F'm confident, faid I to myfelf, I fhould have overset her creed.

The acceffion of that idea, carried na ture, at that time, as high as fhe could go I was at peace with the world before, and this finish'd the treaty with myfelf

-Now, was I a King of France, cried I what a moment for an orphan to have begg'd his father's portinanteau

THE MONK.

CALAIS.

,

I HAD fearce utter'd the words, when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the room to beg fomething for his convent. No man cares to have his virtues the fport of contingencies—or one man may be generous as another man is puiflant-fed non, quo ad hancor be it as it may-for there is no regular reafoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the fame caufes, for ought I know, which influence the tides themselves'twould oft be no difcredit to us, to fuppofe it was fo: I'm fure at least for myself, that in many a cafe I fhould be more highly satisfied, to have it faid by

the world, "I had had an affair with the

" moon, in which there was neither fin

"nor fhame,” than have it pass altogether

as my own act and deed, wherein there was fo much of both.

-But be this as it may. The moment I caft my eyes upon him I was predetermined not to give him a single fous and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket-button'd it up-fet myfelf a little more upon my centre and advanced up gravely to him: there was fomething, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which deferved better.

The monk, as I judged from the break in his tonfure a few fcatter'd white hairs upon his temples, being all that remained of it, might be about fe

venty-but from his eyes, and that fort of fire which was in them, which feemed more temper'd by courtesy than years, could be no more than fixtyTruth might lie between-He was certainly fixty-five; and the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something feem'd to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.

It was one of those heads, which Guido has often painted-mild, palepenetrating, free from all common-płace ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth-it look'd forwards; but look'd, as if it look'd at fomething beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a monk's fhoulders; best knows but it would have fuited a Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indoftan, I had reverenced it.

The

The reft of his outline may be given in a few ftrokes; one might put it into the hands of any one to defign, for 'twas neither elegant or otherwife, but as character and expreffion made it fo: it was a thin, fpare form, fomething above the common fize, if it loft not the diftinction by a bend forwards in the figure-but it was the attitude of Intreaty; and as it now ftands presented to my imagination, it gain'd more than it loft by it.

When he had enter'd the room three paces, he ftood ftill; and laying his left hand upon his breaft, (a flender white ftaff with which he journey'd being in his right) when I had got clofe up to him, he introduced himself with the little ftory of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order and did it with fo fimple a grace-and fuch an air of deprecation was there in the whole caft

of