speare was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walked up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were, I told him I had come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me. It is my countryman the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works, et ayez la bonté, mon cher ami, apostrophizing his spirit, added I, de me faire cet honneur-la.

The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction; and, seeing I looked a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an armchair. So I sat down; and, to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of the incident in the bookseller's shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France. . . . And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count. . . . So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader.

-And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I should be sent to the Bastile ;but I have no apprehensions, continued I,-for, in falling into the hands of the most polished people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy. It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it against invalids.

An animated blush came into the Count de B's cheeks as I spoke this-Ne craignez rien -Don't fear, said he. . . . Indeed I don't, replied I again.-Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have come laughing all the way from London to Paris; and I do not think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying for my pains.

-My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B (making him a low bow), is to desire he will not.

The Count heard me with great good-nature, or I had not said half as much,-and once or twice said, C'est bien dit. So I rested my cause there, and determined to say no more about it.

The Count led the discourse: we talked of indifferent things,-of books, and politics, and men; and then of women.- -God bless them all! said I, after much discourse about them,there is not a man upon earth who loves them so much as I do. After all the foibles I have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly persuaded that a man who has not a sort of an affection for the whole sex is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.

gaily;-you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land;-I believe you; ni encore, I dare say, that of our women: but permit me to conjecture, if, par hazard, they fell into your way, that the prospect would not affect you.

I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together, the least of which I could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.

Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I: as for the nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them;-and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in me), I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment, if I knew how to throw it on; but I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and, through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by ;and therefore am I come.

It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have not seen the Palais Royal, nor the Luxembourg, nor the Façade of the Louvre, nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches.-I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.

The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France, and from France will lead me through Italy ;-'tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other --and the world, better than we do.

The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion; and added, very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making me known to him. But, apropos, said he,-Shakespeare is full of great things,he forgot the small punctilio of announcing your name; it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

THERE is not a more perplexing affair in life to me than to set about telling any one who I am,

to any purpose; for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-digger's scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon Yorick; and, advancing the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name,-Me voici ! said I.

Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account; 'tis certain, the French conceive better than they combine. -I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first of our own church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case :-'He could not bear,' he said, 'to look into sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester.' . . . Good, my Lord! said I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your Lordship thinks of has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago: he flourished in Horwendillus' Court;-the other Yorick is myself, who have flourish'd, my Lord, in no Court.He shook his head. . . Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great with Alexander the coppersmith, my Lord! . . . 'Twas all one, he replied.

...

. . . If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship, said I, I'm sure your Lordship would not have said so.

The poor Count de B**** fell but into the

same error.

... Et, monsieur, est il Yorick? cried the Count. . . . Je le suis, said I. . . . Vous?... Moi moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le Comte. . . . Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me,-Vous êtes Yorick?

days, had I not trod so great a part of them upon this enchanted ground. When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scatter'd over with rosebuds of delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthen'd and refresh'd.— When evils press sore upon me, and there is no retreat from them in this world, then I take a new course; I leave it,-and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian Fields than I have of heaven, I force myself, like Eneas, into them :-I see him meet the pensive shade of his forsaken Dido, and wish to recognise it :-I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off silent from the author of her miseries and dishonours; -I loose the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school.

Surely, this is not walking in a rain shadow,nor does man disquiet himself in vain by it :-he oftener does so in trusting the issue of his commotions to reason only.-I can safely say, for myself, I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively as by beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground.

When I had got to the end of the third act, the Count de B**** entered with my passport in his hand. Mons. le Duc de C, said the Count, is as good a prophet, I daresay, as he is a statesman.- -Un homme qui rit, said the Duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.. Had it been for any one but the King's jester, added the Count, I could not have got it these two hours. . . Pardonnez moi, Mons. le Count, said I, I am not the King's jester. . . . But you are Yorick?. . . Yes. . . . Et vous plais

...

...

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

I COULD not conceive why the Count de B**** had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespeare into his pocket.-Mysteries, which must explain themselves, are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up; 'twas better to read Shakspeare; so, taking up Much ado about nothing,' I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in to Messina in Sicily, and got so busy with Don Pedro, and Benedict, and Beatrice, that I thought not of Versailles, the Count, or the passport.

