into the infernal regions, while Envy and her progeny are expiring at his feet; and, in order that nothing may be lost, Calas and his family are also dragged into this modest tableau. Leaving this focus of egotism and vanity, the rest of the house presents in detail these two great elements of its quondam owner; the drawingroom being ornamented with a bust of Voltaire; in his bedroom are portraits of his friends, Frederic the Great of Prussia, Le Kain, Catharine the Second of Russia, Madame de Chastelet; then again comes a portrait of Voltaire, flanked by one of Milton and Sir Isaac Newton. There is also the vase that contained his heart, before its removal to Paris, upon which is an inscription that could not have been more modest had he written it himself: "Mon esprit est par tout, et mon cœur est ici." The whole house reminds one of the anecdote of his sending a bunch of violets to Madame de Chastelet, when she expected at least an "aigrette" of diamonds. How the truth of her answer strikes one: "Mon ami laissez ces niaiseries tu n'étiez pas fait pour être naturel ; tu es audessus de çela!" At every turn you are presented with copies of verses in praise of Voltaire, which you may buy for five franks; and the old gardener, who still remembers him, while he presents you with one of the most elaborate of these eulogiums, at the same time informs you that he had the most dreadful temper that ever was, and that they were all terribly afraid of him. Certainly, the French have more sentiment and less feeling than any people in the world: had Tullia been a French woman, she might equally have driven over the dead body of her father; but, then, what an elegy she would have written upon the event! and with what tears would she have read it out to a sympathizing and admiring audience! Just as they were about to get into the carriage, the aforesaid old gardener inquired if they had seen Voltaire's nightcap. 66 Oui, oui," said Mowbray, laughing; "j'ai tout vu." "J'ai vu le soleil et la lune Qui faisoient des discours en l'air, J'ai vu le terrible Neptune Sortir tout frisé de la mer !" VOL. I.-C "Diable! mais monsieur à beaucoup vu," said the old man, his hair standing on end as he bowed them into the carriage. From Ferney they proceeded to Coppet. Poor Madame de Staël! in a fit of monomania she talks of the "moral air of England!" but there really is a moral atmosphere and well-regulated look about Coppet, at least compared to Ferney. At all events, it has a “soignée” English appearance, which always gives one a good opinion of the owner of a Continental house, when one has been surfeited with dirt, disorder, and the fine arts. After driving through a long, straight, ugly gravel-walk road, the nice old house, with its four round, quaintlooking towers, grouped like oldfashioned sentry-boxes, appears; the hall is not particularly good, but the staircase is broad and handsome; opposite the hall-door is the library, a nice long room with pillars, and oldfashioned wire bookcases lined with green silk. The windows look out upon a pretty garden, bounded by the lake at the upper end of the library is a large tapestried bedchamber, formerly occupied by Madame Récamier. At the lower, a door opening into the "salle à manger;" over the chimney-piece in the library is a full-length portrait of Neckar, on the right of which is another of Madame Neckar, and on the left one of William Schlegel; it is a heavy, stupid face. There is withal an egaré look about it, just the sort of astonishment his features must have expressed when he found that he had inspired love in such a woman as Madame de Staël; while the look of thought the painter has endeavoured to knead into his face only makes him appear to be in the act of racking his brains for misstatements for her "Germany." Up stairs, the rooms are large and good, and accurately clean, with such a decided air of English comfort about them, that one wonders how it was ever got through "the customs." Next to Madame de Staël's bedroom is the dressing-room she used to write in of a morning; the chair, the table, the inkstand, just as she left it; the windows looking out upon the lake, and Clarens, the beautiful Clarens in the distance! "Ah," said Saville, sitting down in the chair and throwing open the window," it is evidently here that she must have first dreamed 'Corinne,' however she may have realized it in Italy." "Yes," laughed Mowbray, "and William Schlegel (vide the picture) must have been the original of that leaden lover, Lord Nelville." 