The Place in a French town is always the scene for fairs, shows, &c., besides being the parade-ground. Here is a poor man showing a sturdy wolf, which he has got chained by a double chain-a most ugly ferocious brute, that some three years ago bit his hand nearly clean off as he was going about his business along the road (near the Rhone somewhere, I think) with his cart loaded with crockery. The remarkable part of this novel sort of show, however, is, that the poor fellow shows, likewise (holding it in his left), the skeleton of his right hand! The force of philosophy can, I think, " no further go." What man but a Frenchman would think of turning a sad misfortune to account in this way? I had no idea wolves were really so dangerous, or their bite so much more to be dreaded than a dog's. To look at this brute, which struggles and snaps as if only just caught, it is evident how much larger and stronger the jaws and teeth are than those of the largest dog; though, taken altogether, it is no bigger than a large mastiff-not so large as many of our Newfoundland breed; but the jaw is peculiar, and the strength too. The man says he got him down (after the hand was off), and that he was only saved by some people coming to his rescue. To eke out the entrance of two sous (people giving him anything more they please), he sells a little précis de son histoire at two sous more. To all appearance and probability the thing is just what it is said to be. The only little bit of excusable gammon in it is the continued ferocity of the wolf, which is not likely, after three years' showing; and which the brute is taught, like monkeys, to act.

The next booth was the very serious drama, by puppets, of the Death of Abel, spoken behind the scenes-the most solemnly-ludicrous thing I have laughed at for many a day, particularly the kill-'em-and-eat-'em look of Cain, as he hopped about, and all the reasonings and pros and cons about the matter, which surely none but a Frenchman again could ever in sober earnestness have concocted; the peasantry and poor people, in breathless silence and intense interest, listening with untiring gravity and patience. If I laughed, it was in my sleeve-it would have been very indecorous otherwise.

They are building a noble barrack at the back of our hotel, on a gigantic scale, as all French public works are. This is the only thing I see building. The town is even less populous than it has been, so that there is room enough and to spare; and, were it not for the garrison and the dockyard, one can easily imagine, deprived of its commerce, in this secluded nook of the Bay of Biscay, it would dwindle still more. Very few English live here-I did not, in several days, see a single individual-still it is said there are a few, either in the place or the environs. The country round is very pretty, without being so bold in its features as farther north and south.

FURTHER NOTICES OF THE PORT OF BREST.

BY AN OXONIAN.

Mr. EDITOR, I had endeavoured to reduce to some profitable shape the materials of an account of Brest, collected during a brief stay there, while on a cruise in August, 1837, when I read the article on the same subject in your March number. That article is so copious and accurate as to leave little to be desired, and I do not regret that my recollections of the place remain in their own obscurity, especially when, on comparing them, I find the article in your excellent Journal to be in many respects more accurate and minute. Still, I think that some additions to what has already appeared, as well as remarks on the opinions expressed by the writer in the able article just mentioned, may interest some of your naval readers. I will only beseech their indulgence to any inaccuracies in what I shall say, by pleading the fact, that I have studied sea-matters as an amusement, not as a profession.

The "Four" passage can hardly be said to "lead in from the Atlantic;" it is only useful to vessels coming from some port in the Channel; it may be said to join L'Iroise, which narrows eastward into the "Goulet de Brest," a narrow but deep channel, and which, with good sailing directions and a chart, is safe of access even for a perfect stranger; the dangers are few and easily avoided, and a pilot is not necessary; probatum est. I would not recommend the "Passage du Four;" all the dangers lie within Ushant; outside of it there are none, if a moderate offing is kept. I am not aware of any "Cape Finisterre” on that coast, or in the department of that name: certainly the only one "well known to mariners" is at the south-western extremity of the Bay. I will as briefly as I can follow the writer on the Ports of France, confining myself to his remarks on the French ships; I shall differ slightly with him in one or two points, without at all undervaluing the excellence and accuracy of his account generally.

