a baker; but to make the matter as suitable as possible, I supposed he might be the chief baker of the ward. I was a good deal surprised, therefore, when M. Joinville told me, among other gossip, to-day, that the personage in question was a French Earl, whose father's estates had been sold at the Revolution. This gentleman is towards forty years of age, straight and slender, with a long, grave, and pleasing, rather than a handsome physiognomy; he has, no wonder, a deeplymelancholy air, which seldom leaves him. Having been forced to flee in early life, he has received but a slender education, and takes little share in conversation. Our visitors generally think him a German, for Germany was the scene of his emigration; some dark Catholic state in it, I suppose, where little mental culture was to be acquired. He does not frequent the company of the other nobility, does not go to the theatre, but remains much in his own apartment; works at small mechanical labours, and even plaits his own linen and sets his room in order. Such are the fruits of penury, and a defective nurture, which presents him no means of restoring his station in society. The mind, in this individual, seems to have, by violent compression, been reduced to small compass; and to have acquired a steadfast disposition to turn rather towards the beloved past, than plunge into the glorious future, which for him hath no charms. Turning suddenly to me one day, he asked whether it was ascertained that the late Queen of England had died a natural death! I inquired if he had ever been in England; he answered, with a sigh, in the negative: if he had been in Germany; he answered Yes, with another sigh. He was anxious to be informed of the particulars of the late decease of Margaret Nicolson, who, it may be remembered, once attempted the life of our George III.; thus, the idea of regicide seems continually to haunt him. When we look on such a moral spectacle as this, we perceive where lie the deep wounds of France, which rankle mortally in obscurity, amid the general gaiety and nonchalance. This man, humanly speaking, never can be happy. He has been, by awful and uncontrollable events, excluded from the companionship of his own rank; broken-hearted, reduced to occupations mean and trivial, awkwardly fettered among associates whom his notions of birth cannot permit to consider as on terms of equality; his friends all dead; his castles, lands, and rivers in the hands of new proprietors, who would tremble, with a secret apprehension, to see his hated face, lest the Ultra Royalists would yet prevail in the State, to have the heritage of the old nobility restored. Methinks I see him hid in a thicket, taking one more view of the seat of his fathers, and remembering, with a swollen heart, all the sweets of childhood and affection there enjoyed, before the dark days came U on; for he told me, on one occasion, when the conversation led to it, that he had been at such and such a city, at a distance from Paris. I knew the poor récluse could not afford an excursion of pleasure, and had no business to carry him thither, unless the fantastical consolation of attempting to cure the virulence of settled grief, by opening anew its sources and springs, be allowed to be an affair of some importance. Ye gentlemen of England! who rejoice in your spacious mansions, possessing all the honourable satisfactions of your station, having little to fear and every thing to hope, thank the Author of all good, when you contemplate the different fate of the ancient nobility of France. Yet, blessed be his name, there remains, to them who will accept of it, in his gospel, higher distinction than an ancient line of ancestry, or stately possessions, even a royal priesthood and uncreated honours. In walking along the Boulevards in an unfashionable part of the town, I purchased a ballad or two from a small book-shop. Somebody thought it a matter of more importance to have the ballads of a nation to write, than to frame their statute law. Whether the ballad shapes the national character or this the ballad, or with what reciprocity the two act on each other, might be a curious if not useful disquisition. It strikes me, on comparing the French with ours, that there is more of sentiment than narrative in this species of composition with them; this, at least, seems the smack of the following: LE VOYAGEUR. LE VIEILLARD. 1. Voyageur dont l'age interesse, Quel chagrin fletrit tes beaux jours? LE VOYAGEur. Bon Vieillard, plaignez ma jeunesse, LE VIEILLARD. 2. Le sort est injuste sans doute, Mais n'est pas toujours rigoureux. Dieu t'offre un ami: sois heureux. LE VOYAGEUR. 3. Mes maux sont de tristes exemples LE VIEILLARD. 4. Prend mon bras, car un long voyage Endolorit tes pieds pondreux. Comme toi j'errais a ton age, Dieu t'offre un ami: sois heureux. LE VOYAGEUR. 5. Quand j' invoquai dans la tempete LE VIEILLARE. 6. Te voici dans mon ermitage Versons nous d'un vin genereux. Helas! mon fils aurait ton age Dieu t'offre un ani: sois heureux. LE VOYAGEur. 7. Non: il n'est point d' Etre supreme, Qui seul peuple l'immensité; Et cet univers n'est lui meme LE VIEILLARD. 8. Vois ma fille, a qui ta detresse Arrache un soupir doloureux; Elle a consolé ma vieillesse : Dieu t'offre un ami: sois heureux. LE VOYAGEur. 9. Dans cette nuit profonde et triste, LE VIEILLARð. 10. Voici ta couche, et ta demeure 11. L'etranger reste: il plait, il aime, Espoux et pere, il va lui meme |