own part she had loved me for myself, and had never doubted that my own merits would command both fame and fortune.

been almost repulsed from its walls, and forced to fly as an exile, was welcomed back with acclamation, with servility. One of the servants hastened to preI now felt all my native pride buoyant within me. pare my father for my reception; my eagerness to I no longer walked with my eyes bent to the dust; receive the paternal embrace was so great that I could hope elevated them to the skies; my soul was lit up not await his return; but hurried after him. with fresh fires, and beamed from my countenance. What a spectacle met my eyes as I entered the I wished to impart the change in my circumstances chamber. My father, whom I had left in the pride to the Count; to let him know who and what I was, of vigourous age, whose noble and majestic bearing and to make formal proposals for the hand of Bianca; had so awed my young imagination, was bowed but the Count was absent on a distant estate. I down and withered into decrepitude. A paralysis had opened my whole soul to Filippo. Now first I told ravaged his stately form, and left it a shaking ruin. him of my passion; of the doubts and fears that had He sat propped up in his chair, with pale, relaxed distracted me, and of the tidings that had suddenly visage and glassy, wandering eye. His intellects dispelled them. He overwhelmed me with congratu- had evidently shared in the ravage of his frame. lations and with the warmest expressions of sym- The servant was endeavouring to make him comprepathy. I embraced him in the fullness of my heart. hend the visitor that was at hand. I tottered up to I felt compunctious for having suspected him of cold-him and sunk at his feet. All his past coldness and ness, and asked him forgiveness for having ever neglect were forgotten in his present sufferings. I redoubted his friendship. membered only that he was my parent, and that I Nothing is so warm and enthusiastic as a sudden had deserted him. I clasped his knees; my voice expansion of the heart between young men. Filippo was almost stifled with convulsive sobs. "Pardon entered into our concerns with the most eager inter-pardon-oh my father!" was all that I could utter. est. He was our confidant and counsellor. It was determined that I should hasten at once to Naples to re-establish myself in my father's affections and my paternal home, and the moment the reconciliation was effected and my father's consent insured, I should return and demand Bianca of the Count. Filippo engaged to secure his father's acquiescence; indeed, he undertook to watch over our interests, and was the channel through which we were to correspond.

His apprehension seemed slowly to return to him. He gazed at me for some moments with a vague, inquiring look; a convulsive tremor quivered about his lips; he feebly extended a shaking hand, laid it upon my head, and burst into an infantine flow of tears.

From that moment he would scarcely spare me from his sight. I appeared the only object that his heart responded to in the world: all else was as a blank to him. He had almost lost the powers of speech, and the reasoning faculty seemed at an end. He was mute and passive; excepting that fits of child-like weeping would sometimes come over him without any immediate cause. If I left the room at any time, his eye was incessantly fixed on the door till my return, and on my entrance there was another gush of tears.

My parting with Bianca was tender-delicious-agonizing. It was in a little pavilion of the garden which had been one of our favourite resorts. How often and often did I return to have one more adieu --to have her look once more on me in speechless emotion—to enjoy once more the rapturous sight of those tears streaming down her lovely cheeks-to To talk with him of my concerns, in this ruined state seize once more on that delicate hand, the frankly of mind, would have been worse than useless: to accorded pledge of love, and cover it with tears and have left him, for ever so short a time, would have kisses! Heavens! There is a delight even in the been cruel, unnatural. Here then was a new trial parting agony of two lovers worth a thousand tame for my affections. I wrote to Bianca an account of pleasures of the world. I have her at this moment my return and of my actual situation; painting in before my eyes-at the window of the pavilion, put-colours vivid, for they were true, the torments I sufting aside the vines that clustered about the casement fered at our being thus separated; for to the youth-her light form beaming forth in virgin white-her ful lover every day of absence is an age of love lost. countenance all tears and smiles-sending a thou- I enclosed the letter in one to Filippo, who was the sand and a thousand adieus after me, as, hesitating, channel of our correspondence. I received a reply in a delirium of fondness and agitation, I faltered my from him full of friendship and sympathy; from Biway down the avenue. anca full of assurances of affection and constancy.

