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than natural. On the whole, this kind of writing is much more grateful to our oldfashioned taste, than any of the common affected chaff that is daily thrown into the public manger.

Notwithstanding its many manifest defects, therefore, one may run through this little tale with considerable satisfaction. It is not very artistically put together; the incidents are too wide apart. But it is in a good school and is wrought with ability.

The principal events occur in Boston, the West Indies, and Europe. In one of the chapters depicting fashionable life in Paris there are many just observations, upon some of which it will be a service to the class for whom they were intended to confer the honor of quotation. The author is evidently writing from actual survey, and his pictures of the extravagancies of some American residents in what used to be styled the "gay capital" are not, it is probable, much overwrought :

"The family to whose kindness I was so much indebted on my first arrival in Paris being of the Faubourg Saint Germain aristocracy, as is called that portion of society which, notwithstanding it still clings to the fallen fortunes of the elder branch of the Bourbons, is allowed to take rank of every other, I experienced no difficulty, under its powerful auspices, in gaining access to all inferior circles of fashion; and as in these there is always a most abundant sprinkling of foreign residents, English and American above all, my curious attention was constantly engaged in ascertaining what effect transplantation and intercourse with strangers had produced upon them, and especially upon my own countrymen.

"The English, for the most part, seemed to be neither of the highest nor lowest of those who lay claim to respectability and fashion in their own land, but rather men of shattered means, whose desires had outstripped their resources, or presumptuous upstarts, who, after vainly struggling to reach a more elevated place than belonged to them at home, had left their country in the hope of forcing themselves up in the world by dint of self-assurance or lavish expenditure, skillfully brought to bear upon the indifference and ignorance of strangers; and later experience has taught me that many individuals of both these classes not only succeed in gaining the position they desire, but that they contrive to fasten themselves there with leechlike tenacity, sometimes by one means and sometimes by another, but never unaided by sumptuous entertainments, where an unsparing profusion of costly wines drowns even the

whisper of censure. Long occupancy, as with intruders upon real estate, gives them at length a sort of title, and even should some witness by, enviously intent upon exposing their illof their former lowly condition come wandering founded pretensions, his story is conveniently disbelieved, or is washed out of an unwilling remembrance at the next day's feast.

"Never having been in the company of a nobleman in their own country, except, perhaps, on a race-course or at a county meeting, whenever they address any of their acquaintance to whose name is attached the slightest indication of rank, the title is sure to be well mouthed out by them, particularly if an associate of their less prosperous days be standing by to bear testimony to the exalted state at which they have arrived. And yet their sycophancy being no sympathy between them and those very fitly rewarded by bare toleration, there among whom they are permitted to dwell. Their coldness of demeanor passes for insensibility, and their bluntness of speech for rudeness, while they themselves are regarded as aliens, and would be treated accordingly, were it not that, among the great Few, as among the insignificant Many, gilded, if not golden opinions are always to be had for a valuable consideration.

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Floating upon the surface of a society to which they do not rightfully belong, they make unceasing efforts to keep up with the current of it, catering to the tastes, and pampering the appetites of thousands who are ignorant sometimes even of their persons, and

indifferent to their merits.

"Now all this, attracting my notice in individuals of another nation than my own, though it excited a passing feeling of pity and contempt, did not fail in a certain degree to amuse me; but when I perceived that undisguised rankworship had its besotted votaries among Americans to quite as great an extent as among Englishmen, a sense of shame completely mastered every other emotion." *

"But Mr. Livermore was by no means the only American that laid his daily sacrifice of time, and gold, and self-respect before the gilded calf of high French fashion. Following successfully his example, closely upon his heels, and in advance of all others, there was a Mrs. Chase, with her husband, originally very decent people of obscure origin, whose acquaintance I had made some years before on board my own vessel going to the West Indies.

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merchant sea-captain was not a personage of sufficient consideration in her esteem to be deserving of notice. I passed out, therefore, with a smile to myself, in quest of other companions less exclusive in their humors than my fair country-woman, and was, an hour or two later, standing not far from the entrance of a saloon on the aristocratic side of the Seine, when who should present herself but the very lady that had just shown such a convenient loss of memory respecting my identity.

