passport (apparemment) in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him with one. Not that I know of, quoth an air of indifference.-Then certes, replied he, you'll be sent to the Bastile or the Chatelet au moins.-Poo! said I, the King of France is a good natured soul-he'll hurt nobody. Cela n' empêche pas, said he -you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning.-But I've taken your lodgings for a month, answered I, and I'll not quit them a day before the time for all the kings of France in the world. Fleur whispered in my ear, That nobody could oppose the king of France.

La

Pardi! said my host, ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très extraordinaires ;and having both said and sworn it-he

went out.

THE PASSPORT.

The Hotel at Paris.

I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly: and to show him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the subject entirely; and whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to him with more than usual gayety about Paris, and of the opéra comique.-La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the bookseller's shop; but seeing me come out with

the young fille de chambre, and that we walked down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deemed it unnecessary to follow me a step further ;-so making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cutand got to the hotel in time to be informed of the affair of the police against my arrival.

As soon as the honest creature had taken away and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my

situation.

-And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out:-I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburdened with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pulled out his purse in order to empty it into mine.-I've enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I.-Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius ;-I know France and Italy better than you.-But you don't consider, Eugenius, said 1, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapped up into the Bastile, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expense.-I beg

pardon, said Eugenius drily really I
had forgot that resource.

Now the event I treated gaily came seri-
ously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius.

-And as for the Bastile! the terror is in the word.-Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower-and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of -Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year.-but with nine livres a day, and pen and ink, and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within-at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the court-yard as I settled this account; and remember I walked down stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.-Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I, vauntingly for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks

them.-'Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition-the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; but strip it of its towers-fill up the fosse unbarricade the doors-call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a distemper-and not of a man, which holds you in it-the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained it could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without farther atten. tion.

In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage." I can't get out I can't get out," said the starling.

I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity." I can't get out," said the starling.-God help thee! said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned about the cage to get to the door : it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces.-I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his

breast against it as if impatient.-I fear,
poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at
liberty." No," said the starling,-" I
can't get out-I can't get out," said the
starling.

I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! said I still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.-'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change.-No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron;-with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled.-Gracious Heaven! cried 1, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion-and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good