in the brains of his neighbours, by his strange revelations" new truth being as heady as new wine"-and how Emersonians sprang up and multiplied, queer and affected mortals, who took upon themselves to be important agents of the world's destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense water. "Such, I imagine," appropriately adds the Blithedale Romancer and Scarlet Letter-writer, "such is the invariable character of persons who crowd so closely about an original thinker, as to draw in his unuttered breath, and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any man, of common sense, blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's standing; and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered immovable, in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by such schemes of such philosophers." The Professor Windrush clan are unquestionably de trop, whatever we may think of their chef. He, perchance, is a lion, whose genius-shaggy and forest-like as it is-can command the summons, "Let him roar again, let him roar again." But they, his self-constituted satellites, are but jackals to his majesty, and, as such, fair game to clerical Nimrods like Mr. Kingsley, albeit his present heat in the chase is not accounted, by some of them, "wondrous kind" in one who was supposed, with or without reason, to have a "fellow feeling" with their pack.

WOODTHORPE.

A REMINISCENCE OF A PHYSICIAN.

BY KELLY KENNYON.

PART IV.

OLD GODFREY shuffled his chair, thinking it monstrously ridiculous that his friend Captain Sommerton could have entertained notions of an alliance with a stranger-a person in all probability without fortune, of no connexion, who might indeed, for aught he knew, be an individual of dubious character. To marry any one without the mention of parchments! thought Godfrey-and in the army, too! In his younger days, when they were brothers in arms, he always thought Tom Sommerton to be possessed of sense. Spenser was, indeed, roused by it, and he evinced some of that restless impatience which children manifest as they listen to a ghost story. The colonel went on :

Well, I got into bed, but not to sleep so soundly as I had done on the night before, nor dream of merry England, and the sunny days which the coming summer in its course would bring. Nothing could I think of but Madeline; I saw in fancy those features formed to beauty-that being who, in a few short hours had stolen away my heart-(here the colonel heaved a sigh)—this heart which till then had never felt the influence the power of love! When grey-eyed morning streamed its pale beams through the little window of my berth, tired nature sank into the oblivious arms of repose. In the brief slumber I was by the side of Madeline, with her who was the haunting spirit of my waking thoughts, and who was shadowed first by busy dreams.

It was late when I awoke, and the bright sun had well-nigh climbed the meridian. I rubbed my eyes; gazed for a time out of the little window on the vast, the boundless ocean. I asked myself if I had been dreaming-and if that form, so full of loveliness, lived-movedexisted? She did; and on springing from my feverish couch the first of my orisons were a blessing for Madeline. I dressed, arranged my toilet with more than common care, looked at myself again and again in the mirror: it reflected-what? Not the quondam full and fresh cheek of Tom Sommerton: these were features, pale, wan, and sickly; emaciation and disease were evident instead of health-the sombre look instead of the merry smile. I despairingly turned from the glass, ejaculating, "She cannot love me-no, she cannot. My days are numbered, and I feel the festering talons of corporeal decline preying on my vitals. Oh! could she read this bosom's inward thoughts-know only" My hand was on the latch; I had unconsciously opened the door, and was in the cabin. My fellow-passengers were not there. Jules was on his knees re-packing a travelling-box, many of the articles belonging to which were scattered on the carpet. He apologised for the litter, and on asking if I would take breakfast, hurried to the cook to say I had got up. Casually casting my eye upon some of the contents laid on the floor, I did not fail to observe some costly apparel, a few pieces of richly-chased silver plate, a sword, the hilt of which was studded with precious stones, and some three or four frameless portraits piled one upon the other, and from a certain similarity of features, I conjectured those to be the likenesses of De Berryer's family. Jules in a few moments returned.

"How is Monsieur de Berryer this morning?" inquired I of the domestic, who recommenced his packing; "and the ladies, too—are they all well ?"

"Monsieur is, I thank you, quite well; and madame and mademoiselle have been on the deck these two hours."

Having swallowed a cup of tea, and eat a rusk, I threw on my military cloak, and was, in a few moments, ascending the companion-ladder. Monsieur was, with arms folded in a stately manner, pacing to and fro, and from the deep and settled thoughtfulness of his face it was evident he was buried in reflection.

"Good morning, captain, good morning," said monsieur, addressing me. "You have lain late," he continued, whilst in true continental politeness he raised his cap; "I hope you feel well this morning ?"

"I am better, I thank you, monsieur," replied I, returning his polite greeting.

