, whether at the theatre, at the steeple-chase, or in the salons, serious and important personages, as well as "the fine flower of our golden youth." Freethinker, if you so will it, untameable in character, taking life boldly, profoundly philo sophical, she would, like the Duchess of Bourgogne, have cheered the old age of Louis XIV. by her witty sayings; she would, in the early days of her youth, have roused, by her numerous attractions, the worn-out passions of Louis XV.

All this, let it be said without sarcasm for that vast number of young women, amiable, well-informed, regular, reasonable, and far from void of beauty, whom the higher classes and the middle classes rival one another in bringing up in a style which tends every day to confound the two classes more and more together.

Those exchanges of titles of nobility for large fortunes, which were so common under the Restoration, continued under the Monarchy of July. Under this latter régime, the balance to be made in a contract between a coat of arms and a dowry was regulated with increased parsimony, and not always so much in favor of the escutcheon. Many a young This young lady, whose name was in every woman, inheritor of the paternal millions, one's mouth, and whose position placed her laboriously accumulated in the practice of a alongside of the court, was to be seen at the more or less liberal profession, purchased her most fashionable balls as well as in the most title of countess, and her right of presentaprominent and recherché seat at the race. tion in the salons of the Faubourg of St. course. Her absence from any one of these Germain, for a very modest annuity settled rendezvous of opulence, luxury, and frivol- upon the husband, who was in no way allowity, would have been felt by all. She eclips-ed to interfere with the capital from whence ed all competitors wherever she showed her- it was derived. Under the junior branch, self, and according to the Latin historian, the purchase of a title of nobility experienced eo magis præfulgebat quod non videbatur." a great decline in value. During this régime of eighteen years' duration, the romances of Madame Sand and of Balzac, and the poetry of Alfred de Musset, imparted a peculiar character to young woBoldness of conception, cavalier-like

men.

The parliamentary government upheld, it must be acknowledged, if not an elegant and refined phraseology in the salons, at least a certain degree of taste and ability. But still it cannot be gainsaid, that among the women

who gave themselves the greatest trouble to lead the fashion, no small number were also "women of business." Many a beauty with charming eyes and most attractive and poetic countenance, in the midst of the emotions of daily life and the thousand cares and anxieties inseparable from their pretensions, would exhibit greater skill in detecting the combinations of the Bourse than her husband, absorbed in stock-exchange speculations, and having little or nothing else to think of.

One of the most fashionable women of the Government of July, and whose exceeding beauty would have filled the salons of the Empire and the Restoration with admiration, allowed herself to be particularly carried away by what, in her case, was a family passion for gambling in the funds. She would conceive and follow out combinations of the most extensive bearing, and often conduct them to a fortunate result such as she herself had alone foreseen; and all that united to a noble patronage of art, and an admirable appreciation for intelligence and originality of

views.

tudes of a Maintenon, the lovely coquetry of a Duchess of Bourgogne, or the tender and loving heart of a La Vallière.

A few political salons flourished under the Monarchy of July. A title of nobility, a large fortune, a graceful hospitality, personal charms, or the reputation of beauty, do not suffice for a person of distinction, loving the world, to draw around her men of standing occupying or having occupied high stations, and to create a centre of conversation which shall above all things be well informed upon the affairs of the moment. It requires, to produce such a result, to have kept up intimate relations with the distinguished men of other countries as well as of one's own. How clever and ready must the hostess also be, who has always at her command the language which is best adapted for those whom she has to address, and finds words to gratify every one?

Members of the two chambers-ministers, artists, and literary men-were among the privileged classes in the salons of the time of Louis Philippe, sometimes presided over by a great foreign lady. These intimate and familiar reunions brought political men together, and more than one result, useful to the country, was thus often brought about amidst those conflicts of opinion which arise from parliamentary discussion. Many an academical election was also decided by the influences of the salons, and there still exists little groups of academicians, who, by their

The most modest artist was favored with the same delicate attentions in the salons of that lady, whose aspect and attitudes were those of a duchess, as the leading diplomatists, financiers, or statesmen of the day. A strong inclination for all that is beautiful and rare creates the love of money, and hence it is that, amidst the progress of commerce and of industry, many women, who, one would think, could have nothing better to do than to culti-worldly habits, evidently consider themselves vate their beauty and study their dress, display a practical capacity for the most difficult and complicated affairs.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the great ladies of the court had nothing but gambling with which to ruin or to enrich themselves in our times intellect and talent play a far greater part in the combinations which propose to themselves the acquiring of a large fortune as a result. The possession of riches has not, however, the effect of deadening the sympathies of these great ladies; on the contrary, their natural tendencies are always towards generous and noble actions.

as necessary elements of fashionable society.

