Here we have a character of Chateau- and that this flap was often exhibited over the briand: Among the many persons of note whom I became more or less well acquainted with, no one perhaps stands out more vividly in my recollection than Chateaubriand. He also, though standing much aloof from the noise and movement of the political passions of the time, was an aristocrat jusqu'au bout des ongles, in appearance, in manners, in opinions, and general tone of mind. The impression to this effect immediately produced on one's first presentation was in no degree due to any personal advantages. He was not, when I knew him, nor do I think he ever could have been, a good-looking man. He stooped a good deal, and his head and shoulders gave me the impression of being somewhat too large for the rest of his person. The lower part of his face, too, was, I thought, rather heavy. But his every word and movement were characterized by that exquisite courtesy which was the inalienable, and it would seem incommunicable, speciality of the seigneurs of the ancien régime. And in his case the dignified bearing of the grand seigneur was tempered by a bonhomie which produced a manner truly charming. bosom of her dress in front! She too was a reine de salon after her fashion-a somewhat different one from that of her elegant neighbor. There was, at all events, a greater and more piquant variety to be found in it. All those to be found there were, however, worth seeing or hearing for one reason or another. Her method of ruling the frequenters of her receptions might be described as simply shaking the heterogeneous elements well together. But it answered so far as to make an evening at her house unfailingly amusing. Mr. Trollope had the great delight of hearing Liszt and the Princess Belgiojoso play, on two pianos, the whole of the score of Mozart's "Don Giovanni." What would Herr Engel say to this! Again the scene changes from Paris and Vienna to Ostend, where a certain colonel of hospitable habits gave a dinner at which the author was present. An ominous pause intervened between the announced hour of dinner and its being served, and suddenly the colonel rushed into the drawing-room with his coatsleeves drawn up to his elbows, horror And having said all this, it may seem to and despair in his mien, as he cried, argue want of taste or want of sense in myself," Great Heaven! the cook has cut the fins to own, as truthfulness compels me to do, that I did not altogether like him. I had a good deal of talk with him, and that to a youngster of my years and standing was in itself very flattering, and I felt as if I were ungrateful for not liking him. But the truth in one word is that he appeared to me to be a "tinkling cymbal." I don't mean that he was specially insincere as regarded the person he was talking to at the moment. What I do mean is, that the man did not seem to me to have a mind capable of genuine sincerity in the conduct of its operations. He seemed to me a theatrically-minded man. Miss O'Meara, in her "Salon of Madame Mohl," has given us a delightful account of that somewhat eccentric old lady. Mrs. Simpson has added some new matter, some of which would have been better embodied in Miss O'Meara's work. Mr. Trollope knew her well, and found her an eccentric little lady, very plain, brimful of talent, who had achieved the wonderful triumph of living, in the midst of the choicest society of Paris, her own life after her own fashion, which was often in many respects a very different fashion from that of those around her, without incurring any of the ridicule or anathemas with which such society is wont to visit eccentricity. I remember a good-naturedly recounted legend, to the effect that she used to have her chemises, which were constructed after the manner of those worn by the grandmothers of the present generation, marked with her name in full on the front flap of them; off the turbot! It may be questioned whether the unfortunate people of Schevening were not a few weeks ago in a worse position, when not only could they not procure a turbot with his fins cut off, but they were unable to have any turbot at all, from some quarrel about the fishing smacks. The writer of this paper had a piece of venison presented to him some years ago when on the move in north Wales. When it was served, the "dim Sassenach" cook had cut off all the fat. Poor Quin would have given up the ghost had such a calamity happened to him. The art of cookery, in spite of South Kensington, does not spread. The deceptions prevalent under the name of cooks abound everywhere. In an ordinary lodging-house of some pretension good or bad cooking is a mere accident, and there are towns where the bills of mortality are swollen by the abominable neglect of the elementary principles of cooking. We recently had a woodcock so served that we expected to see the bird take flight from the toast, and leave nought but his trail behind him. There is some excuse for a cook if his or her master does not know good cookery from bad. Because the old Duke of Wellington did not appreciate his cook's great works, that honest functionary doubted Madame Recamier. 