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 Marquis 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 Shakespeare 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. -It is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said 1, 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 arm-chair; so I sat down; and to save him conjectures 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

et it

go to him with the story of a little embarrassment I was under, than to any other man in France. -And what your embarrassment? let me hear it, said the Count. -So I told him the story just as I have told it the reader.

is

-And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs have it, Monsieur le Count, that I should 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.

B

-My application to you, Monsieur le Count de

not.

(making him a low bow), is to desire he will

The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half so 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 an affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.

Heh bien! Monsieur P Anglois, said the Count gaily; —you are not come to spy the nakedness of the land; —I believe you;-ni encore, I daresay, 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 am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling 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 in them to fashion my own by ;—and therefore am I come.

It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I,

h

a

e

that I have not seen the Palais Royal,-nor the Luxembourg, nor the Façade of the Louvre,-nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches.-I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings, and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of Raphael itself.

The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France, and from France will lead me through Italy; 'tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other,—and the world, better than we do.

The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion, and added, very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare for making me known to him.- -But, à-propos, said he ;-Shakespeare is full of great things; he forgot the small punctilio of announcing your name :-it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

THERE is not a more perplexing affair in life to me than to set about telling any one who I am,-for there, is scarce anybody I cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it in a single word,—and have an end of it. It was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to

I

any purpose; for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the gravediggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon Yorick; and advancing the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name,-Me voici ! said I.

Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account; 'tis certain, the French conceive better than they combine; -I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first of our own church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case :— “He could not bear," he said, “to look into sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester."-Good, my lord! said I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your lordship thinks of has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago: he flourished in Horwendillus's court;-the other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my lord, in no court.- -He shook his head.—Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord!'Twas all one, he replied.

-If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your lordship, said I, I'm sure your lordship would not have said so. The poor Count de B

error.

fell but into the same

Et, Monsieur, est il Yorick? cried the Count.