That the beauty of the French models surpasses that of ours, is I think open to some discussion; that it did so in former years no one will deny, who has seen the old French models, and compared them with the few remaining of our own of the same date; the testimony of history to the fact is almost unnecessary: let any one who has been at Brest look at the Tourville, 74, or any of their old frigates, though of more modern build than the ship I have mentioned. It is not alone in beautiful ornament, and the taste of every part of her finish, that we find such legitimate ground for the admiration of this noble-looking old ship; but more elegant lines, a more graceful set of curves I never saw on the water. The present style of build shows that the French constructors have departed as widely as possible from all the "rococo" notions of their predecessors; they have, doubtless, done this on good

I regret that the writer on the Ports of France has not given us a more detailed account of the town and neighbourhood of Brest, as well as of its inhabitants and the "bas Bretons" generally; he cannot have forgotten the almost unrivalled beauty of the shady promenade, skirting the parade-ground, and commanding a view of the noble bay, and the town is a lively, amusing, and, to a certain degree, a fashion

able one.

grounds, but I was rather surprised to hear "beauty" predicated of the majority of French models, as seen at present. The fact I believe to be, that the French naval architects have thrown overboard all received notions of beauty derived from their lovely old models, have abandoned the dulce for the utile, and have sketched boldly, and without regard to elegance of form, such plans as seemed to promise strength, compactness, solidity, and the other essentials of a man-of-war. The sterns of their ships show this in an especial manner, and the observations in the pages of your Journal ought to make our builders mend their ways in this respect. The French sterns, whether round or square, are admirably adapted to answer all necessary ends, and though I cannot agree to their beauty in all cases, yet it would be easy to adopt their improvements, combined with a more graceful outline,—a thing, however (let our builders remember), of very little moment, and to be quite disregarded when standing in the way of real improvement.

The absence of our row of glass astern, adds to, rather than detracts from, a handsome appearance. The Diadème, a beautiful ship, somewhat of the old school, pierced for 90 guns, carrying 86 (I give these numbers from memory), had just four cabin windows-two on each deck; and a handsomer square stern I never saw: these windows were not shown by any paint, and at a distance were not perceptible on the black stern; no painted mullions, dwarf sham balustrades, &c. ; plain narrow white streaks marked the rails, and the carving, which was very bold and elegant round the beautiful outline of the whole, was also white. I saw no sham windows anywhere, as in the quarter galleries of our corvettes, and in the Modeste's stern.

The French have not any frigates of dimensions equal to Vernons; Didon and her class are considerably smaller; but, on the other hand, it is true that "their ship sloops of war are as large as many of our small frigates"-it might be added, and twice as efficient. Indeed, the wretched class of ships we still keep up under the name of 28's (North Star, Samarang, Talbot, &c.) would not be suffered to continue to disgrace such a Navy as that of France. Their gabares and corvettes de charge are infinitely better ships. Nor have they any such inferior ships as the Blonde class with us. Well may it be asked why all that class are not razeed into corvettes at once, and made good for something?

The French brigs, too, are a fine class of vessels, though not a very handsome one. They should hardly be called "18-gun brigs," which calls up visions of some of our own very inferior craft so called. I heard them called "bricks de vingt," and they carry that number of carronades, and have twelve ports on each side. I will describe their appearance, as some points of it refer to all modern French ships.

They are as nearly wall-sided as may be; head short, and one of the bobstays, leading from the extremity of the bowsprit, clear of the head, to the cutwater close to the water-line, like that of a cutter; head-rails and figure very high and planked up smooth, as described in your Journal; stern round, for the most part; no quarter-galleries, or any break or ornament of any kind; the white gun streak carried round without interruption; very little rake in the counter, which tumbles home a little aloft to about a line perpendicular with the rudder-head from which it started. To any one who has seen these curious sterns, the epithet of bâtiment à cul rond will seem remarkably apt. They carry,

like all French ships and vessels-of-war of every class, a poop (dunette) and a topgallant forecastle (gaillard d'avant). The masts are stepped at a most unsightly distance from one another, the main being very far aft. All classes of ships struck me as being over-masted, particularly when compared with our new ships. The poop aforesaid is a material addition to comfort and room, though the appearance of the deck is rather impaired by it. The sterns of all French frigates differ in consequence from ours in showing two sets of cabin-windows aft and in the quarter-galleries, those of the poop-cabins very small; the quartergalleries of their square sterns, therefore, resemble those of a two-decked ship (Jeanne d'Arc was a very handsome instance), but quite plain in rails, lower and upper finishing, &c.

