being unfurnished, as is the custom at Paris, and the notary not caring to lie in the same bed with a woman who had but that moment sent him pell-mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walked out ill at ease towards the Pont Neuf.

Of all the bridges that ever were built, the whole world, who have passed over the Pont Neuf, must own, that it is the noblest-the finest—the grandest—the lightest the longest-the broadest that ever conjoined land and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe

[By this it seems as if the author of the fragment had not been a Frenchman.]

The worst fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can alledge against it, is, that if there is but a cap full of wind in or about Paris, 'tis more blasphemously

sacre Dicu'd there than in any other aperture of the whole city-and with reason. good and cogent, Messieurs: for it comes against you without crying garde d'eau, and with such unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who cross it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full worth.

The poor notary, just as he was passing by the centinel, instinctively clapped his cane to the side of it; but in raising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the centinel's hat, hoisted it over the spikes of the ballustrade clear into the Seine.

'Tis an ill wind, said a boatman who catched it, which blows nobody any good.

The centinel being a Gascon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and levelled his harquebuss.

Harquebusses in those days went off with matches; and an old woman's paper lantern at the end of the bridge happen

ing to be blown out, she had borrowed the centinel's match to light it-it gave a moment's time for the Gascon's blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his advantage-'Tis an ill wind, said he, catching off the notary's castor, and legitimating the capture with the boatman's adage.

The poor notary crossed the bridge, and passing along the Rue de Dauphine into the fauxbourg of St. Germain, lamented himself as he walked along in this manner:

Luckless man, that I am! said the notary, to be the sport of hurricanes all my days-to be born to have the storm of ill language levelled against me and my profession wherever I go-to be forced into marriage by the thunder of the church to a tempest of a woman-to be driven forth out of my house by domestic winds, and despoiled of my castor by pontific ones-to be here bare-headed in a windy

night, at the mercy of the ebbs and flows of accidents-where am I to lay my head? -miserable man!-what wind in the twoand-thirty points of the whole compass can blow unto thee, as it does to the rest of thy fellow-creatures, good!

As the notary was passing on by a dark passage, complaining in this sort, a voice called out to a girl, to bid her run for the next notary-now the notary being the next, and availing himself of his situation, walked up the passage to the door, and passing through an old sort of a saloon, was ushered into a large chamber dismantled of every thing but a long military pike, a breast-plate, a rusty old sword, and bandolier, hung up equidistant in four different places against the wall.

An old personage, who had heretofore been a gentleman, and unless decay of fortune taints the blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, lay support

ing his head upon his hand in his bed; a little table with a taper burning was set close beside it, and close by the table was placed a chair-the notary sat him down. in it, and pulling out his ink-horn, and a sheet or two of paper which he had in his pocket, he placed them before him, and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his breast over the table, he disposed every thing to make the gentleman's last will and testament.

Alas! Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, raising himself up a little, I have nothing to bequeath which will pay the expence of bequeathing, except the history of myself, which I could not die in peace unless I left as a legacy to the world-the profits arising out of it I bequeath to you for the pains of taking it from me-it is a story so uncommon, it must be read by all mankind-it will make the fortunes of your house-the notary dipped his pen into his ink-horn