head down over it, I think I saw a tear fall upon the place: I could not be deceived, by what followed.

"I shall find," said he, “ some other way to get it off."

When the Marquess had said this, he returned his sword into its scabbard, made a bow to the guardians of it, and with his wife and daughter, and his two sons following him, walked out.

Oh, how I envied him his feelings!

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B—. The set of Shakespere was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them over. I walked up close to the table, and giving first such a look at the books as to make him conceive I knew what they were, I told him I had come without any one to present me, knowing I should meet with a friend in his apartment, who, I trusted, would do it for me :-" "Tis my countryman, the great Shakespere," said I, pointing to his works: "et ayez la bonté, mon cher ami,” apostrophising his spirit, added I, "de me faire cet honneur-là."

The Count smiled at the singularity of the introduction, and seeing I looked a little pale and sickly, insisted upon my taking an armchair; so I sat down; and to save him con'jectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told

him simply of the incident in the bookseller's

shop, and how that had impelled me rather to go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France.

"And what is your embarrassment? let me hear it," said the Count. So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader.

-"And the master of my hotel," said I, as I concluded it, "will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile; but I have no apprehensions," continued I; "for, in falling into the hands of the most polished people in the world, and being conscious I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I scarce thought I lay at their mercy. It does not suit the gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count," said I, “to show it against invalids.”

An animated blush came into the Count de B's cheeks as I spoke this. “Ne craignez

rien.-Don't fear," said he.

"Indeed I don't," replied I again. "Besides," continued I, a little sportingly, "I have come laughing all the way from London

to Paris, and I do not think Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me back crying for my pains."

-"My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B‚” making him a low bow, "is to desire he will not."

The Count heard me with great goodnature, or I had not said half as much; and once or twice said, "C'est bien dit." So I rested my cause there, and determined to say no more about it.

The Count led the discourse: we talked of indifferent things; of books, and politics, and men-and then of women. "God bless them all!" said I, after much discourse about them; "there is not a man upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I love them; being firmly persuaded that a man who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought."

"Eh bien! Monsieur l'Anglois," said the Count gaily; "you are not come to spy the

nakedness of the land; I believe you; ni encore, I dare say, that of our women; but permit me to conjecture,-if, par hazard, they fell into your way, that the prospect would not affect you."

I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least indecent insinuation in the sportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together,—the least of which I could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.

"Excuse me, Monsieur le Count," said I; "as for the nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them; and for that of your women," blushing at the idea he had excited in me, “I amı so evangelical in this, and have such a fellowfeeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment, if I knew how to throw it on; but I could wish," continued I, "to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good