woman's daughter in whose house he lodged, that he cried with a sheepish air" Moi epouser vous toute de suite." The damsel blushed. 66 Volez-vo, voi o no?" (oui ou non.) The young woman being advised to decide instantly, as this marrier à la minute might change his mind, very seriously cried out-" Oui ;" to which Milord replied, "Une Gentelman ne pas avoir qu'une parole," and the wed ding was shortly solemnized with great magnificence. Eight days after, a friend returning from Italy gave him such an attractive account of Naples that he exclaimed afresh-" Toute de suite, toute de suite, dais chival de la poste, et à Naples!" and in a few days his new wife finds herself under the burning skies of Lombardy. These most authentic anecdotes are wound up by the marriage of a Parisian exquisite. "Saint-Elme was charming, brilliant, witty, fait à peindre; he fenced, and wrote a billet-doux en vrai Lovelace: the Coryphæus of the side scenes, the actresses contended for his favours, and liveried lacqueys brought him letters perfumed à la Vanille, with appointments from ladies of distinction. Descending from his unpaid tilbury in the Bois de Boulogne, and ogling through a diamond eye-glass, for which he was still in the jeweller's books, he was the darling of those fashionable dames who parade their landaus in fine weather, scattering from their horses' feet clouds of ostentatious dust. Nothing in appearance was wanting to the happiness of our ambered hero, since he took his tea at Hardy's, on the Italian Boulevard, dined at Beauvilliers, employed an English habit-maker, wore a waiscoat of Eau du Nil, had his pockets filled with orange-comfits, candied cherries, pastilles au punch, and Nougat de Marseilles; and was, moreover, often seen in the private boxes of the theatres; but alas! his prosperity was soon to end." Besieged one morning by bailiffs and creditors who offered him his choice-payment or a prison-he decided as firmly as Cæsar when he crossed the Rubicon, and, accompanied by his father, betook himself to the horrible Lady Formes, a Londoner, of a hundred thousand sterling a-year, whose hideous portrait is exhibited in the frontispiece to the volume, and sacrifices himself to this ancient fright for the purpose of paying his creditors. Our author, it will be observed, is about as happy in the names of our nobility as Rousseau in his "Nouvelle Heloise," and Madame de Staël in her "Corinne ;" and as to the clumsy ridicule of his story and his caricature, we apprehend that it is much less disreputable to possess the forbidding features of a Lady Formes, than the sordid and profligate soul of a Saint-Elme. After recommending the revival of a custom among the Babylonians, who used to assemble all their marriageable young women in a public place, and bestow the money which was bidden for the beauties in marriage portions for those who were ugly, our author quotes from LEGOUVE "Quand l'homme de la vie entreprend le voyage, La femme avec douceur guide ses premiers pas; A sentiment which ought to have inspired him with a little more respect for the sex: and, when he ventures in another place to exclaim "Mais pour moi dont le front trop aisement rougit, he may rest assured that no decent reader, even in France, will accuse him upon the first line, or acquit him upon the second. H. LONDON LYRICS. The Watering Places. "AWAKE, arise," bold Neptune cries, "If t'were my lot to build a cot, It should not verge upon thy surge, The very trees, that own thy breeze, "The man who stops in sea-side shops, The libraries that edge thy seas, Their gew-gaw shelves bear tops for twelves, "Sandgate may do for those who woo O'er Bognor Rock the sea-gulls flock; Who loves to hide should go to Ryde, Full equi-dismal Cowes is: And poor Eastbourne appears to mourn "To Broadstairs they may post away, Southend's too nigh, and they who hie Worthing's all tides, and all Cheapside's "Tow'rd Rottingdean who walks the Steyne, Which aims, by spars, and chains, and bars, But, Son of Ops, the pile that stops "See yonder yacht, with paddling trot, "At Hastings, if her frisky cliff Would be more staid and sober, The gods I'd thank to pass, dear Frank, But from her brink new rocks may sink, "Thus, billowy god, my muse has trod A WALK TO VINCENNES. It was in the Spring season, a short time ago, that I walked to the chateau of Vincennes. The day was fine, and the pure cerulean sky, with that vivifying clearness of the atmosphere never seen or experienced in our metropolis, and of which the feeling is understood by most, but which it would be difficult to describe here, gave me more than a common susceptibility of enjoying a walk-it was the exhilaration of incipient inebriety without its deadening effect upon the faculties. The mind wore its keenest edge, and its perceptions were stimulated as forcibly as the fibres of the body were braced. Such a moment is favourable for enjoying the beauties of Nature, and it is then almost an offence against natural feeling not to walk forth and drink in the delight which creation offers us. My resolution was executed sur le champ. I had breakfasted at the Caffé Hardi in the Boulevard des Italiens, when I planned my ramble, and having crowned my déjeuné with a petit verre of brandy, about a good-sized thimble full, (for my breakfast, be it observed, was à la fourchette,) I proceeded along those charming adjuncts to the French cities-the Boulevards, amusing myself with the endless variety of objects in my way, until I reached the Barrier du Trone. All who have been at the eastern end of Paris know this spot of ingress and egress by the two naked columns on each hand. The road from the barrier runs in a straight line to Vincennes and its pleasant neighbourhood, and is planted with a double row of trees the whole way. The ground on the right is level; on the left hand it begins to rise at a little distance off, forming the quadrant of a hill, on the side of which is the celebrated cemetery of Père La Chaise, with its white monuments and plantations. This hill is called Mont Louis. The cemetery is the site of the chateau and grounds of the Père La