FOREIGN ASSOCIATION. 9 ferred a calumny to a fact, and was more fond of giving a neat turn to a sentence, than of speaking truth, after visiting this country about the middle of the last cen- tury, characterised its natives by saying, the English people resembled their own beer, the top was all froth, the bottom all dregs, but the middle was excellent. If this were at that time true, the middle class has now merged its distinctive cha- racter in the other two ; it is abandoning the honourable station in the cup which it then held, is adopting its worst ingre- dients from above and below ; and by its mixture with the froth and the feculence, has considerably lessened its claim to its once distinct commendation. But the evil, great as it is, does not end here ; numbers of a higher strain remain domiciliated in France, and too many who are returned, are more than It is almost too ludicrous to assert, that the wife .of a reputable farmer being asked lately what she had done with her daughter, replied, " I have Frenched her and musicked her, andshall now carry her to France." B 5
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