1 atter all whether the duke was a great man. "I look upon it," said Dr. Johnson, "that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else." We heard it recently asserted at dinner that the world had got wickeder since the French Revolution. It was not asserted that it was owing to it, but that event was named as indicating the period of change. One person said that Nihilism, and another that Irish cruelties, proved the statement. We know not how this is, but rather think the other way. Mr. Trollope, however, shows how half a century ago a sovereign of the house of Austria devoted a certain number of hours every Thursday to receive any of his subjects who had expressed a desire to see him. But might not [says Mr. Trollope] some socialist or nihilist, or other description of radical, have easily shot him at one of those entirely unguarded interviews? Ay! but I am writing of half a century ago, before such things and persons had appeared upon the And assuredly the possibility of such a catastrophe had never entered into the brain of any man, woman, or child in the Kaiserstadt. scene. Mrs. Trollope, who was a woman of keen discernment, abundance of humor, and of a most sunny temper, went to Vienna, accompanied by her son Adolphus, and by a M. Hervieu, an artist, and a right good fellow. From Vienna she sent over to Bentley, who published it for her, a work entitled "Vienna and the Austrians." She was known in Vienna to be writing, and society there was naturally taken up with the English lady who had come to see what Viennese society was like. Prince Metternich met her at Sir Frederick Lamb's, and then and subsequently she seems to have had much interesting conversation with Metternich. Mr. Trollope says: Prince Metternich was just such a man as my fancy painted Sir William Temple to have been. He was a man of iniddle height, slenderly made rather than thin, though carry ing no superfluous flesh; upright, though without the somewhat rigid uprightness which usually characterizes military training to the last, however far distant the training time may have been; and singularly graceful in movement and gesture. He must have been a man of sound body and even robust constitution, but he did not look so at the time of which I am speaking. Not that he had the appearance or the manner of a man out of health, but his extreme refinement and delicacy of feature seemed scarcely consistent with bodily strength. Whether it might be possible for a man devoid of all advantage of feature to produce on those brought into contact with him the same remarkable impression of dignity, the consciousness of high station, and perfection of courtly bearing combined with a pellucid simplicity of manuer, I cannot say. possible in the case of Metternich by great But it is true that all this was rendered more personal handsomeness. Here is a picture of Sam Slick, the clockmaker, whom all the world knows was we cannot, alas! say is the Hon. Mr. Justice Haliburton. He was, as I remember him, a delightful companion -for a limited time. He was in this respect exactly like his books-extremely amusing reading if taken in rather small doses, but calculated to seem tiresomely monotonous if indulged in at too great length. He was a thoroughly good fellow, kindly, cheery, hearty, and sympathetic always; and so far always a welcome companion. But his funning was always pitched in the same key, and always more or less directed to the same objects. His social and political ideas and views all coincided with my own, which, of course, tended to make us better friends. In appearance he looked entirely like an Englishman, but not at all like a Londoner. Without being at all too fat, he was large and burly in person, with grey hair, a large ruddy face, a full of mirth. He was an inveterate chewer humorous mouth, and bright blue eyes always of tobacco, and in the fulness of comrade-like kindness strove to indoctrinate me with that habit. But I was already an old smoker, and preferred to content myself with that mode of availing myself of the blessing of tobacco. Everything about Wordsworth is interesting. Whatever we may think of his works-and most of us will admit that he has been gradually rising in estimation, - Wordsworth especially for his sonnetsHe was not dewas emphatically a man. terred by coldness or censure from continuing in the path he had marked out for himself. He lived his life and not anybody or everybody else's. He was no absorbed quantity. This power of holding his own partly arose, perhaps, from a certain absence of sympathy with ideas, unless they had originated with himself. We all fall on the leaning side, and sympathy with other people's ideas was not Wordsworth's leaning side. So he held his own, and talked of himself, and his thoughts, and his poems as he really thought of them himself, second only, if second at all, to