The culs ronds of their frigates have a singular addition, answering to our quarter-galleries, commonly called bouteilles. These bottles appear in some variety. L'Amazone, 60, had them of great projection, and answering very well to their name; bolt upright when seen in a broadside view, but diminishing a little as they ascended, and looking like small turrets stuck on alongside, with one window on the main deck, and a smaller one for the poop-cabins. Didon, 60, had another variety. Her bouteilles descended only half as low as the Amazone's, leaving her gun streak to run round like that of the bricks before mentioned. About this streak was a projecting gallery surrounded by iron rails, and supported by four well-carved caryatides. The poop-cabin (a very elegant one), with which this gallery communicated, was then, as now, tenanted by the Comte de la Retonnier, who had his flag at the mizen. A third variety, which I saw up the harbour, might be called a one-bottle-man, for there was one of these projections amidships over the rudder-head, its lines falling in with those of the stern. This plan certainly attains the superlative degree of ugliness. All the line-of-battle ships I saw completed had square sterns; so had a few of the large corvettes. A vaisseau (line-of-battle ship), à cul rond, if turned out like L'Amazone, &c., must present a most extraordinary contour; but I repeat that all these sterns are admirably calculated to meet the shock and strain of a seaway, or a hostile broadside, which the majority of our own cannot be said to be. Those lately used by Sir W. Symonds are far too overhanging to be good; the form of Roberts's sterns is very handsome, and far more rational. Sir W. S. has wonderfully improved our Navy, and his ships are very fine ones, but a man-of-war need not, either in cutwater or counter, affect the rakish, élancé air of a yacht. One word more about the models of their ships, as compared with ours. When the Pique and Inconstant sailed on one of their cruises, La Dryade, a first-class frigate, sailed with them, but could not even keep within sight of them, and returned to the Tagus after a very short trial indeed.

Many of their own officers (and a most candid, liberal set of men they seem) owned that our frigates surpassed theirs; but they seemed to rank their line-of-battle ships above ours. All those among them who have seen Vernon are in raptures with her to an extent which quite surprised me. Didon's officers knew Vestal out in the West Indies, and declared to me that they did not think any more lovely model could exist certainly among their own ships none does at this day. They were especially struck, they told me, with the sharpness of her midship section all the French frigates recently built having very flat floors.

I must now turn to one, perhaps the most important, point in which our ships and theirs differ, and which has only been incidentally referred to by the writer of the article on Brest-I mean the system of doublebanking, now introduced into every great naval Power except our own. I have said that Didon, and all her class, are inferior in dimensions to Vernon. They are not only inferior in dimensions; their stability is not nearly so great, and the muzzles of their guns are considerably nearer the water. Yet, with inferior capabilities, these ships have a heavier broadside. Didon is even narrower than Pique. On the advantages of double-banking, in a warlike point of view, I should think nothing need be said; the fact that these advantages are great has become evident to every Power but England. The French build in this way universally: Diadème (not a new ship, as I have observed) originally had no guns in the waist: her model may be seen, as she used to be, in the model-room at Brest: but even then she had not the huge excrescence which our waist hammock-netting presents-her bulwarks ran along smooth, and the same height, where there were no guns. .* I saw the same thing in La Flore, a fine frigate, with a small vacant space left in the waist; her bulwarks could have been adapted for guns there easily. When I saw Diadème, which was just before her departure for Toulon, she carried three complete tiers-carronades on the upperdeck. L'Océan, in like manner, showed four regular rows of teeth, and struck me as a beautiful ship, though, I think, not "new," from her model, and from the "rentrée" of her topsides.

But there is another point of view in which the advantages of doublebanking are perhaps even more obvious-the promotion of the sailing and sea-worthy qualities of the ship. The only vessels in our Service in which the weight seems so distributed as to do justice to the qualities of the craft are those from corvettes downwards: all others are heavily loaded at the extremities, where the lines of the fore and after body are often very delicate, and that part of the ship where weight should be concentrated is left empty !+ What would a French builder (who gives Didon 42-pounder carronades all along her upper-deck) think of arming a ship like Pique with upper-deck guns weighing 40 cwt. each, at the two extremities? I will not enlarge on a point on which so much is to be said, in the earnest hope that some of your naval readers will take it up more efficiently than I could, and that by this means the pages of your Journal may bring this most important subject before the eyes of those who bear rule in such matters.

The author of the article on "The Ports" did not notice a peculiarity in the gun-locks; it is new, and, I believe, as yet only partially introduced. I think it may be of value to us, were we ever willing to borrow from our neighbours what is really good. There is no spring used, therefore the thing is very simple, never can get out of order, and has

*Would Inconstant have carried away her bulwarks, as she did her waist-hammock-nettings, on her recent passage home? The latter unsightly boxes are merely secured by iron stanchions, and have not the strength of the former. She lost a head-rail, too. Would planking over-smooth not have tended to avert this?

On a par with this is the modern improvement of having one midship-magazine, instead of two at the extremities-thereby displacing from the centre, and throwing forward and aft, several tons of weight: this, too, on board such a model as Pique's, where loading the extremities spoiled the qualities of the ship. Inconstant had no such disadvantage.