As the bark bore me out of the harbour of Genoa, how eagerly my eyes stretched along the coast of Sestri, till it discerned the villa gleaming from among trees at the foot of the mountain. As long as day lasted, I gazed and gazed upon it, till it lessened and lessened to a mere white speck in the distance; and still my intense and fixed gaze discerned it, when all other objects of the coast had blended into indistinct confusion, or were lost in the evening gloom.

On arriving at Naples, I hastened to my paternal home. My heart yearned for the long-withheld blessing of a father's love. As I entered the proud portal of the ancestral palace, my emotions were so great that I could not speak. No one knew me. The servants gazed at me with curiosity and surprise. A few years of intellectual elevation and development had made a prodigious change in the poor fugitive stripling from the convent. Still that no one should know me in my rightful home was overpowering. I felt like the prodigal son returned. I was a stranger in the house of my father. I burst into tears, and wept aloud. When I made myself known, however, all was changed. I who had once

Week after week, month after month elapsed, without making any change in my circumstances. The vital flame, which had seemed nearly extinct when first I met my father, kept fluttering on without any apparent diminution. I watched him constantly, faithfully-I had almost said patiently. I knew that his death alone would set me free; yet I never at any moment wished it. I felt too glad to be able to make any atonement for past disobedience; and, denied as I had been all endearments of relationship in my early days, my heart yearned towards a father, who, in his age and helplessness, had thrown himself entirely on me for comfort. My passion for Bianca gained daily more force from absence; by constant meditation it wore itself a deeper and deeper channel. I made no new friends nor acquaintance; sought none of the pleasures of Naples which my rank and fortune threw open to me. Mine was a heart that confined itself to few objects, but dwelt upon those with the intenser passion. To sit by my father, and administer to his wants, and to meditate on Bianca in the silence of his chamber, was my constant habit. Sometimes I amused myself with my pencil in por

traying the image that was ever present to my imag-| back and hastened to the villa. As I galloped round ination. I transferred to canvas every look and smile the rocky promontory on which stands the Faro, of hers that dwelt in my heart. I showed them to and saw the coast of Sestri opening upon me, a my father in hopes of awakening an interest in his thousand anxieties and doubts suddenly sprang up bosom for the mere shadow of my love; but he was in my bosom. There is something fearful in returntoo far sunk in intellect to take any more than a ing to those we love, while yet uncertain what ills child-like notice of them. or changes absence may have effected. The turbulence of my agitation shook my very frame. I spurred my horse to redoubled speed; he was covered with foam when we both arrived panting at the gateway that opened to the grounds around the vil la. I left my horse at a cottage and walked through the grounds, that I might regain tranquillity for the approaching interview. I chid myself for having suffered mere doubts and surmises thus suddenly to overcome me; but I was always prone to be carried away by these gusts of the feelings.

When I received a letter from Bianca it was a new source of solitary luxury. Her letters, it is true, were less and less frequent, but they were always full of assurances of unabated affection. They breathed not the frank and innocent warmth with which she expressed herself in conversation, but I accounted for it from the embarrassment which inexperienced minds have often to express themselves upon paper. Filippo assured me of her unaltered constancy. They both lamented in the strongest terms our continued separation, though they did justice to the filial feeling that kept me by my father's side.

Nearly eighteen months elapsed in this protracted exile. To me they were so many ages. Ardent and impetuous by nature, I scarcely know how I should have supported so long an absence, had I not felt as-ing the noontide heat. There were the same flowers sured that the faith of Bianca was equal to my own. At length my father died. Life went from him almost imperceptibly. I hung over him in mute affliction, and watched the expiring spasms of nature. His last faltering accents whispered repeatedly a blessing on me-alas! how has it been fulfilled!"

