About noon on the following day, Sir Horace Upton and the Colonel drove up to the gate of the villa at Sorrento, and learned, to their no small astonishment, that the Princess had taken her departure that morning for Como. If Upton heard these tidings with a sense of pain, nothing in his manner betrayed the sentiment; on the contrary, he proceeded to do the honors of the place like its owner. He showed Harcourt the grounds and the gardens, pointed out all the choice points of view, directed his attention to rare plants and curious animals; and then led lim within doors to admire the objects of art and luxury which abounded there.

"And that, I conclude, is a portrait of the Princess," said Harcourt, as he stood before what had been a

flattering likeness twenty years

back.

life of literature, a life of the salons, a life of the affections, not to speak of the episodes of jealousy, ambition, triumph, and sometimes defeat, that make up the brilliant web of their existence. Some three or four such people give the whole character and tone to the age they live in. They mould its interests, sway its fashions, suggest its tastes, and they finally rule those who fancy that they rule mankind."

"Egad, then, it makes one very sorry for poor mankind," muttered Harcourt, with a most honest sincerity of voice.

"Why should it do so, my good Harcourt? Is the refinement of a woman's intellect a worse guide than the coarser instincts of a man's nature? Would you not yourself rather trust your destinies to that fair creature yonder, than be left to the legislative mercies of that old gentleman there, that Hardenberg; or his fellow on the other side, Metternich ?"

"Grim looking fellow the Prussian -the other is much better," said Harcourt, rather evading the question.

"I confess I prefer the Princess," said Upton, as he bowed before the portrait in deepest courtesy. "But here comes breakfast. I have ordered them to give it to us here, that we may enjoy that glorious sea-view while we eat."

"I thought your cook a man of genius, Upton, but this fellow is his master," said Harcourt, as he tasted his soup.

"They are brothers-twins too; and they have their separate gifts," said Upton, affectedly. "My fellow, they tell me, has the finer intelligence, but he plays deeply, speculates in the Bourse, and spoils his nerve."

Harcourt watched the delivery of this speech to catch if there were any signs of raillery in the speaker; he felt that there was a kind of mockery in the words, but there was none in the manner, for there was not any in the mind of him who uttered them.

"My chef," resumed Upton, "is a great essayist, who must have time for his efforts. This fellow is a

"No, certainly not," said the other, hesitatingly. To one like myself for instance, who has no health for the wear and tear of public life, and no heart for its ambitions, there is a great deal to like in the quiet retirement of a first-class mission.

Is there really then nothing to do?" asked Harcourt, innocently.

"Nothing, if you don't make it for yourself. You can have a harvest if you like to sow. Otherwise you may lie in fallow the year long. The subordinates take the petty miseries of diplomacy for their share the sorrows of insulted Englishmen, the passport difficulties, the custom-house troubles, the Police insults. The Secretary calls at the offices of the Governor, carries messages and the answers; and I, when I have health for it, make my compliments to the King, in a cocked-hat, on his birthday, and have twelve grease pots illu minated over my door to honour the same festival.".

"And is that all ?"

J

strange, mysterious sentiment-partly tradition, partly préjudice, partly toadyism—which bands together all within its walls, from the whiskered porter at the door to the essenced minister in his bureau, into one intellectual conglomerate, that judges of every man in the line-as they call diplomacy with one accord. By that curious tribunal, which hears no evidence, nor ever utters a sentence, each man's merits are weighed; and to stand well in the Office, is better than all the favours of the court, or the force of great abilities."

"But I cannot comprehend how mere subordinates, the underlings of official life, can possibly influence the fortunes of men somuch above them."

"Picture to yourself the position of an humble guest at a great man's table; imagine one to whose pretensions the sentiments of the servants' hall are hostile; he is served to all appearance like the rest of the company; he gets his soup and his fish like those about him, and his wine glass is duly replenished-yet what a series of petty mortifications is he the victim of; how constantly is he made to feel that he is not in public favour; how certain, too, if he incur an awkwardness, to find that his distresses are exposed. The servants' hall is the Office, my dear Harcourt, and its persecutions are equally polished."

"Are you a favorite there yourself?" asked the other, slily.

"A prime favorite; they all like me!" said he, throwing himself back in his chair, with an air of easy selfsatisfaction; and Harcourt stared at him, curious to know whether so astute a man was the dupe of his own self-esteem, or merely amusing himself with the simplicity of another. Ah, my good colonel, give up the problem, it is an enigma far above your powers to solve. That nature is too complex for your elucidation; in its intricate web no one thread holds the clue, but all is complicated, crossed, and entangled.

"Here comes a Cabinet messenger again," said Upton, as a courier's caleche drove up, and a well-dressed and well-looking fellow leaped out.