"She had certainly gained some tact since her residence abroad, or, at least, had not left uncultivated that which Nature gave her, for, without betraying the slightest embarrassment at our second meeting, she greeted me most cordially, exclaiming, Why, Captain Vernon! is it you? I am so delighted to see you!'

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"Call me Mister Vernon, if you please, madam.' said I, in a playful under-tone, not unwilling to renew our former intimacy of ship-board birth, although quite aware that I owed the lady's new-born favor to the quality of the company in which she found me. 'Call me plain Mister, or I shall lose myself among so many titled gentry. But, seriously speaking,' I continued, as I have no right to dub myself captain, I cannot consent to render the name of American more ridiculous than it is already made by the show of borrowed or stolen plumes.'

"How absurd you are,' she replied, 'not to avail yourself of that which belongs to you quite as much as do their titles to half of the people one meets on leaving our faubourg! Why, do you know that not a few of this would-be nobility have no more right to the rank they assume, than I have to the little aristocratic de I put before my name, to distinguish me from the common herd of Americans which abound in Paris? Do you know that there are men and women moving with impunity in good society, who have attained to a marquisate of their own creation, or even something better, by dint of sheer effrontery?'

"I was not aware of these facts,' I answered. "But the herd of Americans, as you call it, is it then so great? and those composing it, are they also aspiring?'

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"I should call their name legion, were it not that the English of the same stamp far outnumber them,' was her reply. They come and go like locusts, and sometimes leave as disagreeable traces behind them; and as to their aspirations, it is really amusing to see how fond Republicans are of anybody higher in rank than a commoner. If by chance, as is the case with several I know, they can claim the slightest relationship to any French family of note, one is wearied with their eternal selfglorification. Then there is no end to their indignation if they are not entertained at the Tuilleries, dined at their embassy, and caressed by American residents, whether known to

them or not. Their ignorance, too, of the forms of society, and their pretensions to polite accomplishments, are miraculously astounding. One, for example, leaves a card on his majesty, and another, equally erudite in the lore of courts, compliments the queen on the good looks of her husband. No offence, of course, is intended, nor is any taken, that I am aware of; but what folly it is, through stolid indifference or wilful ignorance, to violate conventional rules to which we have voluntarily subjected ourselves. I, however, am fortunate in knowing only a few of the savages, or my house would be overrun by them.'

"Are they, then, so fond of society?' I inquired.

“Actually ravenous for it,' she answered; ' and they fearlessly thrust themselves into any they can enter, although their knowledge of the French language hardly suffices to provide them with the common necessaries of life. But to my set, thank Heaven, they can never gain admittance; for, even with my three hundred thousand francs a year, the difficulties I met with in getting into it were inconceivable, and it was only through a fortunate acquaintance which I made at a watering-place that I succeeded at last. To the Tuilleries, however, 1 am told, they rush in crowds, though of this I know nothing, as I never visit those head-quarters of vulgarity.'

"Perhaps they go there merely as strangers to a raree-show,' I remarked.

“I could easily believe it,' she replied, ' if a first, or even a second exhibition contented them; but the truth is, they never let slip an opportunity of basking in the smiles of royalty and rubbing against nobility. Then the dresses they assume on such occasions, notwithstanding a very modest costume has been prescribed to them by custom, are sometimes fantastically absurd, and often the cause of ludicrous, if not painful consequences. It was only last year that a reverend father of holy Church, who had bedecked his time-worn person in the uniform of a general officer, was completely dumbfounded on being asked at the palace what rank he held at the termination of the last war with Great Britain. He was followed on one side by a respectable physician, enacting the character of a colonel of dragoons, and on the other by an eminent lawyer, personating a major of infantry, neither of whom, even if addressed in his vernacular, could have uttered a single sentence understandingly in reply to the simplest question on military tactics.

"But the man that most excited my informant's admiration, and whom he recognized as a celebrated hair-dresser of New York, surpassed everybody else in producing a scenic effect. Through pure ignorance and love of finery, he had tricked out his really handsome person in a magnificently-embroidered green suit, so much resembling the livery of a chas-

seur, as is called an embassador's footman, that | in the esteem of foreigners, who naturally reit was the subject of universal wonder how heceive their impressions respecting us from porcould ever have been permitted to enter where he was. By calling himself, however, the captain of a state rifle corps, he was allowed to pass the doors; and, as far as mere personal appearance went, he was certainly the most presentable among all the Americans.'

