in 1768, that passports were not then in general use for travelling in time of peace: I had left London (says Yorick) with so much precipitation that it never entered my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked through the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a passport.' He contrived, we need hardly add, to reach Paris without one.

I have no drill sergeant to arrange my productions, but chance. I put together my reveries as they present themselves. Sometimes they throng in crowds, sometimes they drag along in single file. I wish people to see my natural and ordinary pace, irregular as it may be; I let myself alone as I find myself.' This passage from Montaigne is chosen by M. Feuillet de Conches for the motto of his Fourth Book, entitled Voyage où Il vous plaira; a book, if possible, more miscellaneous than the rest. In the first chapter he analyses the nature of the interest we take in the personal qualities of authors, and strengthens his theory by the authority of Addison, in the Spectator,' who begins by drawing a portrait of himself, which, although verging on caricature, has preserved two or three of the genuine and strongly marked features of the original. If not quite so taciturn as his literary double, Addison used to say of himself that, with respect to intellectual wealth, he could draw bills for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket. It was said of Corneille qu'il avait tout son esprit en génie; and he pleads guilty to the impeachment:

'J'ai la plume féconde et la bouche stérile,
Bon galant au théâtre et fort mauvais en ville;
Et l'on peut rarement m'écouter sans ennui,
Que si je me produis par la bouche d'autrui.'

a word. When he was dressed, he began, Well, gentlemen, so you believe that Corneille is the author of what you have heard? Learn that there is a little demon who has conceived a friendship for him, and who has the wit of a demon. When he sees Corneille seating himself at his desk to bite his nails and try to make verses, he approaches and dictates four, eight, ten, sometimes twenty verses in succession, which are superior to anything that a mere man can make. After which the little demon, who is as mischievous as a demon, withdraws some paces off, saying "Let us see how the rogue will get on without help." Corneille then makes the ten, twenty, thirty following verses; amongst which there are none but very ordinary, or even there are some very bad. The next day the same game is recommenced between the demon and Corneille. The whole piece is composed in this manner. Beware, gentlemen, of confounding the two authors, The one is a man, but the other is far more than a man.'

This differs somewhat from the fine criticism of St. Evremond: That which is not excellent in him (Corneille) seems bad, less from being bad than from not having the perfection which he had managed to reach in other things. He preferred Rodogune to all his pieces; the public, Cinna.' The note concludes: This is what I have heard related by the late Baron, our Roscius, who was present when Molière said it. I can also certify that M. de Mancroix, caron of Rheims, who died in 1708 at the age of ninety, told me that the audience at the theatre rose when Corneille entered, as for the Prince de Condé; and this he has told me more than once.'

Inferring from the popular interest in the personality of authors, that the public may wish to know something of his own habits and character, the Curieux indulges in a chapter of reminiscences, which, branching off in all directions, embrace incidents which we little expected to find among them. Thus, in giving an account of the Pension Savoure, at which he was brought up, he relates, on the authority of a schoolfellow, Admiral Baudin, that in the month of March 1796, a little pale man with long black hair alighted from a shabby yellow coupe at the door of the seminary, and requested to see the Citizen Savouré. On his appearing, the little man said, I am General Bonaparte. I have searched all Paris for an establishment uniting with the tradition of the old and good studies of the university that of religious instruction, now forgotten everywhere, and I have found but yours.

I

have a young brother whose education unhappily bears traces of the troubled and disorderly times in which we have been living. I come to beg you to admit him among your pupils, and to make a man of him. I am named general-in-chief of the army in Italy, and I am on the point of quitting Paris to take the command. If during my absence you would have the goodness to send me every ten days a bulletin of the progress and conduct of my brother, occupied as I may be with the affairs of my army, I shall always find time to answer you.'

