ost every such specimen of
our fair countrywomen carries a bright red reticule, made in the form of
a monstrous heart. We do not remember to have ever seen an Englishman on
the Italian stage, or in the Italian circus, without a stomach like
Daniel Lambert, an immense shirt-frill, and a bunch of watch-seals each
several times larger than his watch, though the watch itself was an
impossible engine. And we have rarely beheld this mimic Englishman,
without seeing present, then and there, a score of real Englishmen
sufficiently characteristic and unlike the rest of the audience, to whom
he bore no shadow of resemblance." These views as to English people and
society, of which Count d'Orsay used always to say that an average
Frenchman knew about as much as he knew of the inhabitants of the moon,
may receive amusing addition from one of Dickens's letters during his
last visit to France; which enclosed a cleverly written Paris journal
containing essays on English manners. In one of these the writer
remarked that he had heard of the venality of English politicians, but
could not have supposed it to be so shameless as it is, for, when he
went to the House of Commons, he heard them call out "Places! Places!"
"Give us Places!" when the Minister entered.

[295] The letter is addressed to Miss Harriet Parr, whose book called
_Gilbert Massenger_ is the tale referred to.

[296] See the introductory memoir from his pen now prefixed to every
edition of the popular and delightful _Legends and Lyrics_.

[297] On this remonstrance and Dickens's reply the _Times_ had a leading
article of which the closing sentences find fitting place in his
biography. "If there be anything in Lord Russell's theory that Life
Peerages are wanted specially to represent those forms of national
eminence which cannot otherwise find fitting representation, it might be
urged, for the reasons we have before mentioned, that a Life Peerage is
due to the most truly national representative of one important
department of modern English literature. Something may no doubt be said
in favour of this view, but we are inclined to doubt if Mr. Dickens
himself would gain anything by a Life Peerage. Mr. Dickens is
pre-eminently a writer of the people and for the people. To our
thinking, he is far better suited for the part of the 'Great Commoner'
of English fiction than for even a Life Peerage. To turn Charles Dickens
into Lord Dickens would be much the same mistake in literature