but he is certainly more affectionate, and on far better terms, with men about town--amative hairdressers, flirting grisettes, and the whole genus, male and female, of the epiciers. It would no doubt be an improvement if the facetious Paul could believe in the existence of an honest woman; but such women as come in his way he describes to the life. A ball in a dancing-master's private room up six pairs of stairs, a pic-nic to one of the suburbs, a dinner at a restaurateur's, or a family consultation on a proposal of marriage, are far more in Paul's way than tales of open horror or silk-and-satin depravity. One is only sorry, in the midst of so much gaiety and good-humour, to stumble on some scene or sentiment that gives on the inclination to throw the book in the fire, or start, like Cæsar, on the top of the diligence to pull the author's ears. But the next page sets all right again; and you go on laughing at the disasters of my neighbour Raymond, or admiring the graces or Chesterfieldian politeness of M. Bellequeue. French nature seems essentially different from all the other natures hitherto known; and yet, though so new, there never rises any doubt that it is _a_ nature, a reality, as Thomas Carlyle says, and not a sham. The personages presented to us by Paul de Kock can scarcely, in the strict sense of the word, be called human beings; but they are French beings of real flesh and blood, speaking and thinking French in the most decided possible manner, and at intervals possessed of feelings which make us inclined to include them in the great genus _homo_, though with so many inseparable accidents, that it is impossible for a moment to shut one's eyes to the species to which they belong. But such as they are in their shops, and back-parlours, and ball-rooms, and _fêtes champêtres_, there they are in Paul de Kock--nothing extenuated, little set down in malice--vain, empty, frivolous, good-tempered, gallant, lively, and absurd. Let us go to the wood of Romainville to celebrate the anniversary of the marriage of M. and Madame Moutonnet on the day of St Eustache.