The nomination of the future autocrat to the army of Italy had not been publicly announced, and he was best known by the 13th Vendémiaire, an exploit little calculated to conciliate those who, like M. Savouré, disliked the Convention and its acts. He replied drily, after accepting the charge, It is well understood, General, that here religious instruction is the primary base of education. Eh, Monsieur,' rejoined Bonaparte, it is for that that I came.' Some days afterwards he brought his brother Jerome, who continued in the academy for three years. Napoleon came to see him on the conclusion of the Italian campaign, and kept a watchful eye on his progress till the expedition to Egypt, when the duty of personal superintendence was transferred to Barras, with whom M. Savouré found it impossible to get on. Once or twice a week one of the Director's aides-de-camp came for Jerome, and carried him off to the theatre or some more objectionable place of amusement. He was brought back exhausted and dissipated, idle himself and the cause of idleness in others. At length the preceptor took the bold step of writing to the temporary guardian in these terms. Citizen Director, when General Bonaparte entrusted me with the education of his young brother, it was his desire that I should make a cultivated and able man of him. Now, it is my duty to tell you that nothing is more contrary to this end than constant association with your aides-de-camp. Have the goodness, therefore, to leave me entirely master of young Jerome's education, or remove him from my house.' Jerome was removed immediately; but always spoke of his old master in terms honourable to both.

Cuddie Headrigg says of Lady Margaret Bellenden, 'My leddy dinna like to be contradicted; as I ken naebody does if they can help themselves.' The Curieux does not like to be interrupted; not,' he adds, 'out of pride, but because interruption stag

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The

gers and troubles his thoughts, and puts him out in his interrogations.' He has often been heard to exclaim, like M. de Fontenelle, My children, if we were to speak but four at once what would you have? Curieux has his nerves; you have yours.' This grievance would be comparatively little felt in England, where conversation is more elliptical, and the best talker is liable to be voted a bore if he habitually transgresses Swift's rule (strongly recommended by Sydney Smith), of not occupying more than half a minute without a break; it being free to all to get as many half minutes as they can. The well-known incident of the Frenchman watching his opportunity to strike in, and murmuring S'il crache il est perdu, could hardly have occurred in this country; at least not since the two most eminent of recent English historians have been taken from us.

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6

If there is no precise reason why causeries of this kind should stop anywhere, they must clearly stop somewhere, and M. Feuillet de Conches's readers are not like the audience in The Critic,' who (according to Mr. Sneer) were perfectly indifferent how the actors got off the stage so long as they did get off. The Curieux, therefore, despite of his dislike to interruption, introduces a Deus ex machinâ in the shape of his publisher, le fidèle Henri Plon,' exclaiming, Ah, Mon Dieu, est-il possible! So you are still rummaging among the ashes of antiquity. You are still lingering among the frosts of the North; you are still at Aulnay with Huet; at Caen with M. de Malherbe, in Burgundy with Rabutin. Are you not also going to run off to London, to Florence, to Mantua, to Venice? And my third volume? And then your photograph, which my subscribers insist upon.' The bare mention of the photograph provokes a diatribe against this new and popular substitute for the miniature and engraving. 'Photography,' replies the Curieux, is my aversion; if it reproduces monuments and chalk or pencil drawings to admiration, it has infirmities and intolerable falsehoods for living nature. It can make nothing of distances, and does not see true. It falsifies features. It falsifies colours. In a word, it is the antipodes of art; it is the slave of an instrument and has all the defects of one. When Daniel du Moustier painted people, he made them better-looking than they were, giving as his reason,

They are such fools that they believe themselves to be what I make them, and pay more." But there are sitters more stingy than foolish, and if photography was dear,

no one would submit to it; for it makes uglier than nature. It has been popularised by cheapness.

And so he runs on, till he has fairly run himself out, and is content to conclude in right earnest. We are content to conclude along with him, although by no means suffering from wearisomeness or satiety. It

was Bubb Doddington, we believe, who first laid down the maxim, 'When you have made a favourable impression, go away!' By analogous reasoning, the point at which we always prefer terminating a review is when, to the best of our belief, we have conveyed a fair and favourable impression of the author and the book.

THE OLD SCOTCHMAN.