Sweet pliability of man's spirit, that can at once surrender itself to illusions which cheat expectation and sorrow of their weary moments! -Long, long since had ye number'd out my

was not paid for it ;-'twas entirely at my own

expense.

We have no jester at Court, Mons. le Count, said I; the last we had was in the licentious reign of Charles II.; since which time our manners have been so gradully refining that our Court at present is so full of patriots, who wish for nothing but the honours and wealth of our country;-and our ladies are all so chaste, so spotless, so good, so devout-there is nothing for a jester to make a jest of.

Voila un persiflage! cried the Count.

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

As the passport was directed to all lieutenantgovernors, governors, and commandants of cities, generals of armies, justiciaries, and all officers of justices, to let Mr. Yorick, the King's jester, and his baggage, travel quietly along-I own the triumph of obtaining the passport was not

a little tarnish'd by the figure I cut in it.-But there is nothing unmix'd in this world; and some of the gravest of our divines have carried it so far as to affirm that enjoyment itself was attended even with a sigh, and that the greatest they knew of terminated, in a general way, in little better than a convulsion.

I remember the grave and learned Bevoriskius, in his Commentary upon the Generations from Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of a note, to give an account to the world of a couple of sparrows upon the outedge of his window, which had incommoded him all the time he wrote, and at last had entirely taken him off from his genealogy.

... 'Tis strange! writes Bevoriskius, but the facts are certain: for I have had the curiosity to mark them down, one by one, with my pen; -but the cock-sparrow, during the little time that I could have finished the other half of this note, has actually interrupted me with the reiteration of his caresses three-and-twenty times and a half.

How merciful, adds Bevoriskius, is Heaven to his creatures!

Ill-fated Yorick! that the gravest of thy brethren should be able to write that to the world which stains thy face with crimson to .copy, even in thy study.

its debtor; and besides, Urbanity itself, like the fair sex, has so many charms, it goes against the heart to say it can do ill; and yet I believe there is but a certain line of perfection that man, take him altogether, is empower'd to arrive at ;-if he gets beyond, he rather exchanges qualities than gets them. I must not presume to say how far this has affected the French in the subject we are speaking of ;-but should it ever be the case of the English, in the progress of their refinements, to arrive at the same polish which distinguishes the French, if we did not lose the politesse du cœur, which inclines men more to humane actions than courteous ones-we should at least lose that distinct variety and originality of character which distinguishes them not only from each other, but from all the world besides.

I had a few of King William's shillings, as smooth as glass, in my pocket, and, foreseeing they would be of use in the illustration of my hypothesis, I had got them into my hand, when I had proceeded so far:

See, Mons. le Count, said I, rising up, and laying them before him upon the table,-by jingling and rubbing one against another for seventy years together, in one body's pocket or another's, they are become so much alike you can scarce distinguish one shilling from

CHARACTER.

VERSAILLES.

AND how do you find the French? said the Count de B- after he had given me the passport.

The reader may suppose that, after so obliging a proof of courtesy, I could not be at a loss to say something handsome to the inquiry.

... Mais passe, pour cela.—Speak frankly, said he do you find all the urbanity in the French which the world give us the honour of? ... I had found everything, I said, which confirmed it. . . . Vraiment, said the Count, les François sont polis. . . . To an excess, replied I. The Count took notice of the word excesse, and would have it, I meant more than I said. I defended myself a long time, as well as I could, against it;-he insisted I had a reserve, and that I would speak my opinion frankly.

I believe, Mons. le Count, said I, that man has a certain compass, as well as an instrument; and that the social and other calls have occasion, by turns, for every key in him; so that, if you begin a note too high or too low, there must be want either in the upper or under part, to fill up the system of harmony. . . . The Count de B- did not understand music; so desired me to explain it some other way. . . . A polish'd nation, my dear Count, said I, makes every one

The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few people's hands, preserve the first sharpness which the fine hand of Nature has given them;-they are not so pleasant to feel-but, in return, the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and superscription they bear. But the French, Mons. le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said), have so many excellences, they can the better spare this;-they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and a good-temper'd people as is under heaven; -if they have a fault, they are too serious.

Mon Dieu! cried the Count, rising out of his chair.