When I had paid due honours to his remains, and laid them in the tomb of our ancestors, I arranged briefly my affairs; put them in a posture to be easily at my command from a distance, and embarked once more, with a bounding heart for Genoa.

On entering the garden every thing bore the same look as when I had left it; and this unchanged aspect of things reassured me. There were the alleys in which I had so often walked with Bianca; the same shades under which we had so often sat durof which she was fond; and which appeared still to be under the ministry of her hand. Every thing around looked and breathed of Bianca; hope and joy flushed in my bosom at every step. I passed a little bower in which we had often sat and read together. A book and a glove lay on the bench. It was Bianca's glove; it was a volume of the Metestasio I had given her. The glove lay in my favourite passage. I clasped them to my heart. "All is safe!" exclaimed I, with rapture, "she loves me! she is still my own!"

Our voyage was propitious, and oh! what was my I bounded lightly along the avenue down which rapture when first, in the dawn of morning, I saw the I had faltered so slowly at my departure. I beheld shadowy summits of the Apennines rising almost her favourite pavilion which had witnessed our partlike clouds above the horizon. The sweet breath of ing scene. The window was open, with the same summer just moved us over the long wavering bil-vine clambering about it, precisely as when she lows that were rolling us on towards Genoa. By degrees the coast of Sestri rose like a sweet creation of enchantment from the silver bosom of the deep. I beheld the line of villages and palaces studding its borders. My eye reverted to a well-known point, and at length, from the confusion of distant objects, it singled out the villa which contained Bianca. It was a mere speck in the landscape, but glimmering from afar, the polar star of my heart.

Again I gazed at it for a livelong summer's day; but oh how different the emotions between departure and return. It now kept growing and growing, instead of lessening and lessening on my sight. My heart seemed to dilate with it. I looked at it through a telescope. I gradually defined one feature after another. The balconies of the central saloon where first I met Bianca beneath its roof; the terrace where we so often had passed the delightful summer evenings; the awning that shaded her chamber window-I almost fancied I saw her form beneath it. Could she but know her lover was in the bark whose white sail now gleamed on the sunny bosom of the sea! My fond impatience increased as we neared the coast. The ship seemed to lag lazily over the billows; I could almost have sprung into the sea and swam to the desired shore.

The shadows of evening gradually shrouded the scene, but the moon arose in all her fullness and beauty, and shed the tender light so dear to lovers, over the romantic coast of Sestri. My whole soul was bathed in unutterable tenderness. I anticipated the heavenly evenings I should pass in wandering with Bianca by the light of that blessed moon.

It was late at night before we entered the harbour. As early next morning as I could get released from the formalities of landing I threw myself on horse

waved and wept me an adieu. Oh! how transporting was the contrast in my situation. As I passed near the pavilion, I heard the tones of a female voice. They thrilled through me with an appeal to my heart not to be mistaken. Before I could think, I felt they were Bianca's. For an instant I paused, overpowered with agitation. I feared to break in suddenly upon her. I softly ascended the steps of the pavilion. The door was open. I saw Bianca seated at a table; her back was towards me; she was warbling a soft melancholy air, and was occupied in drawing. A glance sufficed to show me that she was copying one of my own paintings. I gazed on her for a moment in a delicious tumult of emotions. She paused in her singing; a heavy sigh, almost a sob followed. I could no longer contain myself. Bianca!" exclaimed I, in a half smothered voice. She started at the sound; brushed back the ringlets that hung clustering about her face; darted a glance at me; uttered a piercing shriek, and would have fallen to the earth, had I not caught her in my arms.

"Bianca! my own Bianca!" exclaimed I, folding her to my bosom; my voice stifled in sobs of convulsive joy. She lay in my arms without sense or motion. Alarmed at the effects of my own precipitation, I scarce knew what to do. I tried by a thousand endearing words to call her back to consciousness. She slowly recovered, and half opening her eyes-" where am I?" murmured she faintly. "Here," exclaimed I, pressing her to my bosom. "Here! close to the heart that adores you; in the arms of your faithful Ottavio !"

