ders.

"Certainly," she said unlocking the door. "The chamber is at monsieur's service. The English adore it. And why? Because somebody or other slept in it many years ago. How droll they are, these English! Comment! is monsieur English? Ciel! what a mistake I have committed. Monsieur will never forgive me."

It needed, however, no great amount of protestation on my part to convince Mademoiselle Marie that I was not in the least affronted; so she drew up the blinds, dusted the table in a pretty ineffectual sort of way with the corner of her little apron, hoped that monsieur would ring if he required any thing, and tripped gaily out of the room.

As for me, I threw myself into a chair and surveyed my new quarters. A portrait of Sterne hung over the fire-place. It was painted on panel, oval-shaped, dark with age and varnish, and looked as though it had been taken during his visit to Calais-if one might judge by the cracks and stains of it. The cheek rested on the hand; the eyes were turned full upon me with that expression of keen penetration which characterizes every one of his portraits. I sat for a long time looking at it, till the waiter came and prepared the table.

"And now, garçon," said I, after a considerable interval, during which I had been very satisfactorily employed-" and now, garçon, do you really mean to tell me that this is Sterne's room?"

"Upon my honor, monsieur," replied the waiter, laying his hand upon his

heart.

"But how can you be certain after three-quarters of a century, or perhaps more, have gone by ?"

"The event, monsieur," said the waiter, "has been preserved in the archives of the house. We pledge ourselves to the veracity of the statement."

I surveyed the man with admiration. He was the grandest waiter I had ever seen in my life, and I had had some little experience, too.

"What wine does monsieur desire for his dessert?"

I hesitated. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have said port or cham

To my right lay a delicious garden, radiant with beds of verbena and scarlet geranium, and flooded with the evening sunlight. The great trees nodded and whispered, and the windows at the opposite side of the quadrangle shone like burnished gold. I threw open the jalousies, wheeled my table up, plucked one of the white roses that clustered outside, and fancied I could smell the sea-air.

"And so," said I, complacently peeling my peaches, "This is actually Sterne's room! He once sat beside this casement where I am now seated; looked out into this garden, where- But who knows? Perhaps the opening scenes of the Sentimental Journey were even written in this chamber, and here am I with the book in my pocket. Now, this is really delightful! Yorick,"-and I poured out a glass of the amber Johannisberger, and addressed myself to the portrait over the fire-place-Yorick, your health!"

I took the volume out, and turning the leaves idly, came to the chapters that treat of the désobligeante. I was decidedly in a soliloquizing mood.

"Now, if I were beginning, instead of ending my journey," said I," there's nothing I should have preferred to the désobligeante. No doubt, there is one to be had somewhere. What if the identical vehicle be still in the stables! That's nonsense, of course: and yet, I should just like to make the inquiry. Yorick, your health again, and let me tell you, sir, that it's not every man who, fifty years after his decease, gets toasted in wine at seventeen francs the bottle?" There was a tap at my door.

66

"A Thousand pardons," observed the waiter, looking in. "Monsieur is alone?"

"Go to the mischief!" said I savagely. Fortunately it was in English, so he did not understand me.

"There are two gentlemen here, monsieur two milords, your countrymen, who desire particularly to be permitted to see this apartment for a moment.”

"An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen,'" I muttered to myself, quoting page nineteen of the Sentimental Journey.

"Am I honored with monsieur's permission to show them up?"

I was forced to say Yes-not very graciously, I fear; and he ushered them in accordingly.

The first was a spare, eager-looking man, with keen quivering nostrils, and a brow furrowed with thought and expressive of immense determination of character. The appearance of the second was still more remarkable. I could not remove my eyes from his face, and yet I could scarcely have told you what it was that so attracted me. His forehead was broad and high; his mouth open and eloquent; his hair black, glossy,and falling in smooth pendulous masses almost to his shoulders. His eyebrows were prominent and bushy, and the eyes beneath them animated by a living radiance, alternately dreamy and tender, wild and energetic. I have since heard them compared to "the rolling of a sea with darkened lustre," and I can think of no words which better express their changefulness and their depth.

