SIR,

Dover. TEN years have passed since I last wrote and complained to you about all the boxes that annoyed me so much when I had first commenced to learn your language. Since that time I have studied it grammatically, and read a very great number of your best authors at my house near Tours, where I also made some acquaintance with your country folks, who did not do me much good in improving my conversation, as they are all so fond of pretension to speak French, which is ridiculous. Also experience taught menot to be too careless to form intimacy, for too many of your compatriots that come to stop long in one place, are not of your best sort, but have got a something generally wrong about their conduct or affairs. So I have not practised so much conversation as I desired, which I confess to you, in case there may be some little error of prosody in the lines I send to say "Farewell!" now I am leaving your country, after an agreeable tour of a few months. You are so generous, and so much au fait in poetry, that if I have made a mistake or two in quantity, you will, I am sure, cor... rect them. Yours is an agreeable tongue to write poetry in, as you have such an abundance of similar terminations to your different words, and you will perceive that I have been very careful to use none but legitimate rhymes.

I could have said something about the coronation, and your mobs huzzaing old Soult, but others have talked enough about that, and I don't like what you call "humbug ;" and as for a mob, I respect it not a bit, for reasons enough in our revolutions; and so I conceive yours would have been as much pleased if it had been a green bear or a scarlet pig, or any other rara avis, as an old moustache. What is it to them? Bah! Something to roar at, to make themselves thirsty for more beer and gin. Don't think me too condemning of yours, as I have seen and heard our mobs ap

plaud and huzza Napoleon, Louis Dixhuit, Napoleon again, Louis again, Charles Dix, and Louis Philippe, and also howl and groan and hiss at all in their turn, and many others I could name. But this is near political, so I shall not proceed, and only say so much as I do not consider the mob to be the people to whom of your country I mean no disrespect, as I saw them industrious and proper. I pray you to pardon this long introduction to my bagatelle, and accept my thanks for your attention to my neophytic complaint in "auld lang syne;" and believe me,

SIR,

Your very obedient servant, LOUIS LE CHEMINANT.

Christopher North, Esq. Edinburgh.

FAREWELL TO ENGLAND.

Dover.

Farewell! I go across the main, And leave thy shores, oh, Great Britain!

And bid my friends good by.. I've found thy land all very nice, And conquer'd many a prejudice

Bred in my own country.

"Tis true we once were enemies,
And both believed the monstrous lies
That we did daily read,
Made up for party purposes,
And always under our noses-

We now know truth instead.

No more in future by the hour
We'll listen to the false rumour

That would our friendship mar. I really think I never shall Forgive the papers that did call Hard names during the war.

Henceforth I never more can bear
Such scandal-mongers' stuff to hear,
Because I know my erring;
It now will only do for some
Poor ignorants who stop at home,
And ne'er crossed pond of herring.*

I've travelled now, and the result
Was, that though first I difficult
Found it to catch each word,
Yet gradually my ear improved,
Till, listening to your tongue, I loved,
Were speaker clown or lord.

Then through your land I took a trip, And agreeably made friendship

With manufacturers,

Who showed me all their great machines.

I saw your churches with divines;
And then saw fish-curers.

I saw great rollers roll upon
Great masses of red-hot iron,

And squeeze them all abroad,
Till they became quite thin and flat,
To cut into I don't know what,
To go by the rail-road.

Then curiosity did lead

Me on, to see them making thread,
Pins, needles, knives, and forks,
Lace, muslin, calico, and cloth,
In England and in Scotland both,
And other wond'rous works.

Indeed, 'tis strange your small island Should such variety command

Of fabrics, and of fish; And also such superb coal mines, All worked by mighty steam engines, In almost each parish.

And then, to make myself quite sure About your mode of land culture,

I spent a week rural;

And saw the farmers round the bowl, Talking of cattle, sheep, and fowl, All agricultural.

I also liked to see the cows, Promenade about your green meadows,

Almost as fine as ours; Particularly near Richmond, And other prairies beyond,

Where "Thames his tribute pours."

'Tis true you want our charming

vines,

But then your country's intestines Yield much precious metal;

And I must say that, next to France,
You have the greatest abundance
Of beautiful women ;

For though they're not so nicely drest,
They have a manner quite modest,
Though polite and open.

To send them from the dinner-table Appears to me most lamentable;

That custom should be changed. A charming dame agreed thereto, As we to dinner down did go,

And on my arm she hang'd.

You're right, in this more polish'd age, To make them learn the French language,

Which must be spoke by all The nations that compose Europe ; Which you yourselves can never hope The English language shall.

Of politics I will not speak, But hope our friendship will not break

Of strive we've had enough; 'Tis better far than making wars, To keep your soldiers and your tars Minding the loom and plough.

And now I've seen your country through,

Although the sea is very rough'

I do not mind a groat,

But quick, as by magician's hand, Shall be borne off from your island, Upon a fine steam-boat.

And, when I at my home arrive,
I will, as surely as I live,

A bumper fill with wine;
And, for his literary worth,

Drink" Success to Christopher North

And Blackwood's Magazine."