Milton's. Let us hear Mr. Trollope's account of him: For my part I managed to incur his displeasure while yet on the threshold of his house. We were entering it together, when observing a very fine bay-tree by the door-side, ner. I unfortunately expressed surprise at its luxu- | proach the meal of the day with an appe riance in such a position. "Why should you tite that can dispense with the cook's aid. be surprised?" he asked, suddenly turning upon me with much displeasure in his manNot a little disconcerted, I hesitatingly answered that I had imagined the bay-tree required more and greater warmth of sunshine than it could find there. "Pooh!" said he, much offended at the slight cast on his beloved locality, "what has sunshine got to do with it?" I had not the readiness to reply, that in truth the world had abundance of testimony that the bay could flourish in those latitudes! But I think, had I done so, it might have made my peace-for the remainder of that evening's experiences led me to imagine that the great poet was not insensible to incense from very small and humble worshippers. The evening, I think may say the entire evening, was occupied by a monologue addressed by the poet to my mother, who was of course extremely well pleased to listen to it. I listened with much pleasure when Wordsworth recited his own lines descriptive of Little Langdale. He gave them really exquisitely. But his manner in conversation was not impressive. He sat continuously looking down with a green shade over his eyes even though it was twilight; and his mode of speech and delivery suggested to me the epithet maundering," though I was ashamed of myself for the thought with reference to such a man. As we came away I cross-examined my mother much as to the subjects of his talk. She said it had been all about himself and his works, and that she had been interested. But I could not extract from her a word that had passed worth recording. I cannot say that on the whole the impression made on me by the poet on that occasion (always with the notable exception of his recital of his own poetry) was a pleasant one. There was something in the manner in which he almost perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long monologue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a part got up to order, and repeated without much modification as often as lion-hunters, duly authorized for the sport in those localities, might call upon him for it. I dare say the case is analogous to that of the hero and the valet, but such was my impression. While recently on the subject of cookery we omitted some amusing remarks touching the composition of gravy, and the proper age of mutton, made by Mr. Trollope. Gravy is not attained by all cooks; it is sometimes too greasy or too thick, or it errs in the direction of hot water. We don't pretend to sufficient knowledge to correct an error we may yet perceive, but we are glad to be able to throw on so important a topic the light of another understanding. Though a good appetite is the best sauce, one is not always able to ap My uncle, Mr. Partington, who married my father's sister, and lived many years chairman of Quarter Sessions at Ofham, among the South Downs, near Lewes, was a man who understood mutton. A little silver saucepan was placed by his side when the leg of mutton, or sometimes two, about as big as fine fowls, were placed in one dish before him. Then, after the mutton had been cut, the abundantly flowing gravy was transferred to the saucepan, a couple of glasses of tawny old port, and a quantum suff. of currant jelly and cayenne were added, the whole was warmed in the dining-room, and then we ate mutton, as I shall never eat it again in this world! Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, for the very sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth knowing anything about. Scientific breeding has improved it off the face of the earth. The immature meat is killed at two years old, and only we few survivors of a former generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day that they could not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, because nothing under an eight foot park paling would confine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days when I jumped too! Believe me, my young friends, that George the Third knew what he was talking about (as upon certain other occasions) when he said that very little venison was equal to a haunch of four-year-old mutton. And the gravy!