ity.

The principal events occur in Boston, the West Indies, and Europe. In one of the chapters depicting fashionable life in Paris there are many just observations, upon some of which it will be a service to the class for whom they were intended to confer the honor of quotation. The author is evidently. writing from actual survey, and his pictures of the extravagancies of some American residents in what used to be styled the "gay capital" are not, it is probable, much overwrought :

"The family to whose kindness I was so much indebted on my first arrival in Paris being of the Faubourg Saint Germain aristocracy, as is called that portion of society which, notwithstanding it still clings to the fallen fortunes of the elder branch of the Bourbons, is allowed to take rank of every other, I experienced no difficulty, under its powerful auspices, in gaining access to all inferior circles of fashion; and as in these there is always a most abund sprinkling of foreign residents, English an nerican above all, my curious attention was constantly engaged in ascertain ing what effect transplantation and intercourse with strangers had produced upon them, and especially upon my own countrymen.

"The English, for the most part, seemed to be neither of the highest nor lowest of those who lay claim to respectability and fashion in their own land, but rather men of shattered means, whose desires had outstripped their resources, or presumptuous upstarts, who, after vainly struggling to reach a more elevated place than belonged to them at home, had left their country in the hope of forcing themselves up in the world by dint of self-assurance or lavish expenditure, skillfully brought to bear upon the indifference and ignorance of strangers; and later experience has taught me that many individuals of both these classes not only succeed in gaining the position they desire, but that they contrive to fasten themselves there with leechlike tenacity, sometimes by one means and sometimes by another, but never unaided by sumptuous entertainments, where an unsparing profesion of costly wines drowns even the

whisper of censure. Long occupancy, a intruders upon real estate, gives them at a sort of title, and even should some an by, enviously intent upon exposing tie: of their former lowly condition come wan founded pretensions, his story is convers disbelieved, or is washed out of an un remembrance at the next day's feast.

"Never having been in the company bleman in their own country, except. p on a race-course or at a county meeting. whose name is attached the slightest inc. ever they address any of their acquaintan of rank, the title is sure to be well .. out by them, particularly if an associa their less prosperous days be standing bear testimony to the exalted state a they have arrived. And yet their sycop is very fitly rewarded by bare toleration being no sympathy between them and among whom they are permitted to d Their coldness of demeanor passes for i bility, and their bluntness of speech for ness, while they themselves are regards aliens, and would be treated accordingy, it not that, among the great Few, as amo insignificant Many, gilded, if not golde ions are always to be had for a valuable sideration. Floating upon the surface society to which they do not rightfully they make unceasing efforts to keep up the current of it, catering to the tastes pampering the appetites of thousands w ignorant sometimes even of their persons indifferent to their merits.

"Now all this, attracting my notice in viduals of another nation than my own, t it excited a passing feeling of pity and c did not fail in a certain degree to amus but when I perceived that undisguised worship had its besotted votaries among icans to quite as great an extent as e Englishmen, a sense of shame comp mastered every other emotion."

"But Mr. Livermore was by no meas only American that laid his daily sacri time, and gold, and self-respect before t ed calf of high French fashion. Fa successfully his example, closely upon his and in advance of all others, there was a Chase, with her husband, originally very people of obscure origin, whose acquainta had made some years before on board my vessel going to the West Indies.

*

"Before meeting him, however, in the Frea capital, but not before the fame of the gant dinners which prefaced his great had reached my ears, I chanced one evenți encounter Mrs. Chase in the foyer of the house on the way to her box. She so evaney recognized me that I should have impos addressed her as an old acquaintance, bad not fortunately discovered, in good time, 1

chant sea-captain was not a personage of icient consideration in her esteem to be deving of notice. I passed out, therefore, with mile to myself, in quest of other companions exclusive in their humors than my fair ntry-woman, and was, an hour or two later, ading not far from the entrance of a saloon the aristocratic side of the Seine, when who uld present herself but the very lady that just shown such a convenient loss of memrespecting my identity.

6

She had certainly gained some tact since residence abroad, or, at least, had not left cultivated that which Nature gave her, for, hout betraying the slightest embarrassment our second meeting, she greeted me most dially, exclaiming, Why, Captain Vernon ! t you? I am so delighted to see you!' Call me Mister Vernon, if you please, dam,' said I, in a playful under-tone, not willing to renew our former intimacy of p-board birth, although quite aware that I ed the lady's new-born favor to the quality the company in which she found me. Call plain Mister, or I shall lose myself among many titled gentry. But, seriously speak'I continued, as I have no right to dub 'self captain, I cannot consent to render the ne of American more ridiculous than it is eady made by the show of borrowed or stolen imes.'

How absurd you are,' she replied,' not to ail yourself of that which belongs to you quite much as do their titles to half of the people e meets on leaving our faubourg! Why, do u know that not a few of this would-be noity have no more right to the rank they sume, than I have to the little aristocratic de but before my name, to distinguish me from e common herd of Americans which abound Paris? Do you know that there are men d women moving with impunity in good ciety, who have attained to a marquisate of eir own creation, or even something better, dint of sheer effrontery?'