Women have been sovereigns, and have seen themselves surrounded by flatterers in all ages. In Homer we find old men admiring the graces of Helen, exalting her charms and attractions, and grieving over the power of such fatal seductions. Theocritus, full of sentiment and passion, makes his companions and rivals join with him in singing the beauty of the daughter of Tyndarus. The munificence of emperors and kings has raised statues and palaces to those whom they have loved. This somewhat pagan worship for the beauty of women no longer exists in our times. WoThe women in that numerous gallery of men reign, and always will reign, over the portraits sketched by the masterly hand of St. heart: but in the present day the young woSimon, ever absorbed in their beauty, their man and wife is rather an object of respect great luxury, and their brilliant pleasures, and esteem than of attentions and gallantry. combined with the transaction of a serious Clubs, which multiply every day, keep men business, are wanting in this last great feature. away from female society; they lose the inNone showed themselves equal to the task fluence of their mild and beneficial example, of uniting the imagination of a Law or a and they oblige the more refined sex to put Colbert with the severe and charming atti-up with their own rude and masculine habits,

even to the smoking of cigars. The nineteenth century is very far removed from the time when a La Rochefoucauld said to a Duchess of Longueville :

Pour mériter son cœur, pour plaire à ses beaux yeux,

J'ai fait le guerre aux rois; je l'aurai faite aux dieux !

From Dickens' Household Words.

ANGELICA KAUFFMANN.

of Angelica Kauffmann was blasted. In Smith's Nollekens and his Times there is a silly bit of improbable scandal about the fair painter. In Knowles's Life of Fuseli we learn in half-a-dozen meagre lines that that eccentric genius was introduced to Madame Kauffmann on his first coming to England, and that he was very nearly becoming enamored of her; but that this desirable consummation was prevented by Miss Mary Moser, daughter of the keeper of the Royal Academy (appropriately a Swiss), becoming enamored of him. Stupid, woeful Mr. Pilkington has a brief memoir of Angelica. Wolcot, better known as Peter Pindar, once, and once only, alludes to her. In Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary there is a notice of Angelica, about equal, in compass and ability, to that we frequently find of a deceased commissioner of inland revenue in a weekly newspaper. In the vast catalogue of the Museum Library I can only discover one reference to Angelica Kauffmann, personally, that being a stupid epistle to her, written in seventeen hundred and eighty-one by one Mr. G. Keate. I have been thus minute in my English researches, in order to avoid the imputation of having gone abroad, when I might have fared better at home. I might have spared myself some labor too; for my travels in search of Angelica in foreign parts have been tedious and painful. That which M. Artaud, in that great caravanserai of celebrities the Biogrophie Universelle, has to say about her is of the dryest; and a Herr Bockshammer, a German, from whom I expected great things, merely referred me to another Kauffmann, not at all angelical; but connected with a head-splitting treatise on the human mind.

In the fasta of gifted, beautiful, good, | to, the conspiracy by which the happiness wronged, and unhappy women there are few names that shine with so bright and pure a lustre as that of Angelica Kauffmann. The flower of her life was spent in this country; but she is scarcely remembered in it now, even among the members and lovers of the profession which she adorned. Those who wish to know anything definite concerning a lady who was the pet of the English aristocracy, and the cynosure of English painters for some years of the past century, must turn to foreign sources, and hear from foreign lips and pens the praises of poor Angelica. Though undeniably a foreigner, she had as undeniable a right to be mentioned in the records of British painters as those other foreigners domiciliated among us at the same epoch Listard, Zucchi, Zoffani, Bartolozzi, Cipriani, Roubiliac, Michael Moser, Nollekens, Loutherbourg, Zuccarelli, Vibares, and Fuseli. Of all these worthies of the easel there are copious memoirs and ana extant, yet the published (English) notices of Angelica would not fill half this page. In Sir William Beechey's Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, there is no mention whatsoever made of my heroine; nor, which is more to be wondered at, is she named in Mr. Allan Cunningham's excellent Life of Sir Joshua. Yet Angelica painted the president's portrait; and the president himself, it is darkly said, was desirous on his part of possessing not only the portrait of his fair limner, but the original itself. Even the garrulous tittletattling, busybody, Boswell, has nothing to say, in his Life of Johnson, of the catastrophe of Angelica's life; although it was town talk for weeks, and although the sinister finger of public suspicion pointed at no less a man than Johnson's greatest friend, JOSHUA REYNOLDS, as cognizant of, if not accessory

I will try to paint my poor Angelica