des Droits de l'Homme, I find Rousseau's bust on a pedestal of marble, and his works adopted as a textbook. I open a volume of Chateaubriand,-Chateaubriand the Legitimatist, the friend of the restoration, the abettor of the priests,-and side by side with his reprobation of Voltaire, I find him eulogizing the very name of Rousseau, and hailing him as 'l'apôtre de Dieu.' His elevated views of human nature, the dignity he confers upon mankind by picturing what we might become, when all this mass of deception, and illusion, and trickery shall be swept away, when governments shall exist only for the good of all, and virtue shall be the rule of public administration and of private conduct,—all this would be enough to raise him to his pinnacle of fame; and all this, too, shall come to pass; what he has predicted shall be accomplished; human nature shall yet one day be released from her bondage of many centuries, and show that we are in truth perfectible. We shall see yet the halcyon days when there shall be no more stain of sin, or vice, or crime, or error in the world, and the prison and the preacher shall alike be needless, and become matters of history to the curious, as relics of a by-gone age."

The young enthusiast paused for a moment, and his eye lit up again with a preternatural brilliancy as the vision of his imagination kindled into vivid

portraiture on his excited brain. "But after all," he continued, "it is his vast, and deep, and gentle power of loving that makes us love Rousseau. It is the fountain of love which seems to be diffused through every line, and steal over every word; a something too philosophical to be passion, yet too tender to be mere philanthropy; it is this which wakens our sympathies, and makes us enter into his sentiments and sufferings, as though they were our own. We read and admire other authors, but we literally feel with the feelings of Jean Jacques. Love!" he repeated to himself, "and, after all, what is it? A dream which no two hearts can dream together,-a glory seen only by the chosen of heaven, and invisible to the world around,-a mighty mystery,—an undefined hope,—an insatiable longing for an unattainable end,- parent of a progeny of virtues,mother of civilization and the arts, of poetry, of music, of all that is best in emotion, or brightest in fancy. It is Love which gilds the earth with a halo of light, and teaches us not all to despair of the world's redemption yet. It is Love, and above all the fond faith in virtue which is the result of loving all that God has made, the belief in the purity, and chastity, and goodness of one object which is more than all in life besides, which binds me still to my fellow-men, and makes me take an interest in the weary details of the business of existence."

The young man drew from his bosom a miniature prettily enough painted upon ivory, and inclosed in a locket of the same material, which was suspended by a black riband from his neck. "Here at least,” said he to himself, "I have one solace to redeem the sickening hours which are saddened by commune with the wickedness and baseness of mankind. Here at least is traceable, in the lineaments of these features, all that is excellent in motive, and refined in taste. Thank God that I have known her: wide as is the difference between our positions in rank, proud as is the eminence on which she stands in the world's eyes, in comparison with my own, to me at least she wears no coronet-to me she speaks not in the language of courts. She doffs the purple and the pall; she forgets the blaze of diamonds and the pomp of retinue; and she could put on the plain bonnet of straw and the robe of frieze at my bidding, and live contentedly on village fare. Thank God that I have known her:-I can now die happy; but I am not yet to die-higher destinies are reserved for me and for her. The gulf that exists between us shall yawn no longer. Kings and aristocracies must be swept away; the fabric of society must be reconstructed on a juster basis; equality of rights must be proclaimed to all mankind; and then, then, I shall be able to woo her in the world's eyes, and

wed her with the world's approbation. Prejudices will disappear, and a new era shall dawn upon the earth. Then, my mission once accomplished, I shall die content. Then come the wearing cough, and rack me with perpetual pain! Welcome then the sleepless night, and the asthmatic breathing, and the burning fever, and the leaping pulse.-What is death, that one should fear to die?"-and he took up one of the skulls from the table, and would probably have rivalled Hamlet in the profoundness of his speculations, when he was interrupted by the shrill voice of an old woman screaming from the inner room

"Viens donc-viens-Louis, mon fils Louisdépéche-toi"-and old Madame Boivin, whom we may recollect in the first chapter, as having been knocked over by the carriage of Lord Carmansdale, stretched her head and shoulders out of bed so far as to become visible through the half open door of the apartment." Dieu! comme je souffre," exclaimed the old lady, as her son approached the side of the bed, and felt her pulse.

"But you are not ill-indeed you are not; your pulse is good, and your bruises are nothing."

"Tu es un ingrat, Louis," said his mother, who was determined to be very ill in spite of her son's assurances to the contrary, and who had not stirred

out of bed since the accident, although nothing was in truth the matter-" you are an ungrateful son. Was it for this that I paid for your schooling, and for your learning medicine, that even your poor old mother should be neglected in this way? Prettily you must have neglected your education! Two days I've been in bed, and not a box of pills, nor a draught, nor a blister have you prescribed. I've actually had nothing from the chemist's-nothing at all. It must be surely ignorance on your part."

"My dearest mother, if I found it necessary or expedient to give you any medicine, I am sure I would do it: your appetite is good, your limbs are all sound, you talk as well as you ever did in your life—what can be the good of writing you a prescription?"

"Simply to show that you are a dutiful son to your old mother," said the old woman, rather embarrassed for a reason; and then turning all her anger on her favourite object of attack, the English, she exclaimed-"Ce sont des jolis coquins, ces Anglais là-why don't they come to see me?-why don't they send to inquire?-they took my address, and pretended to be so anxious-mais il a peur, milord Anglais. Oh! je lui laverais joliment la tête, s'il oserait venir. I'd teach him to drive over poor old women, as if they were stones in the road! I'd