I then turned towards the ladies to pass the compliment of the day. It was indeed a lovely morning! The clear sky-its cloudless bluethe glittering rays of the now hot sun as it danced upon the heaving waters-the fresh but invigorating breeze-made it indeed cheering and pleasant. Madeline had on a mantilla, which she wore in Spanish fashion, which I have described, by turning the hood over her head and in part hiding her face; yet still those bright eyes, shining tresses, white teeth, and-and those smiles, were not entirely hidden. They both inquired in kindness after my health, and expressed their hopes that the voyage would do me more good than a college of physicians. Madeline had in her hand a telescope, having been busily employed in tracing the different objects on the far-off Algarvean coast. Madame

Vauville stood by her side with a book of travels laid carelessly on her arm, and to which she had evidently been referring.

"You have slept till noon, Captain Sommerton," said Madeline, jocosely, and at the same time slightly putting back the hood of her mantilla, by which her face was brought into fuller view. "Doubtless,” continued she, "your dreams have been of merry England, whither I can well imagine you are with no small pleasure progressing. It is indeed a happy thing to return to our native land after years of absence !" As she concluded these words her gay features somewhat abruptly subsided into an unexpected calm.

"No, no, mademoiselle, my thoughts did not roam quite so far as our merry England, as you term it," returned I.

"It is said, Monsieur Sommerton, though I know not with what truth, that dreams are caused by the last impressions upon our waking moments -at least, are connexions of those impressions; therefore, I should say, dearest Madeline, Spain and the Spanish were more likely to take precedence in the captain's brain," observed Madame Vauville, as she turned with an arch look towards mademoiselle.

"Very, very like," smilingly replied the beauty, first looking at madame, and then glancing at me.

66

Young ladies, believe me when I affirm I have had too much of the Rock, of Spain, and the Spanish, for the last few years, to love to revert to them in my dreams."

They smiled, the conversation took another turn, after which Madame Vauville recommenced the book she had been reading, and Madeline again raised her glass towards the blue hills in the distance. De Berryer coming up at this moment, I joined him in his walk on deck, and we entered engrossingly upon various topics of discourse, nor did it require much penetration upon my part to discover that I was conversing with an individual who, and whatever he might be, was possessed of no ordinary understanding, and who had in the ample storehouse of his wellcultivated mind an amount of lettered attainments seldom met with. He expressed himself lucidly, in diction choice and appropriate; his style was vigorous and animated, at times eloquent; and it was at once indisputable that he was a profound and an original thinker. The revolutionary disasters in France, and the influence which that, the mightiest of social eruptions, had exerted not only in Europe but throughout the civilised world, were, from their recent occurrence, and the national or rather continental excitement to which they had given rise, topics upon which strangers readily entered. Politicians watched with straining eye every step taken by the Gallic champions, as they vauntingly declared themselves to be, of liberty-reason-mankind. Public journals teemed with every-hued opinion relative to future destinies of nations, but France-France alone was the leader in all those insane innovations with which men's minds were perverted. Hence that this subject should be hit upon in our desultory conversation was more than probable.

"Political writers have observed," said I, "that Louis XVI. inherited a revolution from his ancestors.""

"That is to say," quickly returned De Berryer, "that the corruptions of previous ages, the abuses that had insensibly crept into the system of society, was sure, at some period, to burst out into an uncontrollable

