such a body of national virtue and good feeling unshaken in the former country, that the most profligate can hardly sin with absolute impunity, and vice is scarcely bold enough to throw off the veil which, however flimsy, still protects some purer eyes from beholding corruption in all its deformity. Have you ever felt, when you lingered at a ball till day-light, and the bright beams of a newly risen sun shone with open freshness on the expiring lamps, the pale faces, and the tinsel finery of the last night's pageant; a sort of undefined sensation of shame at being thus caught by the truth-telling hour of waking seriousness, in the midst of a scene so unsuited to the time? If you have, I may avail myself of the similitude to describe the difference which I feel between England and the Continent. I say Continent at large, for the great towns are alike in this; ours is a daylight dance, while here is the nightly revel. With us the clear sunshine of opinion, if it cannot prevent excess, at least exhibits its faded form and haggard countenance, pronouncing on their ugliness, and inducing their concealment. Cross the channel, and a new order of things presents itself. _Decorum_ is busy indeed, but it is to deceive, and while the fascination of gaiety and ease presents an opiate to circumspection, the good taste which borrows an external clothing of propriety in which to dress the votaries of pleasure, finishes the delusion, and many young men are not aware of the counterfeit till they are fast bound in the spell like Telemachus in the island of Calypso. The French language too, now so universal, is a potent ingredient in the intoxicating cup. It acts as a _mask_, and since I left England, I have met with numbers of my countrymen, aye, and countrywomen also, who say things at Paris in the idiom of another tongue, which could never find utterance in their own, though no infringement of decency in _conduct_ would be tolerated publicly in good society abroad. All this renders foreign travelling a very insidious poison, and happy are those who can enjoy the benefits derivable from extensive acquaintance with men and manners, without risk of confounding the boundaries which separate vice from virtue. In short, no man is _safe_, upon whom the grand tour produces other effect than to send him back with increased thankfulness to the British Isles, as (waving adieu to the shores he has quitted) he borrows the words of the poet to say, "these are my visits;" and, turning to the white cliffs of Albion, finishes the line with "but thou art my home." It would be stupid, however, as well as ungrateful to deny the witchery, by way of securing either one's self, or one's friends against its allurements. This device, which my worthy guardian, I believe, in the honesty of his heart employed as a bastion of strength to fortify my weakness, will never, in any case, survive the first shot that experience levels against it.