"I was not aware of these facts,' I answered. But the herd of Americans, as you call it, is it en so great? and those composing it, are they so aspiring ?'

"I should call their name legion, were it ot that the English of the same stamp far outumber them,' was her reply. They come nd go like locusts, and sometimes leave as sagreeable traces behind them; and as to eir aspirations, it is really amusing to see ow fond Republicans are of anybody higher rank than a commoner. If by chance, as is he case with several I know, they can claim e slightest relationship to any French family note, one is wearied with their eternal selforification. Then there is no end to their dignation if they are not entertained at the Tuilleries, dined at their embassy, and caressed y American residents, whether known to

them or not. Their ignorance, too, of the forms of society, and their pretensions to polite accomplishments, are miraculously astounding. One, for example, leaves a card on his majesty, and another, equally erudite in the lore of courts, compliments the queen on the good looks of her husband. No offence, of course, is intended, nor is any taken, that I am aware of; but what folly it is, through stolid indifference or wilful ignorance, to violate conventional rules to which we have voluntarily subjected ourselves. I, however, am fortunate in knowing only a few of the savages, or my house would be overrun by them.'

"Are they, then, so fond of society?' I inquired.

"Actually ravenous for it,' she answered; ' and they fearlessly thrust themselves into any they can enter, although their knowledge of the French language hardly suffices to provide them with the common necessaries of life. But to my set, thank Heaven, they can never gain admittance; for, even with my three hundred thousand francs a year, the difficulties I met with in getting into it were inconceivable, and it was only through a fortunate acquaintance which I made at a watering-place that I succeeded at last. To the Tuilleries, however, 1 am told, they rush in crowds, though of this I know nothing, as I never visit those head-quarters of vulgarity.'

"Perhaps they go there merely as strangers to a raree-show,' I remarked.

"I could easily believe it,' she replied, ' if a first, or even a second exhibition contented them; but the truth is, they never let slip an opportunity of basking in the smiles of royalty and rubbing against nobility. Then the dresses they assume on such occasions, notwithstanding a very modest costume has been prescribed to them by custom, are sometimes fantastically absurd, and often the cause of ludicrous, if not painful consequences. It was only last year that a reverend father of holy Church, who had bedecked his time-worn person in the uniform of a general officer, was completely dumbfounded on being asked at the palace what rank he held at the termination of the last war with Great Britain. He was followed on one side by a respectable physician, enacting the character of a colonel of dragoons, and on the other by an eminent lawyer, personating a major of infantry, neither of whom, even if addressed in his vernacular, could have uttered a single sentence understandingly in reply to the simplest question on military tactics.

"But the man that most excited my informant's admiration, and whom he recognized as a celebrated hair-dresser of New York, surpassed everybody else in producing a scenic effect. Through pure ignorance and love of finery, he had tricked out his really handsome person in a magnificently-embroidered green suit, so much resembling the livery of a chas

seur, as is called an embassador's footman, that it was the subject of universal wonder how he could ever have been permitted to enter where he was. By calling himself, however, the captain of a state rifle corps, he was allowed to pass the doors; and, as far as mere personal appearance went, he was certainly the most presentable among all the Americans.'

"Granting, madam,' said I, ' that there is no exaggeration in what you have repeated to me on the authority of your friend, still it all seems very harmless, provided that neither in this nor in any way do our countrymen amuse themselves at the expense of others.'

"But, unfortunately, they do,' she quickly rejoined; for, not content with making fools of themselves, the envy and censoriousness which they indulged in at home, instead of being thrown aside, have become a matter of notoriety in a foreign country, where a cultivated taste teaches better things.

in the esteem of foreigners, who naturally receive their impressions respecting us from portraits drawn by ourselves; and yet, only snggest to an American the idea that his is not the greatest nation on the face of the earth, or that the Americans are not the most accomplished people under the sun, and he instantly fires up to the explosive point, and is ready to burst, as it were, with a sickly and monstrous vanity, which casts even that of a Frenchman into the shade. And this he calls patriotism!

"But I am keeping you too long from cur amiable hostess, whom I see approaching. So adieu for the present, but call on me to-mor row, and remember that every Sunday evening I am at home.' So saying, the elegant Mad ame de Chase moved off, exchanging compli ments right hand and left with every other per son she met.

"All, or very nearly all, the strictures I had been listening to, proved, on inquiry, to be richly merited by not a few of those against whom they were directed; and it might have been added, that the wanton impertinence and

"Yours,' said I, thinking of her recent temporary blindness in the opera passage, was, perhaps, a peculiar case. Maybe you had hurt the feelings or wounded the vanity of your defamers.'

"Not at all,' was her answer; 'I could give you many instances of the like, and, among others, that of a young gentleman whom you will, I trust, meet at my house. Though the owner of a large fortune, which he spends liberally, he is of the most unpretending nature, and the refined simplicity of his manner, I have heard good judges say, would be pronounced positive elegance in a person of gentle blood. And yet, because he once worked at a handcraft, he is slightingly spoken of by many of his countrymen, who never neglect an opportunity of referring to his humble birth.

