universal dissemination of curling-tongs and Macassar--patent leather boots
and opera hats--white cambric pocket-handkerchiefs and lavender-water? Or,
does it consist, as the Countess of B---- would endeavour to convince us,
in abstaining from partaking twice of fish, and from eating peas with the
knife? and is it to be made common among mankind only by distributing
silver forks and finger-glasses to barbarians, and printing the Book of
Etiquette for gratuitous circulation among them? Or, is it, as the mild and
humane Judge P---- would prove to us, a necessary result of the Statutes at
Large; and can it be rendered universal only by sending out Jack Ketch as a
missionary--by the introduction of rope-walks in foreign parts, and the
erection of gallows all over the world? Or, is it, as the Archbishop of
Canterbury contests, to be achieved solely by the dissemination of bishops,
and by diffusing among the poor benighted negroes the blessings of sermons,
tithes, and church rates? Christianity, it has, on the other hand, been
asserted, is the only practical system of civilisation; but this is
manifestly the idea of a visionary. For ourselves, we must confess we
incline to the opposite opinion; and think either the bishops or Jack Ketch
(we hardly know which we prefer) by far the more rational means. Indeed,
when we consider the high state of civilisation which this country has
attained, and imagine for an instant the awful amount of distress which
would necessarily accrue from the general practice of Christianity among
us, even for a week, it is clear that the idea never could be entertained
by any moral or religious, mind. A week's Christianity in England! What
_would_ become of the lawyer, and parsons? It is too terrible to
contemplate.

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NOUVEAU MANUEL DU VOYAGEUR.