He entered last, but stepped before his friend, and stood looking up at the portrait. The other bowed and apologized to me in a few brief hesitating words for their intrusion.

Presently the second comer turned round, and without and previous recognition of my presence, said:

"I see that you two have been dining together. Has the worthy prebend been an agreeable companion?"

The oddity of the address pleased me. "I can not say that I have wanted for amusement," I replied smiling, "since the Sentimental Journey has been lying beside my plate all the time. But will you not be seated ?"

other. But Sterne's morals were bad. His heart was bad; his life was bad. He dallied with vice, and called it sentiment, or combined it with wit, drollery and fancy, and served it up for the amusement of the fashionable world, whose idol he was. His mind oscillated ever on the confines of evil, and from this dangerous element he drew his "effects," his clap-trap, and his false whimpering sensibility. There is not a page of Sterne's writings undefiled by some hint of impurity; and yet he approaches the subject with a mixture of courage and cowardice, as a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time; or, better still, like that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn

only because it has been forbidden. He is a hypocrite, because he affects to be the ally of virtue, and entertains all the while a secret sympathy with the enemy. At the same time, I don't think his hypocrisy can do much harm, or his morals either, unless to those who are already vicious."

The gentleman at the window faced round, and shook his head.

"You are seldom just to authors for whom you have no liking," he said in harsh quick tones; "and it seems to me that in this instance you jump too hastily at conclusions. It does not follow that a man is a hypocrite because his actions give the lie to his words. If he at one time seems to be a saint, and at another a sinner, he possibly is both in reality, as well as in appearance.

"I do not admire the Sentimental Journey," said he in the easy chair. "It is poor sickly stuff; and the oftener you read Sterne, the more clearly will you perceive its inferiority to Tristram Shandy. There is truth and reality in the one, and little beyond a clever affectation in the

ally fluttering and thoughtless disposition. These last are the qualities that strike us most by contrast to ourselves, and that come most into play in the intercourse of common life; and therefore we are generally disposed to set them down as an altogether frivolous and superficial people. It is a mistake which we shall do well to correct on further acquaintance with them; or, if we persist in it, we must call to our aid an extraordinary degree of our native blindness and obstinacy. Why, the expression of a Frenchman's face is often as melancholy when he is by himself as it is lively in conversation. The instant he ceases to talk, he becomes quite chopfallen.'"

"It is strange," observed the philosopher, "how little this contradiction in their character has been noticed. They have never had the credit of it, though it stares one in the face everywhere. You can't go into one of their theatres without being struck by the silence and decorum that reign throughout the audience, from the scholar in the stalls to the workman in the galleries."

"This results in part, perhaps, from their studious inclinations," said the other. "The French are fond of reading as well as of talking. You may constantly see girls tending an apple-stall in the coldest day in winter, and reading Voltaire or Racine. Such a thing was never known in London as a barrowwoman reading Shakspeare. Yet we talk of our wide-spread civilization and ample provisions for the education of the poor!"

"To be read thus by the lowliest as well as the loftiest, should be the highest ambition of the poet," exclaimed the philosopher enthusiastically. "Do you not remember, William, during that pedestrian excursion which you, Wordsworth, John Chester, and I cnce made from Nether Stowey to Linton, we staid at an old-fashioned inn near the Valley of Rocks, breakfasted deliciously on tea, toast, eggs, and honey, and found a little worn-out copy of the Seasons lying in the window-seat? I took it up, and with a feeling that I can not describe to you, exclaimed aloud: That is true fame!"

"Yes," replied the metaphysician, with a sigh; "I remember it perfectly.

I was but a lad at the time, and I listened as if in a dream to every syllable that fell from the lips of either Wordsworth or yourself. Fame, thought I, with a sinking heart-alas! to me it is but a word: I shall never possess it; yet will I never cease to worship and to pursue it. At that time, I thought to be a painter; and while I lost myself in admiration of a fairy Claude, or hung enraptured over a Titian dark with beauty, I despaired of the perfection I worshipped. And I was right: I should never have made a painter.'

