brooke, he built himself a pavillion of boughs, where onely in his clothes he lay." We see in this proceeding the romantic tendencies of his character-that eager, enthusias tic nature, which always yearns for the wild, the strange and the extravagant-disdaining the beaten track, and eagerly striving after a condition and performances from which the ordinary temper shrinks ever in dismay. In this very errantry we may see the germ of that adventurous mood which led him in maturer years across the Atlantic to the fathomless depths of forest in Virginia.

Here, in his "pavillion of boughs," he gave further proofs of the decided character of his genius in the books which he read, and the exercises, strange enough in his hermit life, which he adopted. His "studie was Machiavellie's Arte of Warre" and Marcus Aurelius; his exercise, a good horse with a lance and ring. His moods, errant though they were, did not, it seems, interfere with that self-training, which was certainly the best that he could have chosen for service in his future career. The horse,

the lance and the ring brought to him the skill, and show him to have been imbued with the spirit of chivalry. Few of the courtiers of King James are likely to have been as decidedly inclined to such exercises. As a hunter he practised some other of the minor arts of war. His food was chiefly venison of his own taking. He states this fact slily thus: "his food was thought to be more of venison than anything else," as if he were troubled with certain misgivings on the subject of the game-laws. His other wants were supplied by a servant, through whose means he still maintained some slight intercourse with the world which he had forsworn.

His library, thus limited to two volumes, and those not of a character to beget the impulse to such an eccentric mode of life as that which he adopted, we are to look for

this impulse to the natural constitution of his mind, urgea oy an ambition which is yet vague. in its developments, and taught by a judgment yet in the green of youth, and from the early exercise of his will, equally uncertain in ts aim and resolved upon its prosecution. Smith had something of the poet in him, and wrote smooth verses upon occasions, but does not seem to have been much a eader of the poets. His romantic excesses were probably all native, the natural overflow of a mind, vigorous, easily excited, and so full of spontaneous utterance, as necessarily to rush at times beyond the limits of a sober and restraining reason. And yet it is only by a course of reasoning based upon the ordinary habits of the merely social man, that we shall see anything to astonish us or to provoke censure in the hermit seclusion and studies of our hero The eccentricity of this mode of life soon had the effect of making him notorious; and here we may remark that, in all probability, this was not the most disagreeable result which he anticipated from his present strange career. The mind of Smith, naturally ambitious of distinction, was swelling like that of the Spaniard. He was one of those who crave to live ever in the eyes of men-who entertain a passion, born of impetuous blood, which seeks present distinction and reward for performances, and which works constantly with an. appetite for present homage. To such persons the applause of contemporaries is fame, or such a foretaste of it, as to make it certain that they shall attain the object which they seek. He was not displeased when the rustic world around him began to stare at the strange stories which they heard about their neigh bor hermit. He found his pleasure, and possibly his profit also, in provoking the wonder of the peasantry. By degrees the fame of our anchorite extended to the wealthier classes, and at length an Italian gentleman, a sort of

master of the horse to the Earl of Lincoln, was persuaded to seek out our hermit in his " pavillion of boughs." He did so. He penetrated to the forest den of Smith, and made himself known to him. The visit did not offend our hero, who, in all probability, began to tire of his seclusion The conversation of the Italian pleased him, and his horsemanship no less. Gradually, at length, as an intimacy grew up between them, Smith was beguiled from his solitude, which he abandoned with his new associate. But the society which he thus acquired did not suffice for the exacting spirit of our adventurer any more than did that of Willoughby. "Long these pleasures conld not content him," and he chafed in his inactivity, as the lion, born for the desert, chafes at the close limits of his cage. Smith was not encaged. He was not to be kept. He was of that hardy nature which yearns for the conflict, and loses the pleasant consciousness of its strength, unless in the absolute enjoyment of the struggle. He probably appeared even to disadvantage in moments of repose and quiet. Be this as it may, in such quiet as that for which his solitude had been surrendered he was not willing to remain. His Italian friend failed to keep him at Tattersall's, and we find him, very soon after, breaking away from this intimacy and from England, once more to seek his fortunes in the Low Countries.

CHAPTER II.

"THUS," says our hero, in his own narrative, "when France and the Netherlands had taught him to ride a horse, and to use his armes, with such rudiments of warre as his tender yeeres in those martial schooles could attaine unto, he was desirous to see more of the world, and to try his fortune against the Turkes, both lamenting and repenting to have seene so many Christians slaughter one another." The passage would seem to ́imply that he had a second time seen service in the Low Countries. Yet of this period and service we have no particulars. It was his period of apprenticeship only, in which fortune afforded him no opportunities of distinction, or his "tender years" made it impossible that he should avail himself of them. He was at this time but nineteen years. old, hopeful, sanguine and warmly confiding, as is usually the case with persons of this temperament. He was to incur its usual penalties, and to pay dearly for that caution which exverience alone can teach, and which is so important for him who seeks to be a leader among men. We next find him in company with four French gallants, famous rogues it would seem, who flatter his vanity and take advantage of his youth. Nobody is more easily betrayed than the youth having large enthusiasm of character, and a warm faith in what is allotted for his performance. One of these cunning Frenchmen passes himself off upon our hero as a nobleman. The rest are his attendants. It is not difficult to deceive a character such as that of Smith. Vigilant by nature against the enemy, the same nature places no sentinel against the approach of friendship. In

In

this guise, our cunning Frenchmen play their parts to admiration. Our hero yields them his full heart. They persuade him to go with them into France, where they should not only obtain the necessary means for going against the Turks, but letters from certain distinguished persons to the general of the Hungarian army. The pre tences were all plausible, the end to be attained of considerable importance. The parties embarked in a small vessel, the captain of which, if not a party to the designs of the Frenchmen, at least was disposed to wink at their proceedings. Smith had money and fine clothes. these respects they were less liberally provided. He was a youth, very confiding, and might be plucked with safety It does not seem to have required much skill in the operation. It was on a dark and gloomy night in winter, when they reached the port of St. Valery, in Picardy. Under cover of the night the conspirators, with all their own baggage and that of Smith, were taken ashore by the captain without the knowledge of the other passengers It was not until the rogues were fully beyond reach that the treacherous shipmaster returned to his vessel. When the robbery was detected it was without present remedy. It s very probable that the captain was a sharer of the spoils. He no doubt commanded one of those coasting luggers of mixed character, to be found at that period in all the maritime countries of Europe, which played according to circumstances the character of the smuggler or of the honest trader. The extreme youth of Smith, and the manner in which he had been stripped of everything, awakened the compassion of the passengers, while the evident treachery of the captain enkindled all their rage. Some of them supplied the present wants of the former. without clothes, those only which he wore excepted; and with but a single penny in his pocket, was compelled to

He had been left wholly