"Granting, madam,' said I, ' that there is no exaggeration in what you have repeated to me on the authority of your friend, still it all seems very harmless, provided that neither in this nor in any way do our countrymen amuse themselves at the expense of others.'

"But, unfortunately, they do,' she quickly rejoined; for, not content with making fools of themselves, the envy and censoriousness which they indulged in at home, instead of being thrown aside, have become a matter of notoriety in a foreign country, where a cultivated taste teaches better things.

traits drawn by ourselves; and yet, only suggest to an American the idea that his is not the greatest nation on the face of the earth, or that the Americans are not the most accomplished people under the sun, and he instantly fires up to the explosive point, and is ready to burst, as it were, with a sickly and monstrous vanity, which casts even that of a Frenchman into the shade. And this he calls patriotism!

"But I am keeping you too long from our amiable hostess, whom I see approaching. So adieu for the present, but call on me to-mor row, and remember that every Sunday evening I am at home.' So saying, the elegant Madame de Chase moved off, exchanging compli ments right hand and left with every other person she met.

"All, or very nearly all, the strictures I had been listening to, proved, on inquiry, to be richly merited by not a few of those against whom they were directed; and it might have been added, that the wanton impertinence and

"I will not attempt to conceal from you that my husband was formerly a tradesman, for you know all about it; but where was the use of proclaiming to all my French acquaint-recklessness with which letters of introduction are ances that he was once a cabinet-maker? It certainly mortified me, and I should have trembled for the consequences, had I not felt assured that few would believe the story, and that all preferred good dinners to inquiring into the

truth of it.

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"Yours,' said I, thinking of her recent temporary blindness in the opera passage, was, perhaps, a peculiar case. Maybe you had hurt the feelings or wounded the vanity of your famers.'

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"Not at all,' was her answer; 'I could give you many instances of the like, and, among others, that of a young gentleman whom you will, I trust, meet at my house. Though the owner of a large fortune, which he spends liberally, he is of the most unpretending nature, and the refined simplicity of his manner, I have heard good judges say, would be pronounced positive elegance in a person of gentle blood. And yet, because he once worked at a handcraft, he is slightingly spoken of by many of his countrymen, who never neglect an opportunity of referring to his humble birth.

"Their delight seems to be in backbiting each other, in searching out and retailing pri

vate histories, and that, too often, with little

regard to truth. Within a month, I have twice

heard, on American authority, much to the surprise of Mr. Chase and myself, that we were under the necessity of returning home to escape the consequences of our extravagance : and an intimate friend of ours, whose large property is daily increasing in value, has been several times reduced to poverty by slanderous stories of kindred tongues, without being poorer by a single sixpence.

"Now all this, you will admit, is vulgar as well as vexatious, and calculated to lower us

sent to Europe, at the expense of those there who have, more hospitably than wisely, entertained the writers of them, ought to be held up to universal reprobation."

The italics in the last paragraph are the author's. We have no doubt of the truth of what they emphasize. Yet the evil is one which is beginning to remedy itself. Our diplomatic and other well known gentlemen who have resided abroad, are becoming more scrupulous in giving letters of introduction to those who may possibly disgrace them; while at the same time such letters are not looked upon as they used to be by the recipients. Formerly our public agents were besieged by the family of every student going to Paris; and in not a few instances probably letters have been given which, if attended to, would place individuals on a footing abroad to which they could have no claim at home, simply to buy influence. But if we are not misinformed, a better understanding

now subsists on both sides of the water, and there is a greater reciprocity of good faith.

One other extract we must be excused for quoting, at the same time taking the opportunity to thank the author for the account it gives of what must have been an actual interview with one of whom the least particulars are to us, and we hope, to our readers, never uninteresting :

"After the crier had made his usual proclamation, the judge entered with his suite, and in it, unremarked for aught I saw, came, slowly halting, Sir Walter Scott!! He appeared to be very lame, but, as I afterward discovered, he walked without pain, and had, he told me, travelled with ease twenty and thirty miles a day on foot. The stick on which he leaned seemed to be a stout Malacca joint, with a crutch head, and the dress he wore was a black silk gown over a suit of the same color. He seated himself at a table, and, after looking unconcernedly around, went quietly to work signing papers, which a subordinate attendant handed to him in quick succession. I gazed at him, as may be well supposed, with feelings of no ordinary nature, and could hardly realize that the hand I now saw engaged in the drudgery of a quarter session was the same that had created the dashing but affectionate Diana Vernon, the gentle Alice Bridgnorth, old Edie Ochiltree, Caleb Balderstone, and Meg Merrilies, with an endless host of warm and animate beings, who live in our fancy, almost our belief, as life-like and far more vividly than the real characters of history itself.

