I

XL.

THE PASSPORT.

THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly: and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the opéra comique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me thro' the streets as far as the bookseller's shop; but seeing me come out with the young fille-de-chambre, and that we walked down the quai de Conti together, La Fleur deemed it unnecessary to follow me a step further so making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut-and got to the hotel in time to be informed of the affair of the Police against my arrival.

As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation.

-And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be over-burdened with money as thought, had

drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pulled out his purse in order to empty it into mine. I have enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I.-Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius-I know France and Italy better than you. But you do not consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapped up into the Bastille, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expence-I beg pardon, said Eugenius dryly really I had forgot that resource.

Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity or what is it in me, that after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, that I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?

And as for the Bastille! the terror is in the word-Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastille is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you cannot get out of Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year but with nine livres a

day, and pen, and ink, and

paper,

and patience,

albeit a man cannot get out, he may do very well within at least for à month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard, as I settled this account; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning - Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I vauntingly—for I envy not its powers-which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened : reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them-It is true, said I, correcting the proposition the Bastille is not an evil to be despised - but strip it of its towers →→ fill up the fossé―unbarricade the doors call it simply a confinement, and suppose it is some tyrant of a distemper and not of a man which holds you in it-the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

I was interrupted in the hey-day of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained « it could not get out ». — I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking

up,

I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage<< I can't get out-I can't get out », said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentations of its captivity — « I can't get out », said the starling - God help thee! said I, but I will let thee out, cost what it will. So I turned about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces I took both hands to it.

tient

thee at liberty

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it, as if impa- I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set — «No», said the starling — « I << can't get out I can't get out », said the starling. I vow, I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille; and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, SLAVERY! said I still thou art a bitter draught; and though

thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. — It is thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to LIBERTY, whom all, in public or in private, worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till NATURE herself shall change - — no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron - with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled-Gracious heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent grant me but health, thou great bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion-and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

XLI.

THE CAPTIVE.

PARIS.

THE bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the