will lead me through Italy - it is a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of NATURE,. and those affections which arife out of. her, which make us love each otherand 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 Shakespear, for making me known to him.-But, à propos, said he - Shakespear is full of great things. - He forgot a 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 fet about telling any one who I am-for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better account of than of myself; and I have often wished I could do it in a fingle word-and have an end of it. It was the only time and occafion in my life, I could accomplish this to any purpose - for Shakespear lying upon the table and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers 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 ! faid 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 magick he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account - it is 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 fame cafe. - " He could not bear, "he faid, to look into sermons wrote by "the King of Denmark's jester."-Good, my Lord! faid 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 fhook his head - Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great, with Alexander the Coppersmith, my Lord - It was all one, he replied. -If Alexander King of Macedon could have translated your Lordship, faid II am sure your Lordship would not have faid fo. The poor Count de B **** fell but into the fame error - Et, Monfieur, eft-il Yorick? cried the Count - Je le fuis, said I. - Vous? Moi-moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monfieur le Comte - Mon Dieu! faid he, embracing me - Vous êtes Yorick! The Count inftantly put the Shakespear into his pocket- and left me alone in his room. THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES. I COULD not conceive why the Count de B**** had gone so abruptly out of the room, any more than I could conceive why he had put the Shakespear into his pocket-Mysteries which must explain themselves, are not worth the loss of time which a conjecture about them takes up: it was better to read Shakespear; so taking up "Much ado about Nothing,” I transported myself instantly from the chair I sat in, to Messina in Sicily, and got so bufy with Don Pedro and Benedict and Beatrice, that I thought not of Verfailles, the Count, or the Passport. Sweet pliability of man's spirit, that can at once furrender itself to illusions, which cheat expectation and forrow of their weary moments! - Long-long fince had he numbered out my days, had I not trod fo great a part of them upon this enchanted ground; when my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my ftrength, I get off it, to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rose-buds of delights; and having taken a few turns in it, come back ftrengthened and refreshed - When evils press fore upon me, (and there is no retreat from them in this world,) then I take a new course- I leave it, and as I have a clearer idea of the Elysian fields than I have of Heaven, I force myself, like Aeneas, into them - I see him meet the penfive shade of his forsaken Dido - and wish to recognise it - I see the injured spirit wave her head, and turn off filent from the author of her miseries and dif honours-I lofe the feelings for myself in hers, and in those affections which were wont to make me mourn for her when I was at school. Surely this is not walking in a vain Jhadow - nor does man disquiet himself in vain by it-he oftener does so in trufting the issue of his commotions to reason onlyI can fafely say for myself, I was never able to conquer any one single bad fenfation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up as faft as I could for fome kindly and |