As I have told this to please the reader, I beg he will allow me to relate another, out of its order, to please myself, the two stories reflect light upon each other, and it is pity they should be parted.

THE SWORD.

RENNES.

WHEN states and empires have their periods of declension, and feel in their turas what distress and poverty is---I stop not to tell the causes which gradually brought the house d'E*** in Britanny, into decay. The Marquis d'E*** had fought up against his condition with great firmness; wishing to preserve, and still shew to the world, some little fragments of what his ancestors had been --their indiscretions had put it out of his power. There was enough left for the little exigencies of obscurity---But he had two boys who looked up to him for light--he thought they deserved it. He had tried his sword--it could not open the way---the mounting was too expensive---and simple economy was not a match for it---there was no resource but com

merce.

In any other province in France, save Britanny, this was smiting the root for ever of the little tree his pride and affection wished to see re blossom---But in Britanny, there being a provision for this, he availed himself of it; and taking an occasion when the states were assembled at Rennes, the Marquis, attended with his two sons, entered the court; and having pleaded the right of an ancient law of the dutchy, which, though seldom claimed, he said, was no less in force, he took his sword from his side---Here, said he, take it; and be

trusty guardians of it, till better times put me in condition to reclaim it.

The president accepted the Marquis's sword--he staid a few minutes to see it deposited in the archives of his house, and departed.

The Marquis and his whole family embarked the next day for Martinico, and in about nineteen or twenty years of successful application to business, with some unlooked-for bequests from distant branches of his house, returned home to reclaim his nobility, and to support it.

It was an incident of good fortune, which will • never happen to any traveller but a sentimental one, that I should be at Rennes at the very time of this solemn requisition: call it sole mn---i

So to me.

---it was

The Marquis entered the court with his whole family he supported his lady, his eldest son supported his sister, and his youngest was at the other extreme of the line, next his mother, he put his handkerchief to his face twice---

-There was a dead silence. When the Marquis had approached within six paces of the tribunal, he gave the Marchioness to his youngest son, and advancing three steps before his family ---he reclaimed his sword. His sword was given him, and the moment he got it into his hand, he drew it almost out of the scabbard---it was the shining face of a friend he had once given up ---he looked attentively along it, beginning at the hilt, as if to see whether it was the same--when observing a little rust, which it had contracted near the point, he brought it near his eye, and bending his head down over it, I think

I

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. O how I envied him his feelings!

over.

THE PASSPORT.

VERSAILLES.

I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to Monsieur le Count de B***. The set of Shakespeares was laid upon the table, and he was tumbling them 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 apartments, who, I trusted would do it for me--it is my countryman, the great Shakespeare, said I, pointing to his works---et ayez la bonté, món cher ami,---apostophizing 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: and so I sat down; and, to save him conjectures upon a visit so out of all rule, I told him simply of th 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 { old 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 1, to shew it against invalids.

An animated blush came into the Count de B***'s cheeks, as I spoke this, Ne craignez rien --Do not fear, said he. Indeed I do not, 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 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 affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought.

Heh 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 in 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 sportabilit 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 --as for the nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eves 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, that have not seen the Palais Royal, nor the Luxembourgh--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 Ra hael itself.

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The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as