enemies to, _good singing_, without which what are the two or three acts of an opera but intermezzi or act tunes to the ballets? I perceive, however, that, amidst all the horrors of Paris, they suffer Italian operas to be performed in Italian and by Italians, which were never allowed before, except at Versailles; but these are only burlettas; serious operas so performed might have some effect on the national taste in singing. But les Dames des Halles, their excellencies _Mesdames les Poissardes_, furnish them with “other fish to fry” at present; so I shall say no more of France, but that I pity most sincerely every honest man who has the misfortune to be resident in that distracted kingdom. ‘God bless you, my dear Sir, and give you health and spirits to enjoy your rational and useful enquiries. ‘CHARLES BURNEY.’ [The following extracts from Arthur Young’s letters home, and letter to his darling Bobbin, then aged five, are worth giving. With very slight excisions all letters to his daughter Mary are incorporated in the ‘French Travels.’] ‘_Lyons, Dec. 28, 1789._—Symonds says Arthur has set off very well at Cambridge, which I am very glad to hear. God send him understanding enough to know the value of these four years there, which are either lost absolutely or applied to the amelioration of all his life after. French and Italian or German after four years at Cambridge may qualify it for anything.’ From another letter to the same:— ‘I found here your Mother’s two letters, of which I can hardly make head or tail; according to custom they are so cross written and so crammed and topsy-turvy, that, like the oracles of old, they may be made to speak whatever is in the reader’s head, alley croaker (sic) or “Paradise Lost” are all one.’ From a third letter, dated Florence, November 18, 1789:— ‘I received here a letter from you, and two from your Mother; yours is dated October 17, one of hers the 30th, the other no date, and not a word of Bobbin in it. What a way of writing, and this to a man 1,400 miles from home. I am greatly concerned for Mr. Arbuthnot, though his silence made him dead to us from the time he went to Ireland. I never knew a family which was the centre of every mild and agreeable virtue so shattered into nothing by a man’s failure. I have long and often regretted that period.... I took 100l. with me, and it lasts exactly six months, buying books included.... Good night. Thank God, Bobbin is well; give her a kiss.’ _To his youngest Daughter, Martha (Bobbin)_ ‘Moulins: August 7, 1789. ‘My dear Bobbin,—I fully expected to have heard from Mary here, and to have known how my dear little girl does, but I was much disappointed and found no letter from England.