"Oh no! no! no!" shrieked she, starting into sudden life and terror-" away! away! leave me ! leave me !"

She tore herself from my arms; rushed to a cor- No! no! no!" cried she faltering and embar ner of the saloon, and covered her face with her rassed; but the glance at her face had told me volhands, as if the very sight of me were baleful. Iumes. I saw in her pallid and wasted features; in the was thunderstruck-I could not believe my senses. I followed her, trembling, confounded. I endeavoured to take her hand, but she shrunk from my very touch with horror.

'Good heavens, Bianca," exclaimed I, "what is the meaning of this? Is this my reception after so long an absence? Is this the love you professed for me?"

At the mention of love, a shuddering ran through her. She turned to me a face wild with anguish. "No more of that! no more of that!" gasped she"talk not to me of love-I-I-am married!"

prompt terror and subdued agony of her eye a whole history of a mind broken down by tyranny. Great God! and was this beauteous flower snatched from me to be thus trampled upon? The idea roused me to madness. I clinched my teeth and my hands; I foamed at the mouth; every passion seemed to have resolved itself into the fury that like a lava boiled within my heart. Bianca shrunk from me in speechless affright. As I strode by the window my eye darted down the alley. Fatal moment! I beheld Filippo at a distance! My brain was in delitium-I sprang from the pavilion, and was before him with I reeled as if I had received a mortal blow. A the quickness of lightning. He saw me as I came sickness struck to my very heart. I caught at a rushing upon him-he turned pale, looked wildly to window frame for support. For a moment or two, right and left, as if he would have fled, and tremevery thing was chaos around me. When I recovered, bling drew his sword:I beheld Bianca lying on a sofa; her face buried in the pillow, and sobbing convulsively. Indignation at her fickleness for a moment overpowered every other feeling.

the room.

Faithless-perjured-" cried I, striding across But another glance at that beautiful being in distress, checked all my wrath. Anger could not dwell together with her idea in my soul.

"Wretch!" cried I, "well may you draw your weapon!"

I spake not another word - I snatched forth a stiletto, put by the sword which trembled in his hand, and buried my poniard in his bosom. He fell with the blow, but my rage was unsated. I sprang upon him with the blood-thirsty feeling of a tiger; redoubled my blows; mangled him in my frenzy, grasped him by the throat, until with reiterated wounds and strangling convulsions he expired in my grasp. I remained glaring on the countenance, She raised her face all streaming with tears, all horrible in death, that seemed to stare back with its disordered with emotion, and gave me one appeal-protruded eyes upon me. Piercing shrieks roused ing look-" False to you !-they told me you were me from my delirium. I looked round and beheld dead!" Bianca flying distractedly towards us. My brain "What," said I, "in spite of our constant corre-whirled. I waited not to meet her, but fled from spondence?"

"Oh, Bianca," exclaimed I, in anguish, "could I have dreamt of this; could I have suspected you would have been false to me?"

the scene of horror. I fled forth from the garden

She gazed wildly at me-"correspondence!—like another Cain, a hell within my bosom, and a what correspondence?"

"Have you not repeatedly received and replied to my letters?"

She clasped her hands with solemnity and fervour-" As I hope for mercy, never!"

A horrible surmise shot through my brain-"Who told you I was dead?

curse upon my head. I fled without knowing whither almost without knowing why-my only idea was to get farther and farther from the horrors I had left behind; as if I could throw space between myself and my conscience. I fled to the Apennines, and wandered for days and days among their savage heights. How I existed I cannot tell-what rocks

"It was reported that the ship in which you cm-and precipices I braved, and how I braved them, I barked for Naples perished at sea.' "But who told you the report?"

She paused for an instant, and trembled― "Filippo!"

