Apollonia! I am disembowelled with desperation! | up prayers and supplications that their ancient That scurvy animal will die in the confessional! visages might be restored to them, with any other O Giesu-Maria! and the asinaccio of a father, feature of lost humanity which their dresses might whoever he is, has taken away the key: Giesu- conceal. No such thing. They were the heirs to Maria!' The two young men, who had been the crown; and the female was prostrate before storming and lamenting, now burst forth into her favourite idol, to entreat she might have a immoderate laughter. Finding that, in despite child. The idol, I was told, only promised her a of his displeasure, the young men continued in man, and did not perform even that. On the very their irrisory mood, Van Ni admonished them a next day was the horrible rebellion which drove second time, and with greater seriousness. the reigning dynasty out of Frenchland. No re'Excellencies!' said he, 'how is this? Is it past was brought me at the usual hour, nor indeed convenient to turn into mockery a gallant man? had I any appetite for it. But toward the same and before the saints? Holy Virgin! if you make hour on the day following I grew hungry, and any more of those verses at Gio-Van-Ni-Pa-Ti-Sta, was about to ring the bell for the waiter, when I will show you what you shall see, and you will | Van entered the room and threw his arms about favour me by letting me hear what you feel. What! my neck. again! Mind me! I have killed rats as good meat as your Excellencies, and where your Excellencies (pest on such porkery!) dared not come . . . on board a British ship, you cullions! Remem-joiced in mine. ber now the words of Gio-Van-Ni-Pa-Ti-Sta, and bear him respect another time. Cospetto! Signori! you go laughing on. If you will only step out of this church, where I would not commit a sproposito, by the martyrs! you shall laugh in laugh minore, and shake and quaver to my instrument. Eh! Eh! Eh! but hear another word. I have tossed over the fire better omelets than your Ex-quarter, and saw the two young men fighting most cellencies. And now you know who I am.'

"The young persons screamed aloud with merriment, and left the church.

"Van returned to me with tears in his eyes, related the whole occurrence, and begged leave to run into another church and make confession. 'Yonder two towers,' said he, 'are solid as Malta and Gozzo; but Domine-Dio guard me from ever walking under them or within reach of their shadows! That cursed monkey will have died in the confessional! No arm can reach down to him! Santa Vergine! A pretty story to be told up there in Paradiso! Was the fault mine? Did I throw him in? I ask ye all, all: have ye the faces to say it? O Misericordia! . . I wish I were fairly out of the country, after this; particularly if, before I go, I could meet those two gentlemen who caused so much heart-breaking and scandal. San Cristofano!'

"He continued quite uneasy for several days: at last he found a master, who was going into Italy; but he declared his resolution to continue with me until my departure, although he should lose his place. My regard for him would not allow this. I rewarded his services more largely than he expected, and his tears fell together with his kisses on my hand. I reminded him of his resolution to make that stupendous fortune by his short-hand. 'Non pensi! non pensi! lasciami fare!' said he, confident and contented.

"I was resolved to visit the temple so calamitous to him. It was full of people; but before the altar I could discern two figures kneeling in rich dresses. The one was a man with a face like a horse's, the other was a woman with a face like a wolf's. I thought they had come thither to offer

'Heavens be praised!' cried he.

"I was greatly moved at his affection, and assured him I rejoiced in his safety as heartily as he re

"Ke! Ke!' said he, that is all well; but what do you think, Eccellenza Singa? the monkey is alive and safe! The confessional pure and holy ! Bestiaccia! how it moved my entrails.'

"Van had been present in the midst of the carnage, and heard a laugh close to him. Active as he was in the combat, he turned his eye to that

valiantly. He bowed to them, and they cheered him. The fire of their opponents now began to slacken, and they came up to him and shook him by the hand.

"Excellencies!' said he, 'I bear you no ill-will, for a Christian has no malice in his heart, but you and that monkey have put my soul in peril, and it is right you should know it. The money that ugly beast used to cost you in feeding him, ought to go to the priest.'

"I could not find a more legitimate heir,' said the owner; but he may make his own will yet.'

"He lives then! he lives!' cried Van Ni. "The saints be praised! I shall not want your money for masses, should the worst befall me.'

"Van Ni, knowing my state of inanition, ran to the nearest cook's shop for a dish of meat, telling me that his master had escaped from Paris, and had left a note, the purport of which was, that he would write to him again when he had found a place of safety in Switzerland or Tyrol. On this day I did not perceive any difference in the cookery, and although I did perceive it the day following, I said nothing. However at last I remarked it whereupon Van Ni said, 'Eccellenza! I quite forgot to tell you that he who was pamphleteer and gazetteer, and critic and cook, is now become, or about to become, prime minister.'"