666 "Oh, you sacrilegious dog! to speak so profanely of any of the personages mentioned in that rubric of love." Peccavi," said Mowbray; "but recollect, that though you are no doubt by this time fit for canonization, I am not yet even a convert to the true faith; but as you seem inclined to spend the rest of your life in that chair, dreaming of your Corinne, or perhaps in the hope of becoming inspired, I must leave you, as I want to see the rest of the house." Saville followed slowly on; in the drawing-room was Gerard's picture of Madame de Staël; the turban and attitude evidently after the manner of Domenichino's Sibyl in the Capitol, but oh! what a difference in the face! though the eyes are certainly remarkably fine, and there is as much beauty in the countenance as expression can give when it plays the rebel, and sets features totally at defiance. "I could have been in love with that woman, too," said Mowbray, in answer to his own thoughts, as he looked with folded arms earnestly at the picture. "What splendid eyes! and what exquisitely beautiful arms! I always admired beautiful arms-one sees them so seldom." "This could not be said of hers," said Saville, laughing; "for, as tradition hath it, she displayed them on all occasions; and even with posterity she appears determined (forgive the pun) to carry it 'vi et armis;' but that eternal palm-branch in her hand, I wonder why she should retain that, even in her picture." “Because, in her generation, she yielded the palm to none; and now, Master Harry, you have pun for pun. But what a sweet, gentle, feminine picture that is of the Duchesse de Broglie! the word lovely seems made on purpose to be applied to it." "It is indeed very lovely," said Saville, "and I dare say she was the original of Lucille; there is something very English in the whole contour." 66 Now, as you love me, Hal, never undertake to praise me, if you laud after that fashion. English-looking! that is an epithet whieh never can be eulogistic, except as applied to boards, beds, beefsteaks, and bottled porter; but to apply it to the gentler sex! Harry, Harry, it is the last, the very last insult which injury should What think you provoke a man to offer to a woman. they keep French abigails for, employ French milliners, adopt French morals, and endure as many privations and abominations in Continental tours, as a retreating army in an Egyptian campaign, if it is to be called English-looking at last! 'Go to and mend thy manners.' On each side of the mantelpiece were miniatures, into one of which poor Monsieur Rocard had slunk; into the other Monsieur Auguste, with a great deal of French beauty about him (that is to say, "coïffée à la coup de vent"), and that sort of half Agamemnon, half Antinous look, which all the Monsieur Augustes possess, that have ever been or that ever will be transmitted to posterity, through the medium of ivory or canvass. Out of the drawing-room is a very nice, comfortable billiardroom, with busts round it; and though the house had not been inhabited for some time, it had a peculiarly inhabited look. "Coppet!" said Mowbray, as they descended the stairs, "thy mistress is no more; then why dost thou seem so cheerful, since thou 'ne'er will look upon her like again?' That night the friends slept at Mellerie; to their shame be it confessed, they thought not once of Jean Jacques, or even of his tertian ague Julie, and St. Preux, till the hostess announced that no trout could be got for supper. "Comment il n'y à pas de truite! à Mellerie ?" " cried Saville; and then, slapping his forehead like a despairing lover, exclaimed, "L'eau est profonde, La Roch est escarpée, et je suis au desespoir; parcequ'il n'y à pas de truite pour le souper! mais comme tous mes espérances sont de truites pour aujourd'hui, je les aurez pour le déjeuner demain." "I think," said Mowbray, laughing at this rhapsody . and still more at the landlady's astounded face, and Andare's horrified one, at this profane quotation from the Heloise "I think you had better go to bed, or else you will pun yourself into a fever." "Or sup full of horrors if I remain," said Saville, as he glanced at the first "entrée," a nondescript-looking bird, very like a roasted gondola ingulfed in a sea of "beur noir." CHAPTER III. "A qui cette belle maison et ces vastes "A monseigneur le Marquis de Carabas, Histoire Célébre du Chat Bottée. "I won't describe; description is my forte, But every fool describes in these bright days And spawns his quartos, and demands your praise. While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways, To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations." EVERY one who has passed the Simplon (and who is there that has not?) knows as well as I can tell them, that, let them turn to which side they will on the sunny margin of that terrestrial paradise, the Lago Maggiore, and inquire who is the happy owner of some fairy casino, from Isola Madre and Isola Bella onward, will be sure to receive the eternal answer that it belongs to Prince