Mais vous plaisantez, said he, correcting his exclamation. . . . I laid my hand upon my breast, and with earnest gravity assured him it was my most settled opinion.

The Count said he was mortified, --he could not stay to hear my reasons, being engaged to go that moment to dine with the Duo de C

But, if it is not too far to come to Versailles, to eat your soup with me, I beg, before you leave France, I may have the pleasure of knowing you retract your opinion-or in what manner you support it.-But if you do support it, Mons. Anglois, said he, you must do it with all your powers, because you have the whole world against you.-I promised the Count I would do myself the honour of dining with him before I set out for Italy:-so took my leave.

THE TEMPTATION.

PARIS.

WHEN I alighted at the hotel, the porter told me a young woman with a band-box had been that moment inquiring for me. . . . I do not know, said the porter, whether she is gone away or not.I took the key of my chamber of him, and went up-stairs; and when I had got within ten steps of the top of the landing before my door, I met her coming easily down.

It was the fair fille de chambre I had walked along the Quai de Conti with: Madame de R**** had sent her upon some commission to a marchante des modes within a step or two of the Hotel de Modene; and, as I had fail'd in waiting upon her, had bid her inquire if I had left Paris, and if so, whether I had not left a letter addressed to her.

As the fair fille de chambre was so near my door, she returned back, and went into the room with me for a moment or two, whilst I wrote a card.

It was a fine still evening in the latter end of the month of May,-the crimson window-curtains (which were of the same colour as those of the bed) were drawn close,-the sun was setting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair fille de chambre's face,-I thought she blush'd;-the idea of it made me blush myself; -we were quite alone, and that superinduced a second blush before the first could get off.

There is a sort of a pleasing half-guilty blush, where the blood is more in fault than the man; -'tis sent impetuous from the heart, and virtue flies after it,-not to call it back, but to make the sensation of it more delicious to the nerves; -'tis associated-But I'll not describe it;-I felt something at first within me which was not in strict unison with the lesson of virtue I had given her the night before;-I sought five minutes for a card; I knew I had not one. I took up a pen,-I laid it down again,-my hand trembled:-the Devil was in me.

I know as well as any one he is an adversary whom if we resist he will fly from us; but I seldom resist him at all, from a terror that, though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat ;-so I give up the triumph for security; and, instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.

The fair fille de chambre came close up to the bureau, where I was looking for a card,-took up first the pen I cast down, then offered to hold the ink; she offer'd it so sweetly I was going to accept it, but I durst not;-I have nothing, my dear, said I, to write upon. .. Write it, said she simply, upon anything.

-I was just going to cry out, Then I will write it, fair girl, upon thy lips!

-If I do, said I,—I shall perish; so I took her by the hand, and led her to the door, and

begged she would not forget the lesson I had given her. . . . She said, indeed she would not, and, as she uttered it with some earnestness, she turned about, and gave me both her hands closed together into mine. It was impossible not to compress them in that situation ;-I wished to let them go; and, all the time I held them, I kept arguing within myself against it,

and still I held them on.-In two minutes I found I had all the battle to fight over again ;and I felt my legs and every limb about me tremble at the idea.

The foot of the bed was within a yard and a half of the place where we were standing.-I had still hold of her hands (and how it happened, I can give no account); but I neither asked her, nor did I think of the bed;-but so it did happen, we both sat down.

I'll just show you, said the fair fille de chambre, the little purse I have been making to-day to hold your crown. So she put her hand into her right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it some time; then into the left.- -'She had lost it.'I never bore expectation more quietly. -It was in her right pocket at last. She pulled it out;-it was of a green taffeta, lined with a little bit of white quilted satin, and just big enough to hold the crown. She put it into my hand; it was pretty; and I held it ten minutes, with the back of my hand resting upon her lap, looking sometimes at the purse, sometimes on one side of it.

A stitch or two had broke out in the gathers of my stock; the fair fille de chambre, without saying a word, took out her little house-wife, threaded a small needle, and sewed it up. I foresaw it would hazard the glory of the day, and, as she passed her hand in silence across and across my neck in the manoeuvre, I felt the laurels shake which fancy had wreathed about my head.

