so tasteful and elegant that now the affair is quite reversed, and England takes from France an immense quantity of this beautiful manufacture, which employs even artists of talent for designing the elegant and fanciful devices which ornament their envelopes, with their enclosures of various sizes and forms, in which the arts of drawing, painting, gilding, stamping, etc., combine to render them so pretty and so gay, that one feels loath to destroy any of these ornamental epistles, however trifling their import; the subjects of the devices are as various as those which they are intended to illustrate, history, the heathen mythology, religion, friendship, a more tender passion, etc., are all allegorically or emblematically represented, in the fancy stationary, offering the writer the means of choosing a subject consistent with the text of his letter, as an invitation to dinner is designated by paintings of pheasants, game, etc., to a soiree dansante, the note is adorned by couples waltzing, etc., to a whist party, the cards and players are introduced, and if to tea, the cups and saucers of gilded and glowing hue, bedeck the gay margin; so that before a word is written in the letter, it foretells its errand.

There are very many who have gradually contributed their talents to this branch of industry, but it is M. Marion who may be considered the inventor, he having availed himself with the most effect of their abilities, and concentrated their respective merits, in which he has displayed much perseverance, taste, and judgment, as also in the manner in which he has organised this branch of commerce, and promoted its extension.  At his establishment at No. 14, Cite-Bergere, will be found a most extensive assortment of fancy stationary, comprehending every description of variety that the most fertile imagination could depict, the prices of ordinary paper commencing at the very humble price of six sheets for a sou, and according to the degree that it is ornamented, gradually rising to 25 francs a sheet.  M. Marion has also an establishment in London, at No. 19, Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, exactly on a similar plan as that in Paris, containing an equal variety of specimens of this new branch of art.

When the visiter has a half hour to spare, he would not find it thrown away in visiting the establishment of Madame Merckel, she having found the means of applying the phosphorus and chemical matches, which she has invented, to such a number of purposes, and of introducing them in so curious and ingenious a manner into divers articles, calculated both for utility and ornament, that her manufactory might be considered quite a little museum; amongst a variety of pretty things, I was first struck with a time-piece which acts as an alarum, and not only answers the purpose of awakening you at any hour which you may desire, but a little figure representing a magician, at the instant strikes a magic mirror, by which means the taper he holds is ignited,