In the midst of all the graphic splendour of modern Paris, it was delightful music to my ears to hear WILKIE and RAIMBACH so highly extolled by M. Benard.  “Ha, votre Wilkie—­voila un genie distingue!” Who could say “nay?” But let BURNET have his share of graphic praise; for the Blind Fiddler owes its popularity throughout Europe to his burin.  They have recently copied our friend Wilkie’s productions on a small scale, in aqua-tint; cleverly enough—­for three francs a piece.  I told Benard that the Duke of Wellington had recently bespoke a picture from Mr. Wilkie’s pencil.  “What is the subject to be?”—­demanded he, quickly.  I replied, in the very simplicity of my heart, “Soldiers regaling themselves, on receiving the news of the victory of Waterloo.”  Mons. Benard was paralised for one little moment:  but rallying quickly, he answered, with perfect truth, as I conceive “Comment donc, TOUT EST WATERLOO, chez vous!” M. Benard spoke very naturally, and I will not find fault with him for such a response; for he is an obliging, knowing, and a very pleasant tradesman to do business with.  He admits, readily and warmly, that we have great artists, both as painters and engravers; and pointing to Sharpe’s John Hunter and The Doctors of the Church—­which happened to be hanging just before us—­he observed that “these, efforts had never been surpassed by his own countrymen.”  I told him (while conversing about the respective merits of the British and French Schools of Engraving) that it appeared to me, that in France, there was no fine feeling for LANDSCAPE ENGRAVING; and that, as to ANTIQUARIAN art, what had been produced in the publications of Mr. Britton, and in the two fine topographical works—­Mr. Clutterbuck’s Hertfordshire,” and.  Mr. Surtees’ Durham—­exhibited such specimens of the burin, in that department, as could scarcely be hoped to be excelled.[197] M. Benard did not very strenuously combat these observations.  The great mart for Printselling is the Boulevards; and more especially that of the Boulevards Italiens.  A stranger can have no conception of the gaiety and brilliance of the print-shops, and print-stalls, in this neighbourhood.  Let him first visit it in the morning about nine o’clock; with the sun-beams sparkling among the foliage of the trees, and the incessant movements of the populace below, who are about commencing another day’s pilgrimage of human life.  A pleasant air is stirring at this time; and the freshness arising from the watering of the footpath—­but more particularly the fragrance from innumerable bouquets, with mignonette, rose trees, and lilacs—­extended in fair array—­is altogether quite charming and singularly characteristic.  But my present business is with prints.  You see them, hanging in the open air—­framed and not framed—­for some quarter of a mile:  with the intermediate space filled by piles of calf-bound volumes and sets of apparently countless folios.  Here are Moreri, Bayle, the Dictionnaire de Trevoux, Charpentier, and the interminable Encyclopedie:  all very tempting of their kind, and in price:—­but all utterly unpurchasable—­on account of the heavy duties of importation, arising from their weight.