A strap had given way in her walk, and the buckle of her shoe was just falling off. . . . See, said the fille de chambre, holding up her foot. I could not, from my soul, but fasten the buckle in return; and, putting in the strap, and lifting up the other foot with it, when I had done, to see both were right, in doing it so suddenly, it unavoidably threw the fair fille de chambre off her centre,-and then

THE CONQUEST.

YES, -and then-Ye, whose clay-cold heads and lukewarm hearts can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them? or how his spirit stands answerable to the Father of spirits but for his conduct under them?

If Nature has so wove her web of kindness that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece, must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?-Whip me such

stoics, great Governor of Nature! said I to myself: wherever thy providence shall place me for the trials of my virtue,-whatever is my danger,-whatever is my situation,-let me feel the movements which rise out of it, and which belong to me as a man,-and, if I govern them as a good one, I will trust the issues to thy justice; for thou hast made us, and not we ourselves.

As I finished my address, I raised the fair fille de chambre up by the hand, and led her out of the room. She stood by me till I locked the door and put the key in my pocket;—and then, -the victory being quite decisive,—and not till then, I pressed my lips to her cheek, and, taking her by the hand again, led her safe to the gate of the hotel.

THE MYSTERY.

PARIS.

IF a man knows the heart, he will know it was impossible to go back instantly to my chamber; -it was touching a cold key with a flat third to it, upon the close of a piece of music, which had called forth my affections; therefore, when I let go the hand of the fille de chambre, I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at every one who passed by, and forming conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed upon a single object which confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.

It was a tall figure, of a philosophic, serious, adust look, which passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel.-The man was about fifty-two, had a small cane under his arm, was dressed in a dark drab-coloured coat, waiscoat, and breeches, which seemed to have seen some years' service; they were still clean, and there was a little air of frugal propreté throughout him. By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking charity; so I got a sous or two out of my pocket ready to give him, as he took me in his turn. He passed by me without asking anything,-and yet did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman. I was much more likely to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the same way. An ancient gentleman came slowly, and after him, a young smart one. He let them both pass, and asked nothing. I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.

There were two things very singular in this, which set my brain to work, and to no purpose; -the first was, why the man should only tell his story to the sex ;-and secondly, what kind

of story it was, and what species of eloquence it could be, which softened the hearts of the women, which he knew 'twas to no purpose to practise upon the men.

There were two other circumstances which entangled this mystery:-the one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition :-the other was, it was always successful;-he never stopped a woman but she pulled out her purse, and immediately gave him something.

I could form no system to explain the pheno

menon.

I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening; so I walked up-stairs to my chamber.

THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE.

PARIS.

I WAS immediately followed up by the master of the hotel, who came into my room to tell me I must provide lodgings elsewhere. . . . How so, friend? said I. . . . He answered, I had a young woman locked up with me two hours that evening in my bedchamber, and 'twas against the rules of his house. Very well, said I,

we'll all part friends then; for the girl is no worse, and I am no worse,--and you will be just as I found you.-It was enough, he said, to overthrow the credit of his hotel.-Voyez vous, monsieur, said he, pointing to the foot of the bed we had been sitting upon.· -I own it had something of the appearance of an evidence; but my pride not suffering me to enter into detail of the case, I exhorted him to let his soul sleep in peace, as I resolved to let mine do that night, and that I would discharge what I owed him at breakfast.

...

I should not have minded, monsieur, said he, if you had had twenty girls. . . . 'Tis a score more, replied I, interrupting him, than I ever reckoned upon. . . . Provided, added he, it had been but in a morning. And docs the difference of the time of the day at Paris make a difference in the sin?. . . It made a differ

ence, he said, in the scandal.- -I like a good distinction in my heart; and cannot say I was intolerably out of temper with the man. . . . I own it necessary, resumed the master of the hotel, that a stranger at Paris should have the opportunities presented to him of buying lace and silk stockings, and ruffles, et tout cela;and 'tis nothing if a woman comes with a bandbox. . . . O' my conscience, said I, she had one; but I never looked into it. Then monsieur, said he, has bought nothing? . . . Not one earthly thing, replied I. . . . Because, said he, I could recommend you to one who would use you en conscience. . . . But I must see her this night, said I.—He made me a low bow, and walked down.