When I had recited so much of my narrative to his majesty the Emperor, he laid his imperial hand benignly on my shoulder, saying,

“ (

"O Tsing-Ti! the occidental world orientalises rapidly. Anything farther about this dexterous lucky slave!"

"Little more," answered I. "On his eleva

Dic sodes, animose, dic Thiersi !
Tantus quum fueris domi forisque,
Illâ denique natione cretus
Quæ jacentia, quæ minuta, verbis
(Nôsti) magnificis solet vocare;
Dic, quum sis patre major in culina
(Nec pater tamen infimus coquorum)
Cur, tanto ingenio unicè maligni,
Te Galli vocitent tui Coquinum ?
Quare te minuant ita, O Thiersi?

"Yes," answered I, "the moment my fears

tion a Parisian poet wrote some complimentary verses; but the ancient idiom of the French abated, I was conducted to visit a few of them, language, which he chose, is beyond my compre- carrying with me my letters of introduction. I hension permit me therefore to lay before the had none for scientific men, of whom there are footstool of your Majesty the scroll containing several in Paris of the first eminence. Works them. of genius, apart from science, there are few, and, by what I heard, of quite another order. There are however two poets of some distinction: one raises the enthusiasm of the vivacious and the liberal by the energy of his songs, the other is more in esteem with the devout, which compensates for the want of vigour and originality. I thought I could not conciliate the lover of liberty more readily than by comparing its triumph at the previous day with its suppression under the iron hand of Napoleon. He abolished your republic, he devised a catechism for your children, by which unquestioning and blind obedience was inculcated; he forged the glorious arms of your patriots and defenders into chains long and strong enough to hold everlastingly in thraldom all their future progeny.' . . Sit down, sir,' said the poet, and hold your tongue. Don't repeat in this house the eastern dream of an opium-eater. We are warm with the unsetting glory of France.' "Perceiving that I had given offence, and sus

His majesty the Emperor cast his eye on them as they were lying on the carpet, and said gravely, "The characters are European, but several of the words I discover to bear a close affinity to the Kobolsk Tartar."

His majesty is an etymologist.

"I have been thinking," said his majesty the Emperor, "how that ancient French resembles the loftier language under the rising sun. I regret that thou hadst not leisure to acquire some knowledge both of the ancient and the modern." "I regret it also, my Emperor," said I;pecting that I had mistaken the house, I returned "not because the nations of Europe agree to converse in the modern as being central, but because it contains our Fables, told in a manner far more delightful than with us. No language in Europe is said to be so scanty or so inharmonious but, there being so little room in it, you can not get out of your way. Precision is its merit. As in England the belief of Christianity is allowed to one sect and the profession to another, so in Frenchland the written language is one thing, another the spoken. There is however a faint similitude, which may be discovered even by a learner. I took but seven lessons, yet could perceive it when it was carefully pointed out. My teacher was an impostor, who wished to keep me long under his hands. Not contented with asserting that the authors of Frenchland are superior to the best of England, of Italy, of Germany, of Spain, and that the language is softer and more flexible than the Russian and the Swedish, he attempted to persuade me that et, est, ez, ex, oien, ais, oit, aix, and many more, had all the same sound. This was evidently to save his trouble, and to make me ridiculed. ."

"That can not be a language," said the Emperor, "of which the sounds are reducible to no rules; unless as we apply the term when we say the language of birds and beasts. Letters and syllables were not made to be thrown away or spit out. Every sign, every symbol, denotes one thing, and only one. The same finger of a direction-post can not show twenty roads. Having now the advantage of thy servant again, I hope thou enjoyedst by his means the opportunity of conversing with the learned, and greatly more to thy comfort than if thou hadst been under the guidance of a teacher so mischievous and malicious."

home, and, when his speech was interpreted to me, I looked in my dictionary for the word glory. I found it often meant the glitter that painters put over the heads of idols; and this was truly its most intelligible and its most common acceptation. Knowing to a certainty that the devouter poet was attached to the king of the last week, I condoled with him on the disaster of a monarch so pious and unfortunate. He bowed. The only comfort I could offer him was, that talents had never lost their value in Frenchland, through all the vicissitudes of thirty years; and that scarcely Prussia or Russia was more admirable for the advancement of literary men. He bowed, and answered in an undertone of voice, I really do not pretend to know anything of those people: I only know that our houses are degraded at every step that his majesty has been constrained to take. All ranks and orders are confounded, and the high sense of honour which was peculiar to Frenchland, and which formerly made the meanest Frenchman's heart leap impatiently out of his bosom, lies prostrate and half-extinct.'

"I thought I had been listening to a Montmorency (French for old noble); but on inquiry I found I had not been guilty of that mistake.

