do well, for a while, to take a position on the pier of any port of embarkation. The fancy of a Jaques would run riot in it.

But we must not stop to inquire into the thousand exhibitions of the human character which Dover afforded to our travellers, as they seated themselves in the packet. Here an emaciated devotee of the world, in whose service he had destroyed his health, was flying to the sweet south for strength to enjoy it a little longer; there his heir, accompanying him, and secretly wondering (we will not say wishing the contrary) whether he would ever come back. Here an embezzler, with the portfolio of his master, fearing an officer in every man that looked at him. There a wife, in tears and agitation, and already repentant, at having fled from a husband with a lover not to be compared to him. Now they saw a young heir, big with all hope, the world at his feet; and now a man driven from society for infamy, envying the commonest sailor boy that scrubbed dirt from the deck. Here was a faded ennuyé, flying from himself in London, to be still more tired of the same person in Paris; there a whole family going to live cheap en Province, and obtain a good accent for their younger children. A jilted lover sighed most bitterly in the forecastle, to which he had retired, with eyes fixed upon the water, though now and then looking at the road up the cliff, as leading to the only thing in the world that could interest him, with all her faults. On the other hand, in solemn state, and most oracular visage, sat an Envoy and his Secretary, just appointed to their first mission at an inferior German court, on which they thought the fate of Europe depended. Two or three Frenchmen sat by themselves, congratulating each other on having escaped from the pays brutale et féroce, where the ladies never said a word, and no one could make a good soup.

It were endless to recount the impressions which these and other characters made upon Wentworth and De Vere; who, at the same time, were themselves as open as the rest to the investigation of a philoso

pher. They certainly participated with the most restless of their companions in their desire to leave England; and it was not till they were full mid-channel, and under the impulse of a favourable breeze, that they seemed to breathe a freer air.

How different from that beautiful, that unfortunate, and then innocent queen, who, crossing this very channel, fixed her eyes till night on the shores she had left, and even ordered her bed to be spread on the deck, that she might behold them once more in the dawn, if the dawn still gave them to her view. Not one of the motley crew of the packet, and certainly not De Vere or Wentworth, were actuated by this feeling towards England.

Yet England was their country, and loved by them both, as it deserved to be loved. It contained all they most fondly prized, though it also contained what had occasioned their disgust. At that moment disgust predominated; witness the feeling of Wentworth when he was recently so impressed by the scene of his former activity. Indeed there is no saying to what extremity of prejudice the human heart will proceed, under the influence of great excitement, when unregulated by the habit of self-control.

Out of complaisance to the youth and health of De Vere, Wentworth offered to stay some time at Paris; but, not more to his pleasure than his surprise, De Vere declared against it.

"I care not for its luxury," said he; "and as for the French woman of quality, she is not to my taste

There's language in her eye; her cheek, her lip,

Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.'

Oh, how different from what we have left!"

"Yet there are l'Espinasse, and Geoffrin, and Du Deffand," said Wentworth, not noticing his last observation.

They are not women," replied De Vere, "but masculine spirits in petticoats.'

"But their conversation," continued Wentworth. "Disappoints me at every turn," replied De Vere.

"Yet it is full of brilliancy," said his companion; "of thinking, and even of science and learning."

"It is on that very account I dislike it: I doubt the thinking; and though I might admire brilliancy for a time, and wit too, if it do not make them bold, I wish not to be dazzled where soothing and softness are the peculiar fascinations of the sex. It is to these, and these alone, that we fly for that refuge which we cannot find in ourselves."

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"You hate then science and learning in petticoats?" Why, if I wanted them for their own sakes, I could get them better from the men; if for the sake of any superior attraction, when possessed by females, I could as soon think a coat and waistcoat superiorly graceful from being worn by a woman instead of my

self."

"This may be true," said Wentworth; "but if not at Paris, where then is your standard of excellence?" "Look at home;" replied De Vere, "for how different are the gentle beings we have quitted, where the most excellent sense and the best understandings are accompanied by a retiring grace that never suffers them to overstep their modesty of character.'