"Their delight seems to be in backbiting each other, in searching out and retailing pri

vate histories, and that, too often, with little regard to truth. Within a month, I have twice heard, on American authority, much to the surprise of Mr. Chase and myself, that we were under the necessity of returning home to escape the consequences of our extravagance: and an intimate friend of ours, whose large property is daily increasing in value, has been several times reduced to poverty by slanderous stories of kindred tongues, without being poorer by a single sixpence.

"Now all this, you will admit, is vulgar as well as vexatious, and calculated to lower us

sent to Europe, at the expense of those there who have, more hospitably than wisely, entertained the writers of them, ought to be held up to uri versal reprobation.”

The italics in the last paragraph are the author's. We have no doubt of the truth of what they emphasize. Yet the evil is one which is beginning to remedy itself. Our diplomatic and other well known gentlemen who have resided abroad, are becoming more scrupulous in giving letters of introduction to those who may possibly disgrace them; while at the same time such letters are not looked upon as they used to be by the recipients. Formerly our public agents were besieged by the family

of

every student going to Paris; and in not a few instances probably letters have been given which, if attended to, would place individuals on a footing abroad te which they could have no claim at home, simply to buy influence. But if we are not misinformed, a better understanding now subsists on both sides of the water, and there is a greater reciprocity of good faith.

One other extract we must be excused for quoting, at the same time taking the opportunity to thank the author for the account it gives of what must have been a actual interview with one of whom the least particulars are to us, and we hope, to our readers, never uninteresting:

but do you see those sentinels? They are, one or another of thein, always awake." It struck

"I rose to depart, fearful of remaining too long, as it was yet early in the day, and I thought his labors might not be terminated. He rose too, and again taking my hand, said, 'Come and dine with me to-morrow; and if, during your stay in Edinburgh, I can be of any service to you. it will make me most happy. In the neighborhood of it, I can give you the "open Sesame" everywhere.'

"His manner toward me,during my short visit to the Scotch capital, increased in kindness, if possible, every day; and he seemed never to weary of conversation, whether we were by ourselves, or in the company of others. But I have space for only a few of the many interesting observations he made, and the curious anecdotes he told, all of which I jotted down at the time.

"Speaking one day of his powers of performance, notwithstanding his lameness, which, by the by, appeared to give him no concern on the score of vanity, as a similar misfortune did another fellow-poet of immortal renown, he said he had often traversed the Highlands on a pony and afoot, at some risk and much trouble, long before coaches or any wheel vehicles were known there.

"The fear of death happening to be the subject of conversation, he remarked that men very easily made up their minds to meet the event when once convinced that they must die. 'I remember,' he continued, 'a client of mine, when I was at the bar, who had been condemned to death for burglary for the third or fourth time, and had broken every jail in the country. He sent for me at a time when I supposed I had done with him, to give me, in return for my services, which he declared his anxiety to repay, two pieces of advice, which were, never to trust for protection in a country house to a large dog out of doors, as he could always be got rid of by poison; but to a little one within doors, whose barking at the lightest noise could not be stopped; and always to have a heavy, strong lock, with a stiff spring, instead of a small, | well-oiled, patent one, because no skeleton key could turn it. "I do not care a baubee," he added, "for these iron fetters and stone walls;

"The case of a person was mentioned that had acquired a fortune in much the same way as did a gentleman once in Boston, who, by the advice of a professed hoaxer, shipped a large quantity of warming-pans to the West Indies, and gained two or three hundred per cent. on them by their being turned into sugar-dippers, which happened to be scarce there at the moment. And I dare say,' remarked my host, whose keenness and vivacity seemed never to sleep, that he was as proud of his wealth, as if it had been made by his own desert.'

"He had taught, he told me with animated delight, Mademoiselle Sontag how to wear the tartan on the stage, und, criticising her voice, supplied, notwithstanding his son-in-law's assertion that he could never turn a tune, an expression which I had often felt the want of while listening to her in Paris. It lacked, he said, the poetry of music.'

"I remember asking him which he would prefer as followers in any hazardous and uncertain enterprise; six men of tried moral firmness and constancy, or twelve of mere animal but andoubted courage.

"Oh, the former, by all means,' was his reply; because they would not fail me, however unexpected the peril; while the latter, in some new and unthought-of danger, might be panic-struck.'

"A Neapolitan gentleman chancing to observe that his countrymen of the lower orders could not be induced to labor by any offer, however great, when once they had earned enough money to support them through the day, Sir Walter, as if charmed at the idea, burst into a hearty laugh, exclaiming, They are what I should call true practical philosophers."

"When the time for my departure had arrived, resolved that my kind entertainer should know that it was something better than idle curiosity which had brought me to Edinburgh, I told him how grateful I felt to him for the happiness his writings had given me, both in sickness and health, while there was not a house within the American borders in which they were unknown He had accompanied me to the street door, my hand in his. Such being your kind sent ments toward me, my young friend,' he replied. with almost a tinge of sadness in his totes. 'the best way for you to show their sincerity is to come back to us again, and remain a wag er time in Auld Reekie.' And so I bude acien -one never to be repeated, alas-to the a whose like the world will not soon look upon again."