What a magnificent air these fountains give to the town! How refreshing and delightful is the splashing of their waters in warm weather! and oh! the contrast presented to them by our conduits, &c.--shapeless masses of masonry or brickwork, with a brass cock stuck in each side, or mayhap the said brass cock protruding from a common wall. The French are an ingenious people, and contrive a thousand curious, uncommon, and often admirable devices for opening people’s purses, instead of sticking to the unvaried, dismal chant of our beggars--although “_Pour l’amour de Dieu_” is not uncommon here. Our wretches drive one away, but the gentlemen of whom I speak grasp, retain, and even squeeze their auditors as one would a lemon. Nor do they always assume the repulsive rags, &c., which our beggars think so essential to obtain their end. An instance of this I frequently meet on the Boulevard St Martin--an elderly man, of a grave physiognomy, well featured, and of rather a genteel appearance, clad in garments somewhat seedy, though fashionably cut. This man I stumbled on to-day at the corner of the Rue du Temple lecturing on moral philosophy. Like the Turk, he had a numerous and attentive audience, but, generally speaking, composed of a better description of people. To a clear, sonorous voice, he added a manner demonstrative without being dogmatic, and persuasive without betraying doubt of his own powers. He defined the motives and rules of human actions, and showed that these rules are immutable--that we cannot violate them with impunity. He then went at some length into the morals of the ancients, touched on the doctrine of expediency, on the desire of distinction, ambition, &c., and very naturally, though cautiously, introduced as an illustration Napoleon. No one could mistake the sensation produced by this magic name--a sensation which, having produced, he proceeded to neutralise by gradually slipping into the connection between religion and morality. I left him explaining the insufficiency of natural religion, &c. Although this man does not beg, there is no doubt he makes a good trade of preaching; numerous were the offerings silently put into his hand and quietly pocketed without once interrupting the thread of his discourse. Another actor of the same description is a man who usually frequents the northern entrance of the Passage Feydeau: an immense power of grimace, and amazing execution on the violin, are the means by which he gains his daily bread. Clad in an old threadbare frock, that once was brown, with a pair of enormous spectacles riding astride on his prominent nose, he takes his stand on the steps at the entrance of the passage. Heels close together, body drawn up at attention, and with his gaze directed upwards at the window of the fourth storey of the opposite house, he appears perfectly unconscious of the presence of the admiring crowd assembled round him, whilst he executes with astonishing justness, feeling, and rapidity, the