-chocolate-colored, not pink, my innocent young friends. Ichabod Ichabod! Mr. Trollope visited the Chamber whilst at Paris, and heard Soult and Dupin. He thought it a bear garden, as ours seems likely to become under the exquisite manners of the modern Irish. What a gulf between the time when people said that a polished Irishman was the finest gentleman in the world, and Johnny Bushe was a proof of it! have yet had is given by Mr. Trollope. By far the best picture of Dickens we He speaks of Mr. Forster's biography as masterly. We venture to question this opinion, and conceive of a much more genial, much less autocratic Dickens than the one pictured for us by Forster. In fact, Mr. Trollope's Dickens seems much nearer the truth, and it certainly conveys a more pleasant idea of him than Mr. Forster does. The great fault of Forster's work is the preponderance of Forster himself. He is always on the stage, al ways advising, always suggesting that he suggested all the good things Dickens did; what with Forster's claims, and the extraordinary hallucination under which George Cruikshank suffered that he was the author of "Oliver Twist," Dickens is tures: what leonine aspect as regards the general appearance and expression of the head and face, which accorded well with the large and massive build of the figure, and to which a superbly curling white beard added not only picturesqueness, but a certain nobility. heard do so. It was a singular thing that Landor always dropped his aspirates. He was, I think, the only man in his position in life whom I ever That a man who was not only by birth a gentleman, but was by genius and culture - and such culture! very much more, should do this, seemed to me an incomprehensible thing. I do not think he ever introduced the aspirate where it was not needed, but he habitually spoke of 'and, 'ead, and 'ouse. Dickens was only thirty-three when I first saw him, being just two years my junior. I have said what he appeared to me then. As I knew him afterwards, and to the end of his days, he was a strikingly manly man, not only in appearance but in bearing. The lustrous brilliancy of his eyes was very striking. And I do not think that I have ever seen it noticed, that those wonderful eyes which saw so much and so keenly, were appreciably, though to a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes. Very few persons, even among those who knew him well, were aware of this, for Dickens never used a glass. But he continually exercised his vision by looking at distant objects, and making them out as well as he could without any artificial assistance. It was an instance of that force of will in him, which compelled a naturally somewhat delicate frame to comport itself like that of an athlete. Mr. Forster somewhere says of him, "Dickens's habits to me in a manner that seemed to me to renwere robust, but his health was not.' This is entirely true as far as my observation ex-But I did not see the incident in question, and der it impossible to doubt the truth of them. tends. Of the general charm of his manner I despair of giving any idea to those who have not seen or known him. This was a charm by no means dependent on his genius. He might have been the great writer he was and yet not have warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared with that summer glow which seemed to attend him. His laugh was brimful of enjoyment. There was a peculiar humorous protest in it when recounting or hearing anything specially absurd, as who should say, "Pon my soul, this is too ridiculous! This passes all bounds!" and bursting out afresh as though the sense of the ridiculous overwhelmed him like a tide, which carried all hearers away with it, and which I well reentered into everything he said or did. It belonged doubtless to that amazing fertility and wealth of ideas and feeling that distinguished his genius. member. His enthusiasm was boundless. It Mr. Trollope gives us a picture of "that deep-mouthed Boeotian Savage Landor," who took "for a swan rogue Southey's gander." So sang Lord Byron, not quite so Mr. Trollope. Even very near the close, when he seemed past caring for anything, the old volcanic fire still lived beneath its ashes, and any word which touched even gently any of his favorite and habitual modes of thought was sure to bring forth a reply uttered with a vivacity of manner quite startling from a man who the moment before had seemed scarcely alive to tent this old volcanic fire still burned may be what you were saying to him. To what exestimated from a story which was then current in Florence. The circumstances were related therefore cannot assert that it took place. The attendance provided for him by the kindly care of Mr. Browning, as narrated by Mr. Forster, was most assiduous and exact, as I had many opportunities of observing. But one day when he had finished his dinner, thinking that the servant did not come to remove the things so promptly as she ought to have done, he took the four corners of the tablecloth (so goes the story), and thus enveloping everything that was on the table, threw the whole out of the window. Few men have been so fortunate in their biographer as Landor. Mr. Sidney Colvin had a subject congenial to him, and whilst appreciating Landor, is under no delusions as to his limits. Hence it is an eminently satisfactory biography, not liable to pass away with those biographies which George Eliot considered to be the curse of English literature. We must now reluctantly close volumes which have