"Upon my word," said Wentworth, "the English ladies, at least, are much obliged to you; yet, even in England, we have Mrs. Montague."

"And even Mrs. Montague," replied De Vere, "I could love more, if she would lay down her learning. Beauty, elegance, goodness, all conspire in her to fascinate me; but make her a school-mistress, and the fascination is gone.”

"You would not then marry a scholar, though so much more fitted to be your companion? You would prefer one who would talk of silks and laces?"

"If the laces set off her beauty while talking, I should have no objection," answered De Vere; "provided she could also talk of her heart, and that heart was mine. But the sphere of woman's companionship is not so contracted. The virtues, the graces, the accomplishments, that delight and purify us at the same time, these are all hers; and should I ever

be able to marry, these I should seek; but, as to a downright woman of letters, nothing terrifies me so much: I would as soon marry my dictionary."

Wentworth laughed, and the Geoffrins, l'Espinasses, and Du Deffands were given up.

They accordingly left Paris in a few days, and took the road to Toulouse; but stopped in the village of Villette, at some leagues distance from Paris.

There were interests in that village which were enthusiastically felt by Wentworth, and, young as he was, even by De Vere. With ten thousand faults, the character, life, and mind of Bolingbroke, were favourite and frequent topics of discourse with both the travellers, and Bolingbroke had passed several years of his exile at a secluded chateau in this neighbourhood. The fineness of mind, the high-breeding, and brilliant talents of this statesman; the vicissitudes of his life, his love of letters, his eloquence and philosophic imagination, (we dare not call it genuine philosophy) could not be obliterated by those bursts of passion, (amounting to almost phrenzy) which plunged him, now into the grossest debauchery, now into violence, nothing short of treason. He had all the vehemence, but not the virtues of the gallant Essex; and this vehemence, like that of Essex, though often generous, was so ill directed, as to prove his ruin. With parts, which left all other men behind, he was a tissue of incongruity; ever, philosophizing, ever sinning against philosophy; praising exile, yet incensed at being exiled; affecting to despise the world, yet a martyr to its ambitions; smitten with the calmness of retreat, yet bursting with party rage. Oh! who can describe him, streaming "like a meteor on the troubled air," beyond all rule of calculation; admired, and contemned, blamed, hated, and loved.

As he was the very child of political ambition, and while in office, the model of official merit, no wonder that he had been the peculiar study of a successor like Wentworth, as little that all things belonging to him should have wound about and augmented the interest with which he was regarded, both by Went

worth and De Vere. Wentworth, indeed, chiefly viewed him as a minister; De Vere as a problem in human nature; both, as a man whose every point of history was a matter worthy of inquiry. Can we be surprised, that their hearts beat high on their approach to what had been his dwelling? It was, in fact, the concerted object of their pilgrimage when they quitted Paris.

The shrine, however, had long been abandoned, and now lay, void of an inhabitant, in a most neglected state. At the end of the village, or rather of a long street, old and massive gates, full ten feet high, opened to what had been the domain. The ancient arms of the family of whom Bolingbroke bought it, cast in lead, still looked respectably, though the rust of time had defaced all other appendages. Nettles, and close matted weeds, obscured what could be seen of the immediate interior, and entirely hid the borders of a straight-lined canal, so seldom visited as to be the abode of wild ducks. The gates, however, were locked, and all approach forbidden, till a tall thin Frenchman, whose few grey locks were pinned in a bag, and surmounted by a cocked hat (not over new, but decorated with a red cockade), advanced with somewhat of a military air, and, showing a huge key (a proof of his authority), offered his servi ces in showing the house.

He had on a thread-bare coat, of a saffron colour, with large sleeves and many buttons, and a waistcoat of the same, with flaps down to the knees; and he did the honours of the deserted mansion with no mean grace. To an English matter-of-fact Cicisbeo, he was a Hyperion to a satyr.

"Messieurs, veuillent voir la maison de leur Lor Boolingbrooke," said the Frenchman, who, from the circumstance of being simply entrusted with the key, called himself, and was called by others, Monsieur l'Intendant.

"Yes!" answered Wentworth; "and we should be glad to know if there is any person in the place who can remember him.”