the student arises perhaps a politer, but
certainly a sadder man. It is a work calculated to
make him either a Valentine or an Orson. He
will either take it for his text-book, and forming
himself by its precepts, become himself a perfect
pillar and beacon of bon ton, or he will be
rendered desperate at the enormous scale on which
the subject is developed, and hopeless of fulfilling
all that " ton" demands of its votaries, will cry,
"Vive le mauvais ton!" and live and die a bear.

The art " of conducting oneself in the world"
(of France) is not so simple an affair as
we have been in the habit of considering it.
"Politeness," according to our author,
"comprehends morality, the proprieties of life,
honesty, civility, and, in one word, all those mild
virtues which form the most powerful bonds of
civilised society; it is, to speak plainly, morality
in action."

After this introductory statement the high
priest of Bon Ton goes on to divide his subject
into sections, and gives to the world his opinion
on the leading features of politeness in general——
politeness in the master of the house, politeness
in the streets. These essays are followed by
some remarks on the world and etiquette, on
conversation, and on " the exigencies of
society."

In the first of these sections, and early in the
volume, comes a chapter on politeness at table.
It commences with an anecdote:

"The Abbé Cosson was a celebrated professor
of literature at the Mazarin College, and one of
the most learned men of the last century. One
day he was invited to dinner by the Abbé
Delille, and he found himself in company with
members of the highest society, cordons bleus,
marshals of France, and others who kept up all
the polite usages of the age of Louis the
Fourteenth. The good Abbé Cosson, who thought
himself very great in all matters of etiquette,
boasted to his host as they left table that he had
fulfilled all the requirements of Ton during
dinner.

"' You? ' replied his entertainer, the Abbé
Delille, wishing to tease him, ' you are sadly
deceived, you did nothing but commit yourself.'

"' Impossible,' replied Cosson, frightened
out of his wits, ' for I did exactly what everybody
else did.'

"' Your presumption makes you think so,'
said the other; ' the fact being that you did
nothing that the others did. I will now proceed
to prove it to you. Count your sins upon your
fingers:

"' 1. You unfolded your napkin completely,
you spread it all over you, and attached it by
the corner to your button-hole. No person but
you was guilty of such an offence. People do
not spread their napkins over them, they are
content to lay them across their knees.

"' 2. You ate your soup with your spoon in
one hand and your fork in the other! A fork
for soup! Great Heaven!

"' 3. You had occasion to eat an egg, and
you left the shell, without crushing it to pieces,
on your plate.

"' 4. You have asked for bouilli when you
ought to have asked for beef.

"' 5. You have, again, requested to be served
with ' fowl, 3 when you ought to have demanded
chicken, or capon, as the case might be. What!
do you not know that to ask for ' fowl' savours
of the servants' hall?

"' 6. Before taking wine you breathed into
your glass and then wiped it out with your napkin.
Miserable man! what could you have done
more in an eating-house where you mistrusted
the cleanliness of the people.

"' 7. You asked certain persons who had
those wines before them for ' Bordeaux.' or
' Champagne.' 5 Are you ignorant that it is the
custom in France to ask for Bordeaux wine, or
Champagne wine, when you want the one or the
other?

"' 8. With the intention of being simply
officious towards the Baron de R. and myself,
you have managed to be absolutely troublesome;
for every time that you were going to drink
yourself, you must needs take our glasses and
fill them before your own without being asked
to do so. And pray who told you that we
wanted to drink? Who told you that if we did
want to drink, it was wine we wanted and not
water, or that it was the wine you were taking
and not some other? Why, at a dinner, with
the most slender pretensions to gentility even,
such a proceeding would be out of place.

"' 9. Instead of breaking your bread, which
ought always to be done, you have cut it with
your knife.

"' 10. At dessert you put the bonbons in
your pocket, believing doubtless that no
disastrous consequences would attend such a
proceeding. The disastrous consequence which
ensued was simply that you were guilty of
mauvais ton.

"' 11. You say that you have a cold in the
head, but was that any reason why you should
place your handkerchief on the back, or the arm,
of your chair. This was even worse than a
want of gentility, it was a want of cleanliness.

"'12. Your coffee was brought to you very
hot, and you divided it into small portions and
drank it out of the saucer. There is no pretext
conceivable which can justify a man in drinking
out of his saucer.

"' 13. Finally, to complete your infamy, in
rising from the table you actually folded up your
napkin, as if you really thought it could be used
again before it had passed through the hands of
the washerwoman.

"' Then, my dear Cosson,' said the Abbé
Delille, in conclusion, ' you see that you have
reckoned without your host in thinking that
you had behaved like the other guests at dinner.'
And the poor abbé went forth humbled and
confused, and perceiving, though somewhat late
in the day, that there are other branches of
education which a man should cultivate besides
those which are learnt in universities."

This little story makes no bad prelude to our
author's treatise on the demands which Bon Ton
makes upon us when we sit down to table. And