There was another I will recall to your mind, in this review of our old acquaintance. The queer little man we used to call the little duke, who first attracted our notice, I remember, by making his appearance in our great public walk, dressed in a full suit of white dimity, with a white hat, a little white dog, and a little switch in his hand. Here, of a sunny day, the little duke would ramble about with the lofty air of a man of clear estate, or lean against a tree, and scrutinize the ladies as they passed, with the recognisance of a thorough-bred connoisseur. Sometimes he would go to the circus--that is to say, you would see him laying most luxuriously over a fence just opposite, where, as the windows were open in the summer, he could hear the music, and see the shadow of the horses on the opposite wall, without its costing him a farthing.

In this way he lived, until the corporation pulled down a small wooden building in the yard of what was then the government-house, when the duke and his dog scampered out of it like two rats. He had lived here upon a little bed of radishes; but now he and his dog were obliged to dissolve partnership, for his master could no longer support him. The dog I never saw again; but the poor duke gradually descended into the vale of poverty. His white dimity could not last for ever, and he gradually went to seed, and withered like a stately onion. In fine he was obliged to work, and that ruined him—for nature had made him a gentleman.-And a gentleman is the caput mortuum of human nature, out of VOL. IN 2

sawyer.

which you can make nothing under Heaven--but a gentleman. He first carried wild game about to sell; but this business not answering, he bought himself a buck and saw, and became a redoubtable But he could not get over his old propensity-and whenever a lady passed where he was at work, the little man was always observed to stop his saw, lean his knee on the stick of wood, and gaze at her till she was quite out of sight. Thus, like Antony, he sacrificed the world to woman-for he soon lost all employment-he was always so long about his work. The last time I saw him he was equipped in the genuine livery of poverty, leaning against a tree on the battery, and admiring the ladies.*

The last of the trio of Frenchmen, which erst attracted our boyish notice, was an old man, who had once been a naval officer in the United States service, and had a claim of some kind or other, with which he went to Washington every session, and took the field against Amy Dardin's horse. Congress had granted him somewhere about five thousand dollars, which he used to affirm was recognising the justice of the whole claim. The money produced him an interest of three hundred and fifty dollars a year, which he divided into three parts. One-third for his board, clothing, &c.; one for his pleasures, and one for the expenses of his journey to the seat of government. He travelled in the most economical style

*He was found dead in the outskirts of the city some years after the publication of this work, and his death was occasioned by a rouleau of guineas tied about his neck, which had produced apoplexy!

eating bread and cheese by the way; and once was near running a fellow-passenger through the body, for asking him to eat dinner with him, and it should cost him nothing. He always dressed neatly —and sometimes of a remarkably fine day would equip himself in uniform, gird on his trusty and rusty sword, and wait upon his excellency the governor. There was an eccentric sort of chivalry about him, for he used to insult every member of congress who voted against his claim; never put up with a slight of any kind from any body, and never was known to do a mean action, or to run in debt. There was a deal of dignity, too, in his appearance and deportment, though of the same eccentric cast, so that whenever he walked the streets, he attracted a kind of notice not quite amounting to admiration, and not altogether free from merriment. Peace to his claim and his ashes; for he and Amy Dardin's horse alike have run their race, and their claims have survived them.

Now that we are on the subject, let me ask you if you ever saw General Pillet's account of his residence in England, where he was a prisoner? The general appears to be a great wag-and with a justifiable retaliation has completely turned the tables upon the English, by a sort of wholesale satire upon the nation. It is written in the very spirit of the English writings and reviews of French morals and manners, and is justifiable only on the score of retaliation. He says the prisoners in England have such short allowance from the government that they

devour horses alive; that the ladies of rank uniformly retire to a private room after dinner, and get tipsy, and are so awkward that they all seem born with two left hands! Poor Squire Bull, I perceive, is in a great passion, at being thus paid in his own coin; thinks it exceedingly ungrateful in the French, who are indebted to him for the recovery of their liberty, to buy such scandalous abuse; and even the Quarterly Review has the modesty to complain of this righteous retaliation. Nay, Frank, what is worthy of special note, several of our reviewers and celebrated scholars have discovered a feeling of most edifying indignation at General Pillet's abuse of England, such as they never exhibited when their own country was infamously calumniated. Good by.

P. S. I have not time to tell you how we got down from the mountain.

LETTER XVIII.

DEAR FRANK,

In my last,* I unmuzzled my wisdom upon you in a speculation, which, if you have read with proper attention, you are at least as wise as you were before. This is more than can be said of every novelty; for there are many new discoveries that only increase men's ignorance, by overturning an oldestablished and respectable opinion, and substituting doubts in its place. For my part, what with chymistry, geology, and some other improving sciences, I am set fairly afloat, and begin to doubt, as Touchstone says, "whether ipse is he;"-whether fire, water, earth, and air, the good old constituent elements, are elements or not, and, finally, whether this earth was ever made at all. Poor Oliver is in a fair way of becoming an orthodox philosopher, at the expense of all other orthodoxy, I'm afraid. He may fairly be said to have a dropsy of the brain, for his head is as full of the Neptunian system, and every round pebble he sees furnishes new proofs of his theory; notwithstanding I tell him, there is no reason in the world, why nature might not make a round pebble as well as a square or three-cornered one. The earth

* Omitted.-ED.