66

May the God of heaven curse him!" cried I, extending my clinched fists aloft.

"Oh do not curse him-do not curse him!" exclaimed she—“ He is-he is-my husband!"

This was all that was wanting to unfold the perfidy that had been practised upon me. My blood boiled like liquid fire in my veins. I gasped with rage too great for utterance. I remained for a time bewildered by the whirl of horrible thoughts that rushed through my mind. The poor victim of deception before me thought it was with her I was incensed. She faintly murmured forth her exculpation. I will not dwell upon it. I saw in it more than she meant to reveal. I saw with a glance how both of us had been betrayed. "'Tis well!" muttered I to myself in smothered accents of concentrated fury." He shall account to me for this!"

Bianca overheard me. New terror flashed in her countenance. For mercy's sake do not meet him -say nothing of what has passed-for my sake say nothing to him-I only shall be the sufferer!"

A new suspicion darted across my mind "What!" exclaimed I-"do you then fear him-is he unkind to you tell me," reiterated I, grasping her hand and looking her eagerly in the face-" tell me-dares he to use you harshly!"

know not. I kept on and on-trying to outtravel the curse that clung to me. Alas, the shrieks of Bianca rung for ever in my ear. The horrible countenance of my victim was for ever before my eyes. The blood of Filippo cried to me from the ground." Rocks, trees, and torrents all resounded with my crime.

Then it was I felt how much more insupportable is the anguish of remorse than every other mental pang. Oh! could I but have cast off this crime that festered in my heart; could I but have regained the innocence that reigned in my breast as I entered the garden at Sestri; could I but have restored my victim to life, I felt as if I could look on with transport even though Bianca were in his arms.

By degrees this frenzied fever of remorse settled into a permanent malady of the mind. Into one of the most horrible that ever poor wretch was cursed with. Wherever I went, the countenance of him I had slain appeared to follow me. Wherever I turned my head I beheld it behind me, hideous with the contortions of the dying moment. I have tried in every way to escape from this horrible phantom; but in vain. I know not whether it is an illusion of the mind, the consequence of my dismal education at the convent, or whether a phantom really sent by heaven to punish me; but there it ever is--at all times-in all places-nor has time nor habit had any effect in familiarizing me with its terrors. I have travelled from place to place, plunged into

amusements-tried dissipation and distraction of | You who have pitied my sufferings; who have every kind-all-all in vain.

I once had recourse to my pencil as a desperate experiment. I painted an exact resemblance of this phantom face. I placed it before me in hopes that by constantly contemplating the copy I might diminish the effect of the original. But I only doubled instead of diminishing the misery.

Such is the curse that has clung to my footsteps -that has made my life a burthen-but the thoughts of death, terrible. God knows what I have suffered. What days and days, and nights and nights, of sleepless torment. What a never-dying worm has preyed upon my heart; what an unquenchable fire has burned within my brain. He knows the wrongs that wrought upon my poor weak nature; that converted the tenderest of affections into the deadliest of fury He knows best whether a frail erring creature has expiated by long-enduring torture and measureless remorse, the crime of a moment of madness. Often, often have I prostrated myself in the dust, and implored that he would give me a sign of his forgiveness, and let me die.

poured the balm of sympathy into my wounds, do not shrink from my memory with abhorrence now that you know my story. Recollect, when you read of my crime I shall have atoned for it with my blood!

When the Baronet had finished, there was an universal desire expressed to see the painting of this frightful visage. After much entreaty the Baronet consented, on condition that they should only visit it one by one. He called his housekeeper and gave her charge to conduct the gentlemen singly to the chamber. They all returned varying in their stories: some affected in one way, some in another; some more, some less; but all agreeing that there was a certain something about the painting that had a very odd effect upon the feelings.