"The court adjourned early, and I, curious to know what attention its clerk attracted in the street, as well as to ascertain the place of his residence, followed him at a respectful distance. Few, however, of those he met, took any notice of him, although he had to walk a considerable way. The indifference of its neighbors to the Falls of Niagara came across iny mind. An hour or two later, when I thought he would be at leisure, for I knew that the morning was his busy time, I rang at the door where I had seen him enter, and, on being told by the servant that his master was at home, desired him to carry in my card and Mr. Kinnaird's letter. While waiting in the antechamber, my eyes chanced to fall on a wellworn hat of no ordinary dimensions, with the name of Scott rudely scrawled upon the lining, and I remember regarding it much more curiously than I have since the famous chapeau of Napoleon, which his faithful valet Marchand exhibited to me among other relics of his idolized master. I was ushered into the study of the greatest man alive. He had just finished sealing a large packet-the manuscript, perhaps, I thought, of one of those immortal works which the reading world was at that time always anxiously expecting. He rose as I entered, advanced, and, cordially taking my hand, said, I am very much obliged to my friend Kinnaird for the plersure his note has procured me.'

"It is also to a mutual friend of his and mine that I owe the honor I enjoy,' was my answer; for I assure you, sir, I should never myself have ventured to ask it, knowing, as I do, what value the world sets upon your time.' "Oh, never mind all the stories which the

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world would have you believe,' he gaily replied, for after twelve o'clock it is a holiday with me. You have arrived, I am glad to say, at a happy moment, as the pleasant weather has at length set in, though I have no right to complain of our variable climate, since it has not kept me within doors a single day for a long time.'

"Your health, then, is good?' I asked.

"Yes, very good, and I am quite hearty now; but I came within an ace of bidding the world good-night a while ago.'

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The world ought to be very grateful to you for deferring your bidding,' said I, smiling.

"Oh, the world and I are not quits yet,' he laughingly replied. Then, catching at the word pioneers, which I happened to use in answer to an observation of his respecting the influence of forest clearing on climate, he continued, 'That reminds me of a work which pleased me, by a countryman of yours, Mr. Cooper, who has thrown a great deal of light on American subjects.'

"Having heard that a slight misunderstanding had occurred between the gentleman spoken of and Sir Walter, I merely observed that we were all proud of our distinguished novelist, but that it had never been my good fortune to meet him.

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"I will tell you, then,' said my knightly interlocutor, that besides his merits as an author, he is a very good-natured man, and that I have heard of many kind things of his doing. His advantages when a youth, it is true, were not as great as they might have been, but he always had the genuine germ within him. He told me, for example, that, when a boy, he left his home without leave, and went to sea with only a few dollars in his pocket, which he expended, on reaching London, at the Tower and other places worth seeing, instead of buying a new jacket and breeches, which his companions gibingly said he stood in need of. In that, the boy showed what the man would be. He preferred filling his head to covering his back.'

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"It has sometimes seemed to me,' I remarked, that his fame would have been greater if he had deferred writing some ten years longer.'

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"That is a hard penance to undergo,' replied Sir Walter, laughing; for when a man has ten fingers,' at the same time illustrating his words by extending his own well-formed, but by no means Byronic digits, and feels it in him, it is no easy matter to keep it from coming out.' Then, looking for a moment as if he thought he had pictured his own case rather too pointedly, he instantly added, There is another American whom I like very much-Washington Irving. I knew him before he began to write, and always admired him as a man, as I now do since he has become an author.'