His friend smiled, and shook his head. "And yet," said he, "you are content, I should think, with the share of renown that has fallen to your lot. Do you still hold that fame is but a word?"

"I hold it to be a glorious reality," replied the metaphysician; "But one which, least of all others, should be defaced by the petty considerations of our worldly vanities and selfish personalities. Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity-who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight. Fame, to my thinking, means Shakspeare, Homer, Bacon, Raphael. Fame can attach itself only to the past. Reputation is the property of the present.

"A subtle distinction," said the philosopher, emptying the last glass of my Johannisberger; but one which—” The door of the chamber opened. "Your carriage, gentlemen, is ready," said the waiter.

We all rose simultaneously.

"I am sure," said the philosopher, with an air of high-bred courtesy-"I am sure we must have fatigued and interrupted you, sir, in a most unpardonable manner. I am ashamed"—and here he glanced regretfully towards the empty bottle and the comfortable fauteuil-“to have intruded so long upon your patience and your hospitality; but if you should ever chance to wander in the neighborhood of Nether Stowey, Somersetshire, I will endeavor to atone for my present thoughtlessness, by making you acquainted with our green and hilly country, and our wild sea-shore Do not suppose that I say this through a forced politeness. I

invite few visitors, and those whom I do ask, I welcome heartily. I am but a hermit in a cottage, however, and can not promise to give you such vintages as this!"

He took a card from his waistcoat pocket, and, advancing with an undulating step, laid it down beside me on the table.

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge!" I exclaimed involuntarily, as my eye fell on the superscription.

me.

The philosopher extended his hand to

"You will not forget to come and see me," he said, "if you visit my county; and I trust you will forgive me for introducing myself. It is a bad habit that one aquires abroad-above all when one meets a fellow-Englishman."

"I consider," said I, that I am indebted to Yorick for this piece of good fortune;" and I pointed to the portrait over the mantel-piece.

66

Coleridge plucked his companion by the sleeve. "Come, Hazlitt," he said, we have no time to lose." "How!" I exclaimed-" is it possible that-that your friend is—”

"William Hazlitt," replied the poet, making the metaphysician known to me with a serio-comic gesture-" William Hazlitt, the dreaded critic-the redoubtable reviewer-the terrible essayist!"

I endeavored to stammer out something appropriate as they took leave of me; but at that time I was little used to society, and I believe I had never seen a real live author in my life before, so I fear I was not very successful.

Coleridge hurried his friend from the room, and went out last. Just as he reached the door he turned back.

"Have you read my translation of The Visit of the Gods?"

I replied eagerly in the affirmative.

NEW YORK:-BROADWAY ITSELF.

ERE you address yourself to the study of Broadway in detail, you must recover from that attack of Flag on the Brain at which I hinted in my last chapter. Push aside the banners which flutter thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, and regard the enormous tide of humanity for ever flowing up and down Broadway.

It does not resemble in its entirety any crowd with which you have been hitherto acquainted, although taken sectionally it may contain some elements and characteristics of the population of every other city in the world. The American type is predominant and absorbent; and the type is a melancholy type, and the crowd a melancholy one. New York claimsand the claim may be allowed-to be the most cosmopolitan city in the Union: you will meet in its side walks, besides New Yorkers and New Englanders, gaunt Western men, colossal Kentuckians, and sallow Southerners, any number of Germans, Spaniards-both European and Creole-Dutch farmers; Swedish settlers from New Jersey; Negro mulattoes: Irishmen, Irish women, Frenchmen, Eng

"Never, believe me,

Appear the Immortals,
Never alone!"

The door closed directly, and he was gone. Then I heard his genial laugh upon the stairs, and presently the rattling of the wheels that bore them away. I never visited Nether Stowey, and I never saw either of my guests again. NEW SERIES-Vol. II., No. 2.

moment shall you be enabled to forget that you are on the North American continent, in an American city, and where American manners hold supremacy. In this you may assume a tacit admission on my part of the superiority of the AngloSaxon race; but I venture to submit that the manners, appearance, and usages of the real American are not Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon is sturdy and ruddy;

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