I stood in a deep bow window with the Baronet,
and could not help expressing my wonder.
"After
all," said I, "there are certain mysteries in our nat-
ure, certain inscrutable impulses and influences, that
warrant one in being superstitious. Who can ac-
count for so many persons of different characters
being thus strangely affected by a mere painting?'
"And especially when not one of them has seen
it!" said the Baronet with a smile.

"How?" exclaimed I, "not seen it?"
"Not one of them!" replied he, laying his finger

Thus far had I written some time since. I had meant to leave this record of misery and crime with you, to be read when I should be no more. My prayer to heaven has at length been heard. You were witness to my emotions last evening at the performance of the Miserere; when the vaulted temple resounded with the words of atonement and redemp-on his lips in sign of secrecy. "I saw that some of tion. I heard a voice speaking to me from the midst of the music; I heard it rising above the pealing of the organ and the voices of the choir; it spoke to me in tones of celestial melody; it promised mercy and forgiveness, but demanded from me full expiation. I go to make it. To-morrow I shall be on my way to Genoa to surrender myself to justice.

them were in a bantering vein, and I did not choose that the memento of the poor Italian should be made a jest of. So I gave the housekeeper a hint to show them all to a different chamber!”

Thus end the Stories of the Nervous Gentlemar.

TALES OF A TRAVELLER.

PART SECOND.

BUCKTHORNE AND HIS FRIENDS.

"'Tis a very good world that we live in,

To lend, or to spend, or to give in;

But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own,
'Tis the very worst world, sir, that ever was known."
LINES FROM AN INN WINDOW.

LITERARY LIFE.

AMONG the great variety of characters which fall in a traveller's way, 1 became acquainted during my sojourn in London, with an eccentric personage of the name of Buckthorne. He was a literary man, had lived much in the metropolis, and had acquired a great deal of curious, though unprofitable knowledge concerning it. He was great observer of character, and could give the natural history of every odd animal that presented itself in this great wilderness of men. Finding me very curious about literary life and literary characters, he took much pains to gratify my curiosity.

"The literary world of England," said he to me one day, "is made up of a number of little fraternities, each existing merely for itself, and thinking the rest of the world created only to look on and admire. It may be resembled to the firmament, consisting of a number of systems, each composed of its own central sun with its revolving train of moons and satellites, all acting in the most harmonious concord; but the comparison fails in part, inasmuch as the literary world has no general concord. Each system acts independently of the rest, and indeed considers all other stars as mere exhalations and transient meteors, beaming for a while with false fires, but doomed soon to fall and be forgotten; while its own luminaries are the lights of the universe, des

tined to increase in splendour and to shine steadily confederacies, and bear all the distinctive character on to immortality." istics of their species."

"And pray," said I, "how is a man to get a peep into one of these systems you talk of? I presume an intercourse with authors is a kind of intellectual exchange, where one must bring his commodities to barter, and always give a quid pro quo."

A LITERARY DINNER.

A FEW days after this conversation with Mr. Buckthorne, he called upon me, and took me with him to a regular literary dinner. It was given by a great bookseller, or rather a company of booksellers, whose firm surpassed in length even that of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-nego.

Pooh, pooh-how you mistake," said Buckthorne, smiling: "you must never think to become popular among wits by shining. They go into society to shine themselves, not to admire the brilliancy of others. I thought as you do when I first cultivated the society of men of letters, and never went to a blue stocking coterie without studying my part beforehand as diligently as an actor. The consequence was, I soon got the name of an intolerable proser, I was surprised to find between twenty and thirty and should in a little while have been completely guests assembled, most of whom I had never seen excommunicated had I not changed my plan of before. Buckthorne explained this to me by inoperations. From thenceforth I became a most forming me that this was a "business dinner," or assiduous listener, or if ever I were eloquent, it was kind of field day, which the house gave about twice tête-a-tête with an author in praise of his own works, a year to its authors. It is true, they did occasionor what is nearly as acceptable, in disparagement ally give snug dinners to three or four literary men of the works of his contemporaries. If ever he at a time, but then these were generally select auspoke favourably of the productions of some par- thors; favourites of the public; such as had arrived ticular friend, I ventured boldly to dissent from him, at their sixth and seventh editions. "There are," and to prove that his friend was a blockhead; and said he, "certain geographical boundaries in the much as people say of the pertinacity and irritability land of literature, and you may judge tolerably well of authors, I never found one to take offence at my of an author's popularity, by the wine his bookseller contradictions. No, no, sir, authors are particularly gives him. An author crosses the port line about candid in admitting the faults of their friends. the third edition and gets into claret, but when he has reached the sixth and seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy." "And pray," said I, how far may these gentlemen have reached that I see around me; are any of these claret drinkers?"