LOUIS LE CHEMINANT.

2 P

VOL, XLV. NO. CCLXXXIII.

THE next picture which attracted my notice in the gallery, was one of a homely, every-day cast, such as John Bull-who has no great taste for the abstract and imaginative in art-loves to look upon. It represented a young man seated on a sofa close by a cheerful fire, in all the easy luxury of dressing-gown and slippers; on a black-leather reading-table near him stood a bronze lamp, and right opposite were a set of plain book-shelves, indifferently stored with volumes, which, from their neat, unsullied, white calf-skin backs, I took for granted were law-books, and also that they were seldom or never consulted by their owner, but slumbered uninterrupted on his shelves, like a placeman on his sinecure. The details of this picture were worked up with considerable care, and with a skill worthy of Knight or Leslie. The face and figure of the young man, in particular, were full of character. The artist had drawn him leaning back on the sofa, with one arm carelessly flung over the side, in an attitude of reverie, but not of the calm and philosophical order, as the hectic glow on his cheek, and his sparkling, dilated eye plainly betokened. Who was he? and what was the nature of his reflections? It was no very difficult matter to answer these queries, so clear and distinct was the painter's conception, and so adroit his execution. The gentleman in question was a barrister-most likely a briefless one; the formal, oldfashioned look of his apartments, with their dingy oak-pannels and faded red curtains, showed that he was in chambers; and it was equally evident, from the animated expression of his flushed countenance, that he was an enthusiastic castle-builder, who, in fancy, had just achieved the one grand object of his ambition for the time being.

As I sate looking up at this expressive work of art, a pang of regret came across me, when I reflected how often I too had wasted hour after hour in the seducing but idle occupation of castle-building. How often, in the course of a stroll across a South Devon moor; or when resting among the

crumbling walls of Reading Abbey, after a day's trolling in the Thames; or when lazily paddling in a coracle over the Talley Lakes, with the most suggestive of monastic ruins staring me full in the face; or when taking "mine ease at mine inn" at Llangollen or Baddgalart, I had indulged in the most fantastic day-dreams, instead of devising rational schemes to promote my success in life: at one time conquering Europe at the head of vast armies; at another dimming the lustre of even a Chatham in the senate; now delighting audiences with my powers as a tragedian; and now a nation with the magic of my rhymes !

The

Alas! it is not on easy terms like these that fame is won. She exacts far severer sacrifices from those who court her smiles. She will have no idlers in her train, who abandon themselves to the delusions of fancy, and put off action to the Greek Kalends. She is as inexorable as the overseer of a cotton-mill. All must be up and at work betimes in her factory. There must be no dropping in at the eleventh hour. For this sort of task-work, your genuine castle-builder is seldom or never prepared. His constant habit of dreaming away the golden moments of life, disqualifies him for strenuous action. Continuous labour is a commonplace from which his high-flying intellect turns with disdain. slightest difficulty scares him like a spectre. He is at home in Utopia, but elsewhere he is as much abroad as a stranger in a foreign land, who cannot speak a word of the language. Hence, he has the mortification of seeing those who started with him in the race of ambition, pass him, one after the other, on the road. While he is content to achieve success in idea, as Ixion embraced a cloud for a Juno, the man of stern and practical energy is laying its foundations in reality, by turning each hour as it flies to strict and profitable account. To succeed, is to propose to one's self the accomplishment of one particular object; to stick doggedly to that one; to make fancy, judgment, and feeling alike subservient to it; and, above all, to be

prepared for, though not to anticipate, obstacles. This, as I observed just now, the castle-builder cannot do. His mind is volatile, capricious, erratic conceives a thousand projects; but holds fast by none.

Surely life was given us for other and nobler purposes than to wear away in day-dreams! To encourage a healthy and enlarged system of action; to help on the great cause of social and moral improvement; in word, to do our best, in the stati assigned us, to benefit our fellowcreatures, so that when our sun sets, it may leave awhile a trail of light behind it; it was for this we were sent into the world, and not, day by day, hour by hour, to foster the growth of indolence, self-conceit, and egotism. These are harsh terms; nevertheless, they are strictly applicable to the habit of castle-building, which-however we may strive to disguise the fact is the mask under which vanity and selfishness lurk, inasmuch as we never erect these airy structures for the pleasure or benefit of others, but solely for our own gratification. We paint no groups on the canvass of our imagination, but take especial care that we ourselves shall stand the only visible figure a flattering full-length-in the foreground. Moreover, while absorbed in this sort of luxurious reverie, we have every thing our own way, and gratify our proudest aspirations without the slightest expenditure of toil or time. We travel, at more than railway speed, along a road smooth as a bowling-green, where there is not so much as a pebble to check our progress. If we win renown as conquerors, we win it without peril; if as scholars, without study; if as statesmen, without incurring the hostility of faction. Is beauty the object of our ambition? Lo, the loveliest girl that ever "witched a world," stands like an Houri before us, waiting but the word to fling herself into our fond arms! Do we desire to become preeminent as poets? We become so without a struggle. No impertinent critic breaks the charm of our reverie, by telling us that our rhymes are "clotted nonsense." Fancy, in her exceeding complaisance, suggests nothing but what ministers to our selflove and indolence. How painful how disheartening-to turn from these seductive day-dreams, to the dull, la

