nails [the Barons' nails were then of forty years' growth], and easily accomplished it.

Peace was soon after concluded with the Turks, and gaining my liberty, I left St. Petersburg at the time of that singular revolution, when the emperor in his cradle, his mother, the Duke of Brunswick, her father, Field Marshal Munich, and many others were sent to Siberia. The winter was then so uncommonly severe all over Europe that ever since the sun seems to be frost-bitten. At my return to this place, I felt on the road greater inconveniences than those I had experienced on my setting out.

I traveled post, and finding myself in a narrow lane, bade the postilion give a signal with his horn, that other travelers might not meet us in the narrow passage. He blew with all

his might; but his endeavors were in vain, he could not make the horn sound, which was unaccountable and rather unfortunate, for soon after we found ourselves in the presence of another coach coming the other way: there was no proceeding; however, I got out of my carriage, and being pretty strong, placed it, wheels and all, upon my head; I then jumped over a hedge about nine feet high (which, considering the weight of the coach was rather difficult) into a field, and came out again. by another jump into the road beyond the other carriage; I then went back for the horses, and placing one upon my head, and the other under my left arm, by the same means brought them to my coach, put to, and proceeded to an inn at the end of our stage. I should have told you that the horse under my arm was very spirited, and not above four years old; in making my second spring over the hedge, he expressed great dislike to that violent kind of motion by kicking and snorting; however, I confined his hind legs by putting them into my coat pocket. After we arrived at the inn my postilion and I refreshed ourselves: he hung his horn on a peg near the kitchen fire; I sat on the other side.

Suddenly we heard a tereng! tereng! teng! teng! We looked round, and now found the reason why the postilion had not been able to sound his horn: his tunes were frozen up in the horn, and came out now by thawing, plain enough, and much to the credit of the driver; so that the honest fellow entertained us for some time with a variety of tunes, without putting his mouth to the horn-"The King of Prussia's March" "Over the Hill and over the Dale"- with

many other favorite tunes; at length the thawing entertain, ment concluded, as I shall this short account of my Russian travels.

ON THE CONVERSATION OF AUTHORS.

BY WILLIAM HAZLITT.

[WILLIAM HAZLITT, English critic and man of letters, was born in Maid, stone, April 10, 1778; died in London, September 18, 1830. He was an unsuccessful artist, then a powerful but irregular periodical writer and lecturer. His essays, sketches, and lectures have been collected as "Table Talk,” “The Round Table," ," "Conversations with Northcote," "The Spirit of the Age," "Elizabethan Dramatists," "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," and "Lectures on English Poets." He wrote also a voluminous "Life of Napoleon," and other works, philosophical and autobiographical.]

In general, wit shines only by reflection. You must take your cue from your company-must rise as they rise, and sink as they fall. You must see that your good things, your knowing allusions, are not flung away, like the pearls in the adage. What a check it is to be asked a foolish question; to find that the first principles are not understood! You are thrown on your back immediately; the conversation is stopped like a country dance by those who do not know the figure. But when a set of adepts, of illuminati, get about a question, it is worth while to hear them talk. They may snarl and quarrel over it, like dogs; but they pick it bare to the bone-they masticate it thoroughly.

This was the case formerly at Lamb's-where we used to have many lively skirmishes at their Thursday evening parties. I doubt whether the small-coal man's musical parties could exceed them. Oh! for the pen of John Buncle to consecrate a petit souvenir to their memory! There was Lamb himself, the most delightful, the most provoking, the most witty and sensible of men. He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in half a dozen half-sentences as he does. His jests scald like tears, and he probes a question with a play upon words. What a keen, laughing, hare-brained vein of home-felt truth! What choice venom! How often did we cut into the haunch of letters,

while we discussed the haunch of mutton on the table! How we skimmed the cream of criticism! How we got into the heart of controversy! How we picked out the marrow of authors! "And, in our flowing cups, many a good name and true was freshly remembered." Recollect (most sage and critical reader) that in all this I was but a guest! Need I go over the names? They were but the old, everlasting setMilton and Shakespeare, Pope and Dryden, Steele and Addison, Swift and Gay, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Richardson, Hogarth's prints, Claude's landscapes, the cartoons at Hampton Court, and all those things that, having once been, must ever be. The Scotch novels had not then been heard of: so we said nothing about them. In general, we were hard upon the moderns. The author of the Rambler was only tolerated in Boswell's "Life" of him; and it was as much as any one could do to edge in a word for "Junius." Lamb could not bear "Gil Blas." This was a fault. I remember the greatest triumph I ever had was in persuading him, after some years' difficulty, that Fielding was better than Smollett. On one occasion, he was for making out a list of persons famous in history that one would wish to see again at the head of whom were Pontius Pilate, Sir Thomas Browne, and Dr. Faustus- but we blackballed most of his list! But with what a gusto would he describe his favorite authors, Donne, or Sir Philip Sidney, and call their most crabbed passages delicious! He tried them on his palate as epicures taste olives, and his observations had a smack in them, like a roughness on the tongue. With what discrimination he hinted a defect in what he admired mostas in saying that the display of the sumptuous banquet in "Paradise Regained" was not in true keeping, as the simplest fare was all that was necessary to tempt the extremity of hunger-and stating that Adam and Eve in "Paradise Lost" were too much like married people. He has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon. There was no fuss or cant about him; nor were his sweets or his sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation. I cannot say that the party at Lamb's were all of one description. There were honorary members, lay brothers. Wit and good fellowship was the motto inscribed over the door. When a stranger came in, it was not asked, "Has he written anything?"- we were above that pedantry; but we waited to see what he could do. If he could take a hand at piquet, he was welcome to sit down. If a person liked