I NEVER drink a cup of water without thinking of an old Scotchman who, when I was a boy in the city of New York, acted as a porter for the establishment in which I was engaged. He must have been very poor; for then fully sixty-five or seventy years of age, he was em ployed, day after day, in dragging a little handcart, often laden with heavy burdens, over crowded and stony pavements.

In our store was a stone-jar, replenished daily with pure water and ice, and many a time during the day the old man would come to drink. When he had filled the cup, he would take off his worn cap, and, while his thin gray locks fell over his forehead, lift up his face with closed eyes for a moment, with reverential aspect, and in silent prayer, and then drink. No matter what haste, or who observed, he always did the

same.

Since then it is twenty-five or thirty years. I have drank from the icy pools that gather on

the surface of the glaciers of Switzerland, and amidst the burning splendors of Vesuvius, in his own stormy Scotland, and on the stormy sea, but very rarely or never without thinking of that old Scotchman, or, admonished by him, without lifting my heart in gratitude to God. One thing is remarkable: I cannot drink with my hat on. The white locks of the old man seem to shake themselves before me, as if to admonish me of irreverence, and his meek eyes to be lifting themselves up to God, to plead that I may not forget the Giver.

Without doubt, the old man has been many years in heaven. But how that little habit of his has wrought itself into my life, and how to me it has been for more than a quarter of a century, day by day, that little act, a preacher of righteousness!

How could he have ceased to live in my memory? Had he perpetuated his name, and form, and piety, in my heart? Christian, never forget to recognize God. — Evangelist.

PART XVII. CHAPTER LXV.

ON THE DOOR-STEPS AT NIGHT.

Ir was late at night when Sewell arrived at the Priory. He had had another disastrous night of play, and had scattered his " acknowledgments" for various sums on every side. Indeed, he had not the vaguest idea of how much he had lost. Disputes and hot discussions too, almost verging on personal quarrels, dashed with all their irritating influences the gloom of his bad-luck; and he felt, as he arose to go home, that he had not, even that sorry consolation of the unfortunate gambler-the pitying sympathy of the looker-on.

Over and over, as he went, he asked himself what Fate could possibly intend by this persistent persecution of him? Other fellows had their "innings" now and then. Their fortune came checkered with its bright and dark days. He never emerged, not even passingly, from his ill-luck. suppose," muttered he, "the whole is meant to tempt me but to what? I need very little temptation if the bait be only money. Let me but see gold enough, and my resistance will not be very formidable. I'll not risk my neck; short of that I'm ready for anything." Thus thinking, he plodded onward through the dark night, vaguely wishing at times that no morning was ever to break, and that existence might prolong itself out to one long dark autumn night,, silent and starless.

As he reached the hall-door he found his wife seated on the steps as on a former night. It had become a favourite spot with her to taste the cool refreshing night-air, and rally her from the feverish closeness of the sick-room.

"How is he? is it over yet?" cried he as he came up.

"He is better; he slept calmly for some hours, and woke much refreshed."

"I could have sworn it!" burst he in vehemently. "It is the one way Fate could have rescued me, and it is denied me. I believe there is a curse on me! Eh what?"

was obliged to go at last to visit another patient. He brought Dr. Lendrick out with him; he arrived this evening."

"Lendrick! Do you mean the man from the Cape?" "Yes."

"That completes it!" burst he, as he flung his arms wildly up. "I was just wondering what other malignant piece of spite Fortune could play me, and there it is! Had you any talk with this man?"

"Yes; he remained with me all the time Dr. Beattie was upstairs."

"And what was his tone? has he come back to turn us out ?—that of course he has but does he avow it?"

"He shows no such intentions. He asked whether you held much to The Nest,' if it was a place that you liked, or if you could relinquish it without any regret?" "Why so?"

"Because Sir Brook Fossbrooke has just purchased it."

"What nonsense! you know as well as I do that he couldn't purchase a dog-kennel That property was valued at sixteen thou sand pounds four years ago-it is worth twenty now; and you talk to me of this beggar buying it."