borious duties of real life! To be compelled to achieve success by the sweat of our brow, instead of by a mere act of volition; and to plod wearily, step by step, up that steep hill where "Fame's proud temple shines afar," instead of gaining the summit at one elastic bound-in idea! A man may be mentally, as well as physically, intoxicated, and this is the case with your confirmed castle-builder, who-it is no exaggeration to say sois never sober for a week together. There are, however, some splendid exceptions to this rule. Napoleon, according to Bourrienne, was in early life an inveterate castle-builder, so also was Scott; nevertheless, both these great men had the full and unclouded possession of all their faculties, and were not less remarkable for a salient teeming fancy, than for that undeviating steadiness and energy of purpose which derives fresh stimulus from difficulty, and bears down all opposition. Scott, in particular, never allowed his habits of romantic abstraction to enfeeble his judgment, or interfere with the every-day duties of life. Thought, in him, did not overdo action. He was the master, not the slave, of his imagination-the magician who commanded the tempter, not the witch who served him. This is one of the many reasons why I reverence his memory. When I think of the sustained mental energy he exhibited throughout life; more especially when I call to mind his herculean exertions made in old age, at a season of unaccustomed gloom, to retrieve his fallen fortunes, when the chances were a hundred to one against him; of his stern, gladiatorial wrestling with despair; of the heroic sacrifice of his griefs as a husband to his sense of duty as a man and a citizen; of the prompt, unhesitating abandonment of his all at the call of justice, and this from no feverish impulse, but from steady, deep-rooted principle; of his perseverance, that nothing could divert from its object; of his courage, that nothing could daunt, not even the awful handwriting on the wall which had already come forth to warn him that his hour drew nigh; of the indomitable power of will that, like the setting sun on some majestic ruin, blazed out even amid the stupor of disease, and grappled with destiny to the last moment;

when I think of these things, I re

cognise in Scott's character all the noblest elements of manhood; he uplifts my sense of the dignity of human nature to the highest point of elevation; and I exclaim, with Shakspeare, "Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look upon his like again!"

But enough on this painful theme.

To return to the picture of the castlebuilder. The tale, which follows, is in illustration of that painting; and the leading idea, I need hardly add, is derived from the well-known anecdote of Alnaschar in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments :—

In that quarter of Clement's Inn, whose dingy chambers look out upon a court-yard where stands the wellknown statue of a blackamoor,* lodged Charles Meredith, a young man, about twenty-three years of age, who had just been called to the bar, and was as much encumbered with briefs as such raw, inexperienced barristers usually are. Possessed of considerable literary attainments, which, both at school and at college, had gained him the reputation of a "promising youth," and endowed with a quick, versatile, and even brilliant fancy, Charles was still more fortunate in being blessed with a sanguine temperament, which always inclined him to look on the sunny side of things. On quitting the university, where study and dissipation engrossed his mind by turns, he had hurried over to Paris, and there contrived, in one short year, to run through the best part of a small fortune, which had been left him by his father; and now, with but a few hundred pounds remaining in his exchequer, he was, for the first time in his life, awakened to the wholesome but unpalatable conviction, that, if he did not abandon pleasure, and apply himself with earnestness to the stern duties of existence, he must erelong sink into abject poverty. Accordingly, after duly reflecting on his position, young Meredith decided on becoming a lawyer, as being a vocation more congenial to his tastes than any other he could think of. But, unluckily, this did not supply him with an immediate competence, but only put him in the way of acquiring

a remote one; so, in order to furnish himself with the means of subsistence until he should have gained sufficient practice as a barrister, he determined, like many a clever young lawyer before him, on turning his literary abilities to account; in other words, on trying his luck as an author.

Having once resolved on a particular line of action, Charles Meredith was not the man to halt or fall asleep. "En avant," was his motto, as it is of all the ambitious and the enterprising. After casting about for a subject calculated to call forth his utmost energies, he at length decided on the composition of a historical romancea species of fiction which the Waverley Novels, then in the zenith of their celebrity, had rendered unusually popular. Being well acquainted with the period which he proposed to illustrate the stirring times of Louis XIV., when the war-minister Louvois was in the height of his powerCharles, whose fancy was kindled by his theme, wrought it out in a spirited and graphic style. Half-a-year's zealous application sufficed to bring his con amore task to a conclusion, when, without a moment's delay, he dispatched the precious manuscript to an eminent publisher at the West End, offering him the copyright_for_what the sanguine author, no doubt, thought was a most moderate price three hundred pounds! As a matter of course, he calculated on a favourable reply within a week, or a fortnight at furthest; but two months had since elapsed, and he had received no communication, though he had called twice at the bibliopole's house of