Chaise, the Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV. and his mistress Madame de Maintenon, who used to visit the Père La Chaise there, as a Frenchman of the Bourbon school would say, from motives of pure piety! The side of the hill without the cemetery, and some of the space intervening between that and the road of Vincennes, was occupied by peach-gardens, then in all their luxuriance of rich blossom. I walked at a slow rate over a road which presented a curious contrast to the busy scene of one situated near the British capital. I met few persons; a diligence with its grotesque accompaniments in pilotage, passengers and lumber, a gens-d'arme patrolling, and a demi-tasse* or two, if I might judge from their soldierlike air, threadbare coats, and toil-worn aspects, were the most important in the scale of consequence. There were also a few country people with the produce of their ground, seeking Paris for its sale, and jabbering their patois with the accustomed volubility of their nation. No splendid equipages passed me; Paris seemed to have attracted and retained all; as it retains every idea that a Frenchman can possibly accumulate of beauty, excellence, and grandeur. I must mention that before reaching the Barrier du Trone, I went a little out of the way to visit a spot, the associations with which presented the most painful aspect, and recalled the recollection of scenes which France must for ever blush to find in the records of her history. It is a piece of ground, not forty feet square, in the corner of what was once the garden of some canonesses of St. Augustin, in the Faubourg St. Antoine. It is scarcely credible that between the 24th June, 1793, and 27th July, 1794, nearly one half of all the corpses of unhappy persons decapitated in Paris during the "reign of terror," as the French denominate that period, were crammed into such a little space. This number amounted to 1298. Over each layer of bodies some inches in thickness of quick-lime were deposited. Little indeed is the room that mortals require for their last sojourn at this rate, much less even than our scanty London grave-yards can bestow! Though these remains must have constituted a mass of human putrefaction quite appalling, the lime effectually prevented any bad consequences to the living, and the decomposition was rapid and complete. Among the dead thus inhumed here, was the noted Frederick Baron Trenck, who was decapitated only two days before Robespierre. After this digression, to return to my main object. I pursued my The half-pay officers, or demi-solde, who are supposed to possess only the means of paying for half cups of coffee. route under the delicious green shade of the trees, until I reached the palace built by Catharine and Mary de Medicis; it contains nothing remarkable, and I passed it by to enter the fort or chateau, so celebrated as a state prison, having been in every respect the twin brother of the Bastile. It would have shared the same fate as that edifice, had not the patriotic La Fayette preserved it by calling out the National Guard. A young officer of gens-d'armerie, with whom I had been long acquainted, accompanied me. He wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honour given him by Napoleon, and therefore it is fair to suppose he merited it by his services. Yet he told me that having served the Emperor faithfully, he had now transferred his allegiance to Louis, and would equally devote his life for him, adding with all a Frenchman's levity and vehemence, upon my smiling at his pliancy of principle, "he would rather serve Louis than his God, for he had seen one but he never saw the other." This is too true a picture of modern political Frenchmen, and of numerous politicians in every country. Even erroneous principle may command respect, if it be inflexibly true to its pretensions, but who can respect those who studiously subject their principles to their interests! We crossed the drawbridges and entered the inner court. All seemed adapted to the purposes of arbitrary power, -moats and walls precluding any chance of escape; a gloom falling from the dark masses of stone the whole height of the keep, that flung over the mind, together with its dark shadows, a sadness weighing down every other sensation. The recollection of the mass of human suffering endured and enduring there, must have inflicted a death of hope in the mind of every newly-arrived victim. A lettre de cachet and a warrant for execution could have produced in him feelings very little dissimilar. No question was allowed to be asked by the prisoner on his introduction; c'est ici, he was told, la maison de silence. As I entered the door of the donjon, the walls of which are sixteen feet in thickness, I thought of the inscription over hell-gate in Dante, Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che 'ntrate! What a picture was before me of the old regime of France! From the palace to the dungeon was here indeed but a step. The groans and misery of the captives must often, from their vicinity to it, have been echoed back in return for the music and revelry of courtiers. Thus the pains of captivity were rendered more cutting, and a torture inflicted on the mind even more bitter than Louis XI. caused on the bodies of the unfortunate Princes of Armagnac, at Vincennes or in the Bastile. They were placed in holes in the masonry shaped like inverted cones, to prevent their feet having an easy resting-place, scourged twice a week, and a tooth was drawn from them every three months! The donjon is a square building, having round towers at the angles; it is surrounded by an inner ditch. The first door being passed, it was formerly necessary to open three more before entering the first apartment, though these are at present dispensed with. The cells of the prisoners surrounded this room, small and lofty, with very little light, owing to the enormous thickness of the walls. The lowest floor was of old used as a place of torture. The stone elevations still remain on which the prisoners were seated, with the places of the rings over them by which they were confined while they suffered. A staircase in |