tion; and to you my company need not be absolutely disagreeable."

Another hearty shake of the hand formed the peremptory ratification of a treaty, in which one of the subscribing parties was allowed to exercise little discretion.

But even when, the prince having withdrawn, the good monk who had acted as master of the ceremonies proceeded to explain to his protégé the princely habits, means, and intentions of Prince Lobanoff, adjuring him not to reject the advances of a patron equally high in the favour of his sovereign and zealous in the cause of letters, Jervis felt as though he had unguardedly suffered himself to be entrapped into a false position. -ANOTHER false position for one who had experienced so many!

He felt sure of becoming as much an object of contempt as of respect, in the eyes of his new patron. If an object of deference to the prince as an accomplished

scholar, he should not be the less an object of pity as a scholar educated at the public cost.

"Some day," mused the mistrustful Jervis, as he took his way homewards, to make reluctant arrangements for quitting his solitary lodging" some day, when the fervour of his enthusiasm shall have subsided, he will see in his admirable Crichton only a pretending parvenu; and should personal dissensions arise, what chance has the earthen pot against the iron vessel?"—

His self-love recoiled from the idea of being appropriated like a menial or a hireling;—too well aware that the prosaic realism of our epoch admits not, like the naïveté of the olden time, of the man of letters maintaining a proud independence as the honoured inmate of the great.

And alas! there are all the fewer Leonardo da Vincis in the world, because Francis the Firsts are wanting!

CHAPTER III.

By this good light, this is a very shallow monster. I, afeard of him?-A very weak monster!-a most poor, credulous monster!-TEMPEST.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not eat paper, as it were. He hath not drunk ink. His intellect is not replenished. He is an animal only sensible in the duller parts.-LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

Is it because the Russians of the last century, creators of the civilization of their country, were so conscious of the instability of their social position under the sceptre of a despot, as to seize with indiscriminating haste every mode and means of enjoyment, lest their day should have no morrow,-that the present race, which they engendered, exhibits 'such reckless ardour in their pursuits?

No one will deny that the frozen North

sends forth the only enthusiasts who throng the theatres, picture galleries, or masked balls of enlightened Europe. And if the imperturbable nature of the Spanish grandees arose of old from the sense of irre

vocable privilege and permanence of rights and dignities, it is easy to conceive that men perpetually on the eve of being exiled to Siberia or knouted by the caprice of a sovereign despotic with the double despotism of her sex and irresponsibility, lost not a moment in extracting the greatest possible amount of enjoyment from the moments and means at their disposal.

The habits of St Petersburg during the present reign being incompatible with the vivacity of these hereditary pleasure-seekers, they are to be found, du jour au lendemain, in every capital but their own ;fox-hunting in England-gambling in Parisscattering like a whirlwind the chef-d'œuvres of Italy,—or squandering their spirits and

gold amid the meretricious pleasures and questionable society of the German baths.

Surrounded in childhood by foreign nurses and professors, their proficiency as linguists naturally incites them to travel. But conscious that at any moment they may be recalled, and that an imperial whim would invalidate their passport ere half their journey be accomplished, their impetuosity outstrips the wind. And who can blame the rapidity of their movements, the vivacity of their utterance, the irritability of their manner? While an Englishman saunters over the face of the globe, fancying himself everybody's master because he is his own, and listless in the examination of the objects ⚫ that present themselves, because, if he. choose, he can come and see them again another time, the men with square faces, deep-set eyes, sandy moustachios, and unpronounceable names, who sweep past us on railroads, or snatch a glance, en passant,