On the death of Montaigne, his adopted daughter, Mdlle. de Gournai, turned her attention to Racan, whom she only knew by his works. The desire of being acquainted with a poet so eminent, and so capable of judging of the merits of others, made her neglect no means of procuring a visit from him; and after some time she succeeded, and the day and hour were appointed. Two of the poet's friends, on being informed of it, seized the opportunity of playing a trick on the lady, and, about an hour previous to the appointed time, one of them appeared at her door, and introduced himself as M. de Racan. Who can do justice to his reception? He talked, and talked, and praised the works she had written, and thanked her for the knowledge they had given him; in short, used all his eloquence to flatter her in the belief that she was a prodigy. After about half an hour's conversation, he made his bow and departed, leaving his hostess very well pleased with M. de Racan. Scarcely had he left the house, when another M. de Racan was announced: and she, conceiving that her late visiter had forgotten something, rose up to receive him the more graciously, when the second friend entered, and made himself known as her appointed visiter. Mdlle. de Gournai was astonished; and, after cross-examining the pretended poet, informed him of the guest she had just dismissed. The counterfeit Racan, of course, seemed

greatly chagrined at the imposture, and vowed vengeance on the author of it, at the same time convincing the lady that he could be no other than the person he represented, by praising her and her works more outrageously than his predecessor. This second Racan at length quitted her, perfectly satisfied that he was the object of her invitation, and the former one an impostor. The door had scarcely closed upon him, when a third Racan, that is to say the real one, made his appearance, and then the lady lost all patience: "What, more Racans!" she screamed out. She then ordered him to be shown up stairs; and, on his entering her presence, demanded, in the greatest passion, how he dared to insult her so grossly. Racan, who was never very voluble of his tongue, was so astonished at this reception, that he could only answer by stuttering and stammering; and the lady, in the mightiness of her wrath, becoming at once persuaded, by his confusion, that he was an accomplice of her first visiter, took off her slipper, and made such good use of it on the poet's head, that he was glad to make a precipitate retreat.-[A correspondent has favoured us with this anecdote from the "Dictionnaire des Portraits Historiques."]-A similar story, if our memory does not deceive us, is told of Rousseau, probably a fact suggested by the former one.-L. M.

H. F. V.

While at St. Andrew's, in North America, Captain M'Intyre, of the merchant ship Sarah, of Belfast, was solicited by a stripling English sailor to engage him as one of his crew. The captain listened to the narrations of his previous service-the distresses he had encountered in America- his having walked from Westport to St. Andrew's, a distance of seventy miles, great part through the woods-his auxious desire to get to the port of Belfast, whither the vessel was bound, &c. He saw his labour-marked hands and sea-worn complexion; that he seemed sound wind and limb, and finally engaged him as cook and steward; duties that abstract something from the labours of the seamen in such vessels, unless as to the helm, or in bad weather.

The young sailor did his several duties with the most vigilant attention and activity. While he quietly well furnished the cabin table and the mess of the crew, and kept all clean and tight in this way, he was as prompt as any, in a gale of wind, to the most hazardous work aloft,-in fact, shrunk from nothing. He was obliging, and differed in nothing from the rest of the crew but by silence, a manner occasionally demure, rather repugnant to vulgarity, and, that most crying sin among seamen, of a disinclination for grog. This caused him to be an object of some scrutiny, perhaps, in a few instances, of jealousy; and on some occasions, he received a blow, which he bore without a murmur, though not without evident pangs, that bespoke him something more than an ordinary seaman.

It may be easily supposed that among the yarns spun (according to the fashionable nautical phraseology) even on board a merchantman, the stripling would produce a subject; we might easily and very naturally spin one of some fathoms length for them, particularly as to the sage opinions of such veterans as "Ben Block, Sam Shroud, and Dick Handsail:" we could tell how one told the young seamen that the first Emperor of Russia, named Peter, would insist on entering

on board a British ship, and that, mayhap, our cook, steward, and foremast-man, might be an emperor in disguise; but no, that would not do, because Peter I. of all the Russias, would not have stood what this stripling did! We might have even thought of the Admirals Benbow, &c., who served before the mast in a merchantman. Such points we must, however, leave alone, while we work the good ship Sarah to England.

The captain, it would appear, received counter-orders from his owner, either before or on his approach to the shores of England, which prevented him from pursuing his course home to Belfast, and diverted it to no less a point than the West Indies! This, it will be seen, was a heavy infliction on the young sailor, whose guiding star was Belfast; but then he had engaged himself with the ship to go there, and no where else; and so he was not compellable to continue longer on board than its arrival in England, and so he respectfully, though determinately, announced to his captain. Whether this created any temporary feeling in the captain, who, no doubt, panted for his home, and might consider that his young steward would reach Belfast as soon as himself whether the crew wondered that the youngster should quit his ship, are matters that for us must remain unsolved. Certes, some effect was produced by it, for it alone seems to have solved a greater mystery.

To be short, one day the stripling was washing in his berth, as sailors are wont to do; hard at work, he heeded nothing else; his well-tanned countenance was flushing with labour his hardened doubly-tanned hands were heated by the alkali of the soap and immersion in hot water he threw open his shirt collar awhile to pursue his toil more easily and rapidly, thinking only of the right bay of Carrickfergus, and the port of Belfast. We must just interpolate, in our story, so much as to say that we very much love good merchant seamen, because we have shared their joys and sorrows in some difficult voyages, and have always,

We are pained to add, that taunts and jeers do seem here for once to have supplanted the generosity of British tarsperhaps because they have been basking in a long peace. We do not like to say they are deteriorated, because we are sure that

When again we're plunged in war, They'll show their daring spirit. However, poor girl, she seems, notwithstanding her continued performance of every duty in the same attire, to have suffered much from those taunts and jeers of the crew after the discovery: to the honour of the captain it must be said, that he who had never treated her unkindly as a man, did treat her more kindly as a woman. Perhaps he knew not how to do more, his chief anxiety being, of course, to get his ship into port in the best way he could, with due respect to the interest of his owners. However, as they arrived, from the rumours of the seamen, and perhaps some communication from herself, an ulterior interest seems to have been created in her behalf on shore, which will enable us to tell her history, with all the caution which we desire to use in whatever we present to our readers.

fourteen, a mutual attachment took place between herself and the master of a merchantman, Captain Burke, who was suddenly obliged to quit his young betrothed and return to New York, leaving with her his address. Her young heart could not brook his absence, and she determined to follow him. No way presented itself but to attire herself in a cabin-boy's dress, and engage to work her passage to New York; that she did so, and found, on reaching his father's house, that he had died two days before! She found no home there, and so determined to continue her course in other vessels, and thus ultimately work her way back again to Ireland; by which means, as already described, she has now reached London.

Captain M'Intyre has agreed, before the chief city magistrate, to pay her the wages for which he engaged her as a man, and gives her the highest character for prudence, both before and after the discovery, on board his ship. She is, as he states, comfortably and respectably lodged at the house of a licensed victualler; and her demeanour justifies the best opinion. It is said that she has written to her father, with a full conviction that he will forgive her for the unhappiness she has caused him, in consideration of the sorrows she has undergone herself. She is of low stature, with limbs firm and compact, her face comely, her eyes dark and expressive; for the rest, the description may as well cease, till she has overcome the toils of the sea. Great interest has been created in her behalf, and she will therefore doubtless become the London "lion of-a day!