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 LITKKATl UK AND Till-: KINK ARTS. 285

labors of intellect, are here passports to that temple of honor, which in most other countries must be entered with a key of gold. It is pleasing to see with what enthusiasm Lnmnrtine and Arago are pointed out in their scats, amid the five hundred members of the Chamber of Deputies. The poet De la Vigne, not withstanding his retiring modesty, is shown exultingly to strangers, and the pen of Guizot has won him more admirers than his political fame. It was gratifying to perceive that our talented countryman, Robert Walsh, Esq., was as highly and truly respected in the capital of France, as in the land of his birth.

One of the most imposing audiences that I remem ber to have seen while there, was convened in the pal ace of the Institute, formerly the Mazarine College, to witness the admission of a new member, the Count Mole, into the Institute of France. The assembled academicians, in their becoming uniform, listened in tently to his animated inaugural oration, and to the reply of the President Dupin, while, from their niches in the spacious hall, the marble brows of Massillon, Fenelon, and Bossuet, Sully, Descartes, and others, looked down with imperturbable dignity.

Taste for the fine arts forms an integral part of the character of the French. From the saloon of the noble to the shop of the petty marchand des modes, it is seen in every variety of adornment, from the costly painting or chiselled group of the ancient master, to the simple vase of artificial flowers under its glass shade, or the little fancy -clock, that hastens the movements

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