"Not exactly, not exactly. You find at these great dinners the common steady run of authors, one, two, edition men; or if any others are invited they are aware that it is a kind of republican meeting.-You understand me-a meeting of the republic of letters, and that they must expect nothing but plain substantial fare."

"Indeed, I was extremely sparing of my remarks on all modern works, excepting to make sarcastic observations on the most distinguished writers of the day. I never ventured to praise an author that had not been dead at least half a century; and even then I was rather cautious; for you must know that many old writers have been enlisted under the banners of different sects, and their merits have become as complete topics of party prejudice and dispute, as the merits of living statesmen and politicians. Nay, there have been whole periods of literature absolutely taboo'd, to use a South Sea phrase. It is, for example, as much as a man's reputation is worth, in These hints enabled me to comprehend more fully some circles, to say a word in praise of any writers the arrangement of the table. The two ends were of the reign of Charles the Second, or even of occupied by two partners of the house. And the Queen Anne; they being all declared to be French-host seemed to have adopted Addison's ideas as to men in disguise." the literary precedence of his guests. A popular poet And pray, then," said I, "when am I to know had the post of honour, opposite to whom was a hotthat I am on safe grounds; being totally unac-pressed traveller in quarto, with plates. A gravequainted with the literary landmarks and the boundary lines of fashionable taste?"

"Oh," replied he, "there is fortunately one tract of literature that forms a kind of neutral ground, on which all the literary world meet amicably; lay down their weapons and even run riot in their excess of good humour, and this is, the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Here you may praise away at a venture; here it is 'cut and come again,' and the more obscure the author, and the more quaint and crabbed his style, the more your admiration will smack of the real relish of the connoisseur; whose taste, like that of an epicure, is always for game that has an antiquated flavour.

"But," continued he, "as you seem anxious to know something of literary society I will take an opportunity to introduce you to some coterie, where the talents of the day are assembled. I cannot promise you, however, that they will be of the first order. Some how or other, our great geniuses are not gregarious, they do not go in flocks, but fly singly in general society. They prefer mingling, like common men, with the multitude; and are apt to carry nothing of the author about them but the reputation. It is only the inferior orders that herd together, acquire strength and importance by their

looking antiquarian, who had produced several solid works, which were much quoted and little read, was treated with great respect, and seated next to a neat, dressy gentleman in black, who had written a thin, genteel, hot-pressed octavo on political economy, that was getting into fashion. Several three-volume duodecimo men of fair currency were placed about the centre of the table; while the lower end was taken up with small poets, translators, and authors, who had not as yet risen into much notice.

The conversation during dinner was by fits and starts; breaking out here and there in various parts of the table in small flashes, and ending in smoke. The poet who had the confidence of a man on good terms with the world and independent of his bookseller, was very gay and brilliant, and said many clever things, which set the partner next him in a roar, and delighted all the company. The other partner, however, maintained his sedateness, and kept carving on, with the air of a thorough man of business, intent upon the occupation of the moment. His gravity was explained to me by my friend Buckthorne. He informed me that the concerns of the house were admirably distributed among the partners. "Thus, for instance," said he, "the grave gentleman is the carving partner who attends to the joints, and