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"The above remarks, made by Sir Walter Scott respecting Mr. Cooper, and they were

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unsolicited on my part, I have extracted from | but do you see those sentinels? They are, one my journal, to show how entirely mistaken was or another of thein, always awake." It struck Mr. Lockhart in what he once said about theme,' concluded Sir Walter, with his usual relations subsisting between these two distin- shrewd twinkle of the eye, that there was no guished persons, and how far from the truth he small tincture of vanity in the fellow's commuwas when he intimated that the great Scotch nication, although he was in such a sad exnovelist had any narrow prejudices against tremity; and to death he appeared perfectly Americans or American authors. But even if resigned.' some slight dislike had been entertained by a man who knew the value of time as well as he, against a set of idle, sight-seeing Yankees, habitually striving, as I have sometimes heard it acknowledged by themselves, to gain access, without good warrant, to the presence of remarkable or eminent individuals, there is nothing in it that should excite our surprise.

"Irose to depart, fearful of remaining too long, as it was yet early in the day, and I thought his labors might not be terminated. He rose too, and again taking my hand, said, 'Come and dine with me to-morrow; and if, during your stay in Edinburgh, I can be of any service to you. it will make me most happy. In the neighborhood of it, I can give you the "open Sesame" everywhere.'

"His manner toward me,during my short visit to the Scotch capital, increased in kindness, if possible, every day; and he seemed never to weary of conversation, whether we were by ourselves, or in the company of others. But I have space for only a few of the many interesting observations he made, and the curious anecdotes he told, all of which I jotted down at

the time.

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'Speaking one day of his powers of performance, notwithstanding his lameness, which, by the by, appeared to give him no concern on the score of vanity, as a similar misfortune did another fellow-poet of immortal renown, he said he had often traversed the Highlands on a pony and afoot, at some risk and much trouble, long before coaches or any wheel vehicles were known there.

"The fear of death happening to be the subject of conversation, he remarked that men very easily made up their minds to meet the event when once convinced that they must die. I remember,' he continued, 'a client of mine, when I was at the bar, who had been condemned to death for burglary for the third or fourth time, and had broken every jail in the country. He sent for me at a time when I supposed I had done with him, to give me, in return for my services, which he declared his anxiety to repay, two pieces of advice, which were, never to trust for protection in a country house to a large dog out of doors, as he could always be got rid of by poison; but to a little one within doors, whose barking at the lightest noise could not be stopped; and always to have a heavy, strong lock, with a stiff spring, instead of a small, well-oiled, patent one, because no skeleton key could turn it. "I do not care a baubee," he added, "for these iron fetters and stone walls;

"The case of a person was mentioned that had acquired a fortune in much the same way as did a gentleman once in Boston, who, by the advice of a professed hoaxer, shipped a large quantity of warming-pans to the West Indies, and gained two or three hundred per cent. on them by their being turned into sugar-dippers, which happened to be scarce there at the moment. And I dare say,' remarked my host, whose keenness and vivacity seemed never to sleep, that he was as proud of his wealth, as if it had been made by his own desert.'

"He had taught, he told me with animated delight, Mademoiselle Sontag how to wear the tartan on the stage, and, criticising her voice, supplied, notwithstanding his son-in-law's assertion that he could never turn a tune, an expression which I had often felt the want of while listening to her in Paris. 'It lacked,' he said, the poetry of music.'

"I remember asking him which he would prefer as followers in any hazardous and uncertain enterprise; six men of tried moral firmness and constancy, or twelve of mere animal but undoubted courage.

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"Oh, the former, by all means,' was his reply; because they would not fail me, however unexpected the peril; while the latter, in some new and unthought-of danger, might be panic-struck.'

"A Neapolitan gentleman chancing to observe that his countrymen of the lower orders could not be induced to labor by any offer, however great, when once they had earned enough money to support them through the day, Sir Walter, as if charmed at the idea, burst into a hearty laugh, exclaiming, 'They are what I should call true practical philosophers.'

"When the time for my departure had arrived, resolved that my kind entertainer should know that it was something better than idle curiosity which had brought me to Edinburgh, I told him how grateful I felt to him for the happiness his writings had given me, both in sickness and health, while there was not a house within the American borders in which they were unknown. He had accompanied me to the street door, my hand in his. Such being your kind sentiments toward me, my young friend,' he replied, with almost a tinge of sadness in his tones, 'the best way for you to show their sincerity is to come back to us again, and remain a longer time in Auld Reekie.' And so I bade adieu --one never to be repeated, alas-to the man whose like the world will not soon look upon again."

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