"Out of respect to the ancient nobility, such at least I presume is the motive, many young persons in that country, whether of the commissariat or the coach-office, are grave and taciturn when privileges or privations are mentioned. They draw themselves up into the stiffness and concentration of mummies, and from their swathings and cases stare us into stone. These however are civil and distant; and perhaps their distance is the best part of their civility. Another set is less tolerable: it assumes the name of Young

France. Whatever can be conceived of insolence and audacity is put into daily practice by these troublesome and restless barbarians. I could not refrain from making the remark to a gentleman of philosophical cast, who came to visit me, adding, that surely all the abuses of the extinct nobility, with all the absurdity and injustice of its hereditariness, were less intolerable.

"The older creation of the nobility,' said he, 'like the older of animals lately discovered by the geologists, is more ill-constructed and illfavoured than the recenter; so that it pleased God to put an end to it, and to try such other forms as might be convenient to carry his designs into execution. But either is, as you say, better than this ditch-spawn.'

"Finding him a calm and reasonable man, I ventured to congratulate him on the near prospect of peace and tranquillity in his country, and on the enthusiasm his new king excited. He bowed to me, and answered,

I do assure you, he is as honest a man as his father, and farthermore, has learned the secret of keeping a wiser head on his shoulders. He has the shrewdness of Richelieu, the suppleness of Mazarin; all their rapacity, all their pertinacity; the arrogance of both, the vanity of neither. Whatever there is about him tells for something; and we must pay its value to the uttermost. His royal foot rests so assuredly on well-beaten and levelled France, that the telescope with which he looks leisurely on the world around him is not shaken a hair's breadth. I will answer for him, there is no potentate in Europe whom he has not already convinced of his loyalty and good intentions; and when you return to China you will find that he has offered your Emperor to assist him in putting down the refractory spirit of the Tartars, being well in harmony with his brother the Emperor of Russia, who is equally ready to exert his kind offices to the same effect.""

Emperor. It is unhandsome to sue for such generosity until the time of need, or to take every word to the letter.

Tsing-Ti. I was not aware of the existence of such a sect as Young France, until I was shoved off the pavement by a stripling, who was troubled with a hairy mole on the nether lip. Not being his father, the misfortune could nohow be attributed to me. I had acquired enough of the language to enable me to ask him to what dignitary I had the honour of surrendering my station. "I represent the Young France,”. cried he.

He raised his arm to strike me; but a German, of about the same age, who happened to be passing at the time, said to him calmly, "Remember, sir, we have fired at the same academy, and my ball usually went nearer the bull's eye."

"We have at last a chance of it. These forty years past we have had our Goddesses of Liberty, Goddesses of Reason, Goddesses of Theophilanthropy, Goddesses of War, screaming and pulling caps in the Place de la Concorde. We have had white feathers, red feathers, eagle's feathers, cock's feathers, and at last no feathers at all. We have gone kingless, breechless, lawless, and constitutionless we can not be well less at present. We have gone booted into every drawing-room on the continent, and our spurs have torn off every flounce and train. Finally, we put them on our selves, and swaggered about for a while with I bowed profoundly, and was constrained to much theatrical effect. One unlucky day the answer in English, for my French failed me at so first actor, who never could walk straight nor see long a breath. "I shall be most happy in the three inches before him, caught his own long-opportunity of congratulating the Young France tailed robe with his spur, and being an impetuous on her having learned by heart the first lesson of man, gave such a plunge that it fell off his shoul- politeness." ders, and left the whole of him as bare as the back of my hand. The inferior actors were scandalised at the disgrace brought on the profession, but no one had the dexterity or presence of mind to pick up the long-tailed robe. At last it was claimed by a fat man, who drew it across his belly, and made the ends meet as well as he could; but much was wanting. When he died, the priests seized upon it, and cut it up in pieces to put under their wine-cups. But you were speaking of our happy acquisition. Depend upon it, the present king is no such a novice in the trade as some about him would persuade him. He is fitter to govern us than any man we have seen for two centuries. He will never have a minister who is not taken from the ranks; never a man of genius, never an honest man; but secondary and plausible. The reason is, that whenever they displease him, their removal will only render him more popular. Added to which, it is always gratifying to the populace, and by no means offensive to the middle classes, to see low people raised. In one word, Louis-Philippe is the only person of ancient family in France who may not justly be reproached with degeneracy.

Young France recovered at once his memory and his temper. I returned home in perturbation: for, O my Emperor! I have not yet outlived all my passions. God has been pleased to grant me a lively consciousness of my existence, by implanting in me deeply the fear of losing it.

My servant was not alone when I entered. In his walk homeward, hearing his native tongue in the streets, he accosted the speakers: "Excellencies!" cried he. "We are no excellencies; we are exiles," answered one of them. "The better! the better!" said honest warm-hearted Van Ni. "I dare invite you then to my house. Come along: pardon me if I walk before you."