"Ah, Stanhope, how are you?" said Sir Horace, shaking his hand with what from him was warmth. “Do

Well,

you know Colonel Harcourt? Frank, what news do you bring me 17: "The best of news."

"At F. O. I suppose," said Upton, sighing.

66

Just so. Adderley has told the King you are the only man capable to succeed him. The Press says the same, and the clubs are all with you.", "Not one of them all, I'd venture to say, has asked whether I have the strength or health for it," said Sir Horace, with a voice of pathetic intonation.

"Why, as we never knew you want energy for whatever fell to your lot to do, we have the same hope still," said Stanhope.

“So say I, too," cried Harcourt. "Like many a good hunter-he'll do his work best when he is properly weighted."

"It is quite refreshing to listen to you both creatures with crocodile digestion talk to a man who suffers night-mare if he over eat a dry biscuit at supper. I tell you frankly it would be the death of me to take the Foreign Office. I'd not live through the seasion the very dinners would kill me, and the house, the heat, and the turmoil, and the worry of opposition, and jaunting back and forward to Brighton or to Windsor."

While he muttered these com-, plaints, he continued to read with great rapidity the letters which Stanhope had brought him, and which, despite all his practised dissimulation," had evidently afforded him pleasure in the perusal.

"Adderley bore it," continued he, "just because he was a mere machine, wound up to play off so many despatches, like so many tunes; and then he permitted a degree of interference on the King's part I never could have suffered; and he liked to be addressed by the King of Prussia as Dear Adderley;' but what do I care for all these vanities? Have I not seen enough of the thing they call the great world? Is not this retreat better and dearer to me than all the glare and crash of London, or all the pomp and splendour of Windsor?"

can picture to myself what I might have made of it; for, you may perceive, George, these people have done nothing; they have been pouring hot water on the tea-leaves Pitt left them ; no more.".

And you'd have a brewing of your own, I've no doubt," responded the other.

"I'd, at least, have foreseen the time when this compact, this holy alliance, should become impossiblewhen the developed intelligence of Europe would seek something else from their rulers than a well concocted scheme of repression. I'd have provided for the hour when England must either break with her own people or her allies; and I'd have inaugurated a new policy, based upon the enlarged views and extended intelligence of mankind."

"I'm not certain that I quite apprehend you," muttered Harcourt.

"No matter; but you can surely understand that if a set of mere mediocrities have saved England, a batch of clever men might have done something more. She came out of the last war the acknowledged head of Europe; does she now hold that place, and what will she be at the next great struggle ?"

"England is as great as ever she was," eried Harcourt, boldly.

"Greater in nothing is she than in the implicit credulity of her people!" sighed Upton. "I only wish I could have the same faith in my physicians that she has in hers! By the way, Stanhope, what of that new fellow they have got at St. Leonard's? They tell me he builds you up in some preparation of gypsum, so that you can't move or stir, and that the perfect repose thus imparted to the system is the highest order of restorative."

"They were just about to try him for manslaughter when I left England," said Stanhope, laughing.

"As often the fate of genius in these days as in more barbarous times," said Upton. "I read his pamphlet with much interest. If you were going back, Harcourt, I'd have begged of you to try him."

"And I'm forced to say, I'd have refused you flatly."

"Yet it is precisely creatures of robust constitution, like you, that should submit themselves to these trials for the sake of humanity. Frail

organizations, like mine, cannot brave these ordeals. What are they talking of in town? Any gossip afloat ?" "The change of ministry is the only topic. Glencore's affair has worn itself out."

"What was that about Glencore?" asked Upton, half indolently?

"A strange story; one can scarcely believe it. They say that Glencore, hearing of the King's great anxiety to be rid of the Queen, asked an audience of his Majesty, and actually suggested, as the best possible expedient, to adopt his own plan, and deny the marriage. They add, that he reasoned the case so cleverly, and with such consummate craft and skill, it was with the greatest difficulty that the king could be persuaded that he was deranged. Some say his Majesty was outraged beyond endurance: others, that he was vastly amused, and laughed immoderately over it."

"And the world, how do they pronounce upon it?

"There are two great partiesone for Glencore's sanity, the other

against; but as I said before, the Cabinet changes have absorbed all interest latterly, and the Viscount and his case are forgotten; and when I started, the great question was, whọ was to have the Foreign Office."

"I believe I could tell them one who will not," said Upton, with a melancholy smile. "Dine with me both of you to day, at seven; no company, you know. There is an opera in the evening, and my box is at your service if you like to go, and so till then," and with a little gesture of the hand he waved an adieu, and stepped from the room.