given us unfeigned pleasure. They are written with an unaffected simplicity and with manifest pleasure to the writer, who conveys this pleasure to his Landor, as I remember him, was a hand-reader. They touch upon a great variety some-looking old man, very much more so, I think, than he could have been as a young man, to judge by the portrait prefixed to Mr. Forster's volumes. He was a man of some of topics, never tediously dwelling on any. They are critical, descriptive, anecdotical, and include many well-limned portraits of interesting characters. RICHARD CABLE reascended the stairs unheard and unseen. He was irritated at what he had observed. "How proud she is!" he said. "There is no breaking her stubborn spirit. She does this to pay me for her carriage." It is a curious fact that we are prone to note and condemn in others the vice that mars our own selves. We are always keen-sighted with respect to the mote in our brother's eye, especially when it is a chip off the beam in our own eye. I have known a woman, who was a mischiefmaker with her tongue throughout a neighborhood, declare that of all things she abhorred was gossip, and that, therefore, she avoided So-and-so as a scandalmonger. The conceited man turns up his already cocked nose at another prig; and the talker is impatient of the love of chatter in his friend. I once knew two exceedingly talkative men who monopolized the whole conversation at table. The one invited the other to make a walking expedition with him of a month; but they returned in three days. "I could not stand B," said A; "I was stunned with his tongue." "I refused to go on with A," said B; "he talked me lame." The girl who sings flat, criticises the lack of tune in a companion; and the man who paints badly is the first to detect the blemishes in another's picture; and I am quite sure my most severe critics will be those who have written the worst novels. Richard Cable was convinced that Josephine was proud and self-willed; and everything she did, every act of submission, every gentle appeal for forgiveness, was viewed by him through the distorted medium of his own pride. Indistinctly, he perceived that she was asking him to be received back on his terms that she was ready to make every sacrifice for this end; but he could not or would not believe that she was acting from any other motive than caprice. Her pride was hurt because he had left her, and she sought to recover him, not because she cared for him, certainly not because she would be more considerate of him, but to salve over her wounded self-love. An uneducated man, when he gets an idea into his head, will not let it go. He hugs it, as the Spartan lad hugged the fox though it bit into his vitals. There is no rotation of crops in his brain. The idea once planted there, grows and spreads, and eats up all the nutriment, and overshadows the whole surface, and allows nothing to grow under it, like the beech, which poisons the soil beneath its shadow with its dead leaves and mast-cases. A man who has undergone culture puts into his head one idea, and as soon as it is ripe, reaps and garners it, ploughs up the soil, puts in another of a different nature never lets his brain be idle, and never gives it up permanently to one idea or set of ideas. Or rather his head is an allotment garden, in which no single idea occupies the entire field, but every lobe is used for a different crop, precisely as in an allotment every variety of vegetable is grown. Now, Richard Cable had had the idea of Josephine's haughtiness so ploughed into his mind that he could harbor no other idea. It grew and spread like a weed, and poisoned the soil of his mind, so that no wholesome plants, no sweet herbs could flourish there. It overmastered, it outgrew, it strangled all the fragrant and nutritious plants that once occupied that garden plot. Its roots ran like those of an ash through every portion, and spread over the entire subsoil, so that nothing else could grow there, or could only grow in a stunted and starved condition. So, with singular perversity, Cable resented the conduct of Josephine in cleaning his boots, and he attributed her act to unworthy motives. He said not a word about his boots till the van was in motion and he started up the steep hill; then he exclaimed: "Whatever have these folk at the inn been about with my boots, that they shine like those of a dancing-master?" Then he went through a puddle, and came out with them tarnished and begrimed. He did not look round at Josephine, who made no remark, but next morning cleaned his boots again. After that Cable kept them in his bedroom. He would not have them cleaned by Josephine. All the calves were disposed of before Launceston was reached; and as the load was light, the horse rattled on with the van at a better rate. When they drew near to St. Kerian, Cable said: "I have written beforehand to my mother and told her my intentions. She will have arranged lodgings for you, where you may stay on your arrival. After that, as you |