Hearing voices in my apartment, I halted at the door, and caught what I was afterward told were these words, which Van Ni wrote down: "We have no right to complain of our fortune, young or old. Was not Tasso chained to his bed-post? Was not he half-starved in the house

should think it more presumptuous to say our house; because it would seem to indicate that we placed ourselves on an equality with our masters." They acknowledged that the expression was universal in their country, and had only to regret that by its misrepresentation it had caused me such an inconvenience.

of Cardinal Scipione? Was not he driven out of it? Was not he defrauded of his own cottage? Would his best friend lend him the few crowns which, he said, might save him from starvation and distraction? Princes, you see, did much against him; but not all. The manly breast can bear any blow unless from the hand it cherished." He who was listening now struck his forehead, I could not but compare their manners with and groaned aloud. "Tis there!" cried he, the French, very greatly to their advantage, and "and that blow reaches me in this chamber." fancied that even the English might learn some"I," said the exhorter and comforter, "I can thing from them. Certainly the islanders are only pity you then. No balm grows in those thick-rinded and rather sour. deserts; no dew falls there! Alas, my friend! if only persecuted genius were pouring forth his lamentation, I could soar above him and bring him airs from heaven. I would point up to Dante in the skies. Was not Dante an exile? was not Dante in danger of being burnt alive? was not that sentence passed against him? A republic did it; his own republic. Italy is beautiful yet, and once was glorious; but the nurse of genius is older than she. Brought up and fostered in the soft clime of Syracuse, she breathed her last in the palm-groves of the Ptolemies."

I took advantage of this pause, and instantly told my servant to be seated again and to call his friends. "Eccellenza!" said he, "how is it possible? how is it possible I can be so wanting to my duty? These gentlemen are my countrymen, and in tribulation."

Meanwhile they were standing, and making many apologies.

"Persons of your worth and misfortunes pain me more than sufficiently," said I, "without the trouble you are taking in these explanations."

"I invited them to my house, Eccellenza!" said Van Ni. "Now, Signori! do not servants in Italy always use the expression, my house? We

No persuasion of mine could induce the exiles to remain. They fancied I was an Englishman from the East Indies, and hoped I would exert my influence for the delivery of their country.

"If my master were an Englishman, he would feel it his duty," said Van Ni; "for Englishmen threw you, bound hand and foot, among the dogs."

His majesty the Emperor asked me whether the Italians were not from that country which pretended to the monopoly of religion. I was not quite sure, and told him so.

"I have a suspicion," said his majesty, "that the old sorcerer lay somewhere thereabout."

I believe he was near the mark; but my memory failed me. He then asked about the causes of the insurrection and revolution in Frenchland. My reply was, that the king had been persuaded by his courtiers to take away some things which he had given; and his people said that he had given them what was theirs before; that it was an indignity to offer it at first; that it was a defiance to seize it again; and that he had no right to stand above the laws.

"It is the glory of princes," said his majesty the Emperor, "to stand the foremost under them."

PHILIP II. AND DONA JUANA COELHO.

Juana. Condescend, O my king! to hear me. Philip. By what means, Dona Juana, have you obtained this admission to my presence? Juana. Sire, by right of my sex and my misfortunes.

Philip. And what misfortune of yours, pray, madam, is it in my power to remove or alleviate? Juana. All mine, O most puissant monarch! and nearly all the heaviest that exist on earth; the providence of God having placed the larger part of the known world under the sceptre or the influence of your majesty.

Philip. And the more suffering part, no doubt. God, and his mother, and the blessed saints, have exalted me to my station, that I may bring chastisement on the perverse and rebellious, and ward it off from the dutiful and obedient. I have now little leisure to the point then.

Juana. O sire! my husband has offended: I know not how.

Philip. Nor should you. His offence is against the state.

Juana. He has been secretary many years to your majesty; and in times and circumstances the most trying, he has ever been a faithful vassal. The riches he possesses flowed in great measure from royal bounty; none from treason, none from peculation, none from abuse of power.

Philip. Know you his steps, his thoughts?
Juana. I have always shared them.
Philip. Always? no madam. Let me tell you,
he aspires too high.

Juana. O sire! that is a generous fault, the fault of every one who loves glory, of every true Spaniard, and, above all, of Antonio Perez.

Philip. When did he first begin to look so loftily?

Juana. When first he aspired to serve your majesty.

Philip. Has he no gratitude, no sense of duty, no feeling of nothingness, as becomes a subject? I made him what he is. Tell me no more I enriched him; that is little: beside, I know not that I did it; and I could only wish to have done

Juana. My husband, now he has lost the counPhilip. At my good pleasure I may confront tenance of your majesty, would retreat with me him with his accomplices.

Juana. He is innocent! By the beloved of words in your throat!