"I'm sorry he's not up to the work of office," said Harcourt, as he left the room; "there's plenty of ability in him."

"The best man we have," said Stanhope; "so they say at the Office."

"He's gone to lie down, I take it; he seemed much exhausted. What say you to a walk back to town ?”

"I ask nothing better," said Stanhope; and they started for Naples.

FRANCIS JOSEPH TALMA ranks amongst the most remarkable men of the age and country in which he lived. His theatrical eminence was only one of his many claims to distinction. The Garrick of the French stage,combined with the great artist,the man of literature, the accomplised gentleman, the honest citizen, the steady friend, the affectionate husband and father, and the agreeable companion endowed with ample stores of knowledge, and unrivalled conversational powers. His memory resembled a vast magazine, from whence he could draw supplies at will, without danger of exhausting the hoard. He had read much, had witnessed more, and recollected all. He saw the death of Voltaire, the entire career of Chateaubriand, and the rise of Victor Hugo and Lamartine. He beheld the dawn of the great Revolution, became a spectator of all its terrible phases, from the destruction of the Bastile, the massacre of the Swiss Guards, the trial and execution of the King, the reign

of terror, and the directory, throngh the glories of the consulate and the empire, to the extinction of the latter and the restoration of the Bourbons. With the past, he looked back to the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, and almost lived to see the barricades of 1830, and the election of Louis Philippe. Personally, he was the friend of Chenier, David, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and was one of the familiar intimates of Napoleon. His life was a link connecting that of many others, rather than a distinct single existence. His professional popularity never waned with the vicissitudes of a career of nearly forty years; and the affection of his private friends, enduring through life, accompanied him to the tomb. He must have been pre-eminently a happy man, for his mind was pure, truthful, ingenuous, and straightforward: neither let it be forgotten, in the enumeration of his many enviable endowments, that he realized a handsome fortune by his own exertions.

A short time before his death, Talma was asked by an admiring friend why he did not write his own biography, as La Clairon, Le Kain, Preville, and Molé had done before him. He answered that he had not time; and that having so incessantly studied and repeated the thoughts and words of others, he could find no original phrases in which to express his ideas. Nevertheless, an extensive collection of notes and memoranda was discovered amongst his papers after his death, written by him with a view to a personal history of his life and times. These papers, after a lapse of more than twenty years, were consigned, with permission of the two sons of Talma, to Alexandre Dumas, to arrange and edit. The ingenious novelist commenced the task with his usual rapidity, and four volumes were published in 1850. Talma is made to speak throughout in the first person, but how far the imagination of Dumas has embellished or obscured reality, is a question not easily decided. He gives some original anecdotes, and verifies others that have been in print before. The narrative altogether has an air of doubtful authenticity. It is too discursive, and meanders into 80 many labyrinthine episodes, that the individual biography is not easily disentangled.

We have been given to understand by more than one competent critic, that the work is considered in France, as "peu serieux." In 1827, within a year after the death of Talma, an excellent memoir upon the man and his art appeared from the pen of Regnault-Varin, who knew him long and intimately. This volume is highly esteemed, and may be faithfully relied on. Tissot and Moreau also published pamphlets upon the same subject; and the celebrated comedian Regnier has written an excellent article on Talma, which appeared in a volume of the Biographie

It

Universelle, edited by Michaud. will be seen that, from these combined sources, ample materials may be collected for a correct account of the life and actions of the French Roscius.

On a just comparison of pretensions, it must be admitted that Talma was beyond all question the greatest tragic actor that France has ever produced. Men of high renown preceded him-such as Baron, Le Kain, Monvel, La Rivet; but he excelled them all, and none of his successors, to the present year inclusive, are worthy to rank in the same file. The Gallic throne of Melpomene is exclusively occupied by Mademoiselle Rachel. There is not even a shadow of Talma amongst the living men. He was to the French stage, what Garrick was to the English; a bold reformer and the inventor of a new school. Inferior to Garrick in executive versatility, he far surpassed him in classical acquirement and profound study of the ancient models. He was the only French actor who had the good taste and courage to break through the conventional fetters of declamation. He disregarded the measured monotony of the rhyme, and took nature for his exclusive guide. An enthusiastic worshipper once said to him, "You must be deeply affected to produce such powerful emotions in your audience. How intensely you identify yourself with the character you represent!" His reply embraced a lecture on his art. Acting," said he, "is a complete paradox; we must possess the power of strong feeling or we could never command and carry with us the sympathy of a mixed audience in a crowded theatre; but we must at the same time control our own sensations on the stage, for their indulgence would enfeeble execution. The skilful actor calculates his effects beforehand. He never improvises a burst of passion or an explosion of grief. Everything that he does is the