"I tell you what he told me, and it was this: Some mine that Sir Brook owned in Sardinia has turned out to be all silver, and in consequence he has suddenly become immensely rich so rich, indeed, that he has already determined to settle this estate on Lucy Lendrick; and intends, if he can induce Lord Drumcarron to part with. The Forest,' to add it to the grounds."

Sewell grasped his hair with both hands, and ground his teeth together with passion as he listened.

"You believe this story, I suppose?" said he at last.

"Yes; why should I not believe it?"

"I don't believe a word of it. I see the drift I saw the drift of it before you had told me ten words. This tale is got up to lull us into security, and to quiet our suspicions. Lendrick knows well the alarm his unexpected return is likely to give us, and to allay our anxieties they have coined this narrative, as though to imply they will be rich enough not to care to molest us, nor stand between us and this old man's money. Don't you see that?

"

"I do not. It did not occur to me before, and I do not admit it now."

"I ought not to have asked you. I ought to have remembered what old Fossbrooke once called the beautiful trustfulness of your nature.'”

"If I had it once, it has left me many a long day ago!"

"But I deny that you ever had it. You had the woman's trick of affecting to believe, and thus making out what you assumed to think, to be a pledge given by another—a bit of female craft that you all trade on so long as you are young and good-looking." "And what supplies the place of this ingenious device when we are neither young nor good-looking?"

"I don't know, for the simple reason that I never much interested myself in the sex after that period.”

"That's a very sad thing for us. I declare I never had an idea how much we're to be pitied before."

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You would be to be pitied if you knew how we all think of you; "and he spoke with a spiteful malignity almost demoniac.

"It's better, then, for each of us that we should not know this. The trustfulness that you sneer at does us good service after all." "And it was this story of the mine that induced Lendrick to come home from the Cape, wasn't it?"

"No; he only heard of the mine since he arrived here."

"I thought," rejoined he, with a sneer, "that he ought to have resigned his appointment on account of this sudden wealth, all the more because I have known that he intended to come back this many a day. And what is Fossbrooke going to do for you? Is there a diamond necklace ordered? or is it one of the brats he is going to adopt?"

"By the way, I have been robbed: some one has carried off my gold comb and some pins; they were on my dressing-table last night. Jane saw them when I went into my room."

"Now's your time to replace the loss! It's the sort of tale old Fossbrooke always responded to."

She made no answer; and for several minutes each sat in silence. "One thing is pretty evident," said he at last, as he made figures with his cane on the ground"we'll have to troop off, whether the Lendricks come here or not. The place will not be tenable once they are in the vicinity." "I don't know."

"You don't know! Do you mean that the Doctor and his daughter will stand the French cook here, and the dinners, and let the old man make a blessed fool of himself, as he has been doing for the last eight or ten months past? or do you pretend that if we were to go back to the feg-of-mutton days, and old Haire for company, that it would

be worth holding on to? I don't; and I tell you frankly that I intend to demand my passports, as the Ministers say, and be off." "But I can't be off.' I have no such alternative!"

"The worse luck yours, or rather the worse skill; for if you had played your hand better, it would not have been thus with you. By the way, what about Trafford? I take it he'll marry this girl now."

"I have not heard," said she, pinching her lips, and speaking with a forced composure. "If I were you I'd make myself Lucy's confidante, get up the match, and go and live with them. These are the really happy ménages. If there be such a thing as bliss, perfect bliss in this world, it is where the wife has a dear friend in the house with her, who listens to all her sorrows, and helps her to manage the tyrant that inflicts them. It was a great mistake of ours not to have known this in early life. Marriage was meant to be a triangle."

"If you go, as you speak of going, have you any objection to my addressing myself to Sir Brook for some assistance?"

"None whatever. I think it the most natural thing in life; he was your guardian, and you have a right to ask, what has become of your fortune."

"He might refer me to you for the information."

"Very unmannerly if he should, and very ungallant too, for an old admirer. I'm certain if I were to be what is the phrase?

removed, yes, removed — he'd marry you. Talk of three-volume novels and virtue rewarded, after that!"

"You have been playing to-night," said she, gravely.

"Yes."