flood of passion and fury, smiting, in the torrent of destruction and anarchy, all grades and all classes, not even sparing sovereignty itself. Human institutions will ever be liable to contract corruptions; it should therefore, at all times, be the watchful care of those who make laws and rule empires to guard against the calamities in question that are inevitable. It should be their solicitude to remedy as much as possible existent evils; to make in time the fit concessions, or the ills, in accumulation, will acquire multiple power, and at length crush those who would avert, as well as those who are regardless of a nation's fate. It cannot be denied, that under the ancient régime, the noblesse, from immemorial inheritance of privileges, the congested increase of their wealth, and the perversion of morals, had become arbitrary and vicious. They thought of little save of luxurious pleasures, and the continued rounds of amusement or dissipation. All real power was vested in the sovereign and themselves, whilst the people were in thraldom and oppression. I would to God it had been otherwise; then those who suffered alike the penalties for others misdoings, might not at this hour have been obliged to endure the miseries of their guilt and folly. It must not, however, Monsieur Sommerton, be forgotten that there were amongst the noblesse some men of well-thinking and rightly-constituted minds-men who had no sinful desires for monopoly and exclusivism-who would not have rejected legal relaxations-who would not have voted against the temperate introduction of more extensive privileges for the people-men who well knew that institutions framed for the spirit and exigencies of one age are incompatible with the wants of another. Yet, at the same time, they were not insensible to the honour and superiority conferred by an ancient lineage, and were not willing to forego those honours in the whirlwind of democratic frenzy-who would not subscribe to that doctrine of fraternity and equality, and tamely be robbed by rapine and tyranny of possessions and dignities which virtue and bravery had bequeathed, and which, in the eye of justice and morality, ought to have been revered and maintained inviolate. Spoliation and violence have stalked from one end of France to another; institutions have been overturned; rights ruthlessly swept away; a venerable aristocracy, many of whose houses were as ancient as the days of the great founder of the long line of Carlovignian kings, were annihilated; the altars of religion desecrated by the sacrilegious hand of the plunderer and the scoffer; and every feature of once la belle France has been marred and defaced. Her glory is set for ever; her loyalty an empty sound; her religion a mockery; the pride of nations has fallen; and it seems as if she had reached the climacteric of her greatness, and is now following the slow but certain course of kingdoms, which flourish for a time, and then, like man and all in nature, sink piecemeal to decay," concluded De Berryer, with much warmth, and with some agitation of expression.

any

"From all I have read and heard of France," replied I, “this great social change was sure in time to result. Louis XIV., more than sovereign, paved the way to the calamity, and the nobles since his time have more and more tended to bring on the same. Ranked amongst the causes were an unjust monopoly on the part of the aristocracy of all public situations, to the exclusion of talent and fitness in every other class; the grievous weight of an overloading taxation; the lavish and profligate expenditure of a voluptuous court; the pertinacious mainte

nance of laws and institutions formed in feudal times; the few inducements for energy and enterprise held out to the masses, whose capabilities and ambition led them to aspire to improvement in station, to a greater sphere of usefulness and the acquisition of wealth; in fine, freedom to the many was more in name than reality. Splendid extravagance in the few ill-contrasted with the widely-diffused and galling misery of the people. The comparison led to jealousy, and fanned the smothered flame for revenge. With the advance of civilisation and the diffusion of knowlege, the deep consciousness of wrong rankled deeper and became more insupportable. The conviction of physical superiority created the desire for resistance, and when the torch was lit, a few daring minds applied it to the pile of national frenzy. The scourge was then put into the hands of the fanatic and assassin, and in their levelling notions they used it with merciless vengeance. Men's minds became exasperated, and when they thought of chill penury and half-starved oppression, they were inflamed at the paraphernalia of place, disgusted at the ostentation of power. The blood of thousands was shed-nay, every part of the country ensanguined in the rage of popular fury and democratic madness. It never was, nor can be, the intention of Providence that an insignificant fraction of a people should arrogate to itself the prerogatives which nature has given for the common good. The subdivision of landed property, and the prohibition of the law of primogeniture, must destroy the conservative interest of the higher order of the state. Redundancy of population, and an increase of poverty amongst the lower orders, must result. Voltaire and Rousseau pictured in the visions of social equality a state of positive happiness; they erroneously imagined that classes and orders in society were arbitrary and unjust distinctions, and that the working of the social machine required no such differences amongst its integral parts. Their doctrines were eagerly embraced by enthusiasts and democrats; they very potently tended to the bringing on of that strange catastrophe, the revolution. Those doctrines are now seen to be full of error and falseness; and France seems rather to be following the destinies of Eastern kingdoms than progressing towards improvement."

Such was the strain of conversation for some time carried on between us; and from the general tenor of De Berryer's argument, and the agitation under which he spoke on what I at first conceived was to strangers a general subject, his history and other particulars, I became more anxious, if possible, to know. He had defended the noblesse. Was he one of their order? or at least a Frenchman?

The day pleasantly passed away; we dined early, and after dinner, at the request of monsieur, contested another game at chess, in which I was soon and signally beaten. The victory pleased my antagonist, and seemed to give him much real satisfaction.

The evening was ushered in with all that calm serenitude and tranquil quietness which twilight shades impart. The sun had bathed his head in the ruddy west; the stars began to twinkle brighter, and become more numerous in the high blue vault of heaven, and in the east the gentle moon gave intimation of her coming. We were now passing those shores over whose craggy rocks lay the cloud-capped mountains of romantic Cintra, whose distant peaks were just discernible in rugged outline against the far-off heavens. Yes! and this was the hour-this the