"Pray, Captain,' said one of the company, 'will you give me leave to ask the name of your horse?'-The question was unexpected:- Upon my word,' said he, 'I do not remember his name. -Oh! now I recollect; I called him Alexander, after M. de Villars, the noble donor: that M. de Villars was a great man.'-' True; but his Christian name was Hector.'- Was it Hector? then,

depend upon it my horse had the same Christiain name [nom de baptême] as M. de Villars.'

6

"My curiosity led me afterwards to inquire into the history of the gentleman who always made a point of living handsomely;' and of the old horse-officer whom M. de Villars so much distinguished.

"The former was a person of honourable birth, and had served, as the French express it, with reputation. On his quitting the army, he retired to a small paternal estate, and lived in a decent way with most scrupulous economy. His chateau had been ruined during the wars of the League, and nothing remained of it but one turret, converted into a pigeon-house. As that was the most remarkable object on his estate, he was generally known by the name of M. de la Tour le Colombier. His mansionhouse was little better than that of a middling farmer in the south of England. The forest of which his daughter spoke, was a copse of three or four acres; and the ruins in which Cavalier and his associates lay concealed, had been originally a place of worship of the Protestants, but was demolished when those eminent divines, Lewis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon, thought fit that all France should be of one religion; and, as that edifice had not received consecration from a person episcopally ordained, the owner made no scruple of accommodating two or three calves in it, when his cow-house

happened to be crowded; and this is all that I could learn of M. de la Tour le Colombier.

"As for the old horse-officer,' he had served with eclat in the corps established for repressing smugglers of tobacco. This recommended him to the notice of the Farmers-general; and, by their interest, he obtained an office that gave him a seat at those great tables to which all the world is invited; and he had lived so very long in this station, that the meanness of his original seemed to have been forgotten by most people, and especially by himself.

"Those ridiculous stories which excited mirth when I first heard them, afterwards afforded matter for much serious reflection.

"It is wonderful that any one should tell things impossible, with the hope of being credited; and yet the two personages, whose legends I have related, must have entertained that hope.

"Neither is it less wonderful that invention should be stretched to the utmost, in order to persuade mere strangers to think highly of the importance of the relater.

"Me de la Tour le Colombier, and the old horseofficer, had not seen us before, and had little chance of ever seeing us again. We were the acquaintance of the day, entertained without affection, and parted from without regret: and yet what pains did they take to leave on our minds the impression of their consequence.

"The country where the scene lay is the land of the nativity of Romance: and it is probable that warm suns and pure skies enliven and fertilize the invention of its inhabitants. But Romance, for I will not give it a harsher name, thrives not in the bleaker and more northern climates: there it is forced fruit, without that flavour which it has in its own soil.

We can as little rival the French in their ease of behaviour, and in the inexhaustible talent of enunciating trifles with grace, as in their colloquial romances. How do I feel for my countrymen, on observing them toil through a romance, compose sentence by sentence as they go on, hesitate with the consciousness of doing wrong, stare like a criminal, at once abashed and obdurate, and at length produce a story as tedious and as dull as truth!

THE incidents attending domestic and private situations are of all others the most apt to affect the heart. Descriptions of national events are too general to be very interesting, and the calamities befalling Kings and Princes too far removed from common life to make a deep impression. With the virtues of such personages, it is nearly the same as with their sufferings; the heroic qualities which history ascribes to great and illustrious names, play around the imagination, but rarely touch the feelings, or direct the conduct; the humbler merits of ordinary life are those to which we feel a nearer relation; from which, therefore, precept is more powerfully enforced, and example more readily drawn.

Mr. Hargrave is one of my earliest friends. Being

many years younger than he, I have ever been accustomed to regard him both as my guardian and my friend; and the reverence with which I looked on him in the one character, never took from the tender and affectionate warmth I felt for him in the other. After having been, for some time, a good deal in the world, he retired to the country, where he lived with elegance and ease. His wife, a very amiable woman, died soon after her marriage, leaving one only child, a girl, to the care of whose education Mr. Hargrave, after her mother's death, devoted his whole attention. Nature had done much for her; and the instruction she received from an accomplished father gave her every grace which can adorn the female character.

Emily Hargrave was now in her twentieth year. Her father was advanced in life, and he began to feel the weaknesses of age coming fast upon him. Independent of the gratification which he used to receive from the observation of his daughter's virtues and accomplishments, he had come to feel a pleasure somewhat more selfish from the advantage which those virtues were of to himself. Her care and dutiful attention were almost become necessary to him; and the principal pleasure he received was from her company and conversation. Emily was sensible of this; and though she was at pains to conceal her solicitude, it was plain that her whole care centered in him.

It was impossible that a girl so amiable as Emily Hargrave could fail to attract attention. Several young men of fortune and character became her professed admirers. But, though she had a sweetness which gave her a benevolent affability to all, she was of a mind too delicate to be easily satisfied in the choice of a husband. In her present circumstances, she had another objection to every change

of situation. She felt too much anxiety about her father, to think of any thing which could call off her attention from him, and make it proper to place any of it elsewhere. With the greatest delicacy, therefore, and with that propriety with which her conduct was always attended, she checked every advance that was made her; while, at the same time, she was at the utmost pains to conceal from her father the voluntary sacrifice she was resolved to make on his account.

About a month ago, I paid a visit to Mr. Hargrave's family. I found him more changed than I had expected; the imbecilities of age, which were beginning to approach last time I had seen him, had now made great advances. Formerly Mr. Hargrave used to be the delight of every company, and he never spoke without instructing or entertaining. Now he spoke little; when he did, it was with feebleness both of voice and manner. Feeling his memory declining, sensible that he was not so acute as he once was, and unable to keep up his attention to a continued discourse, though his understanding was still perfectly good, he was afraid to venture his opinion, or to take any decided measure. He was

too conscious of his own infirmities; and that consciousness led him to think, that his failure was greater than it really was. In this situation his whole dependence was upon Emily, and she was his only support. Never, indeed, did I see any thing more lovely, more engaging. To all her other charms, the anxious solicitude she felt for her father had stamped upon her countenance,

That expression sweet of melancholy

Which captivates the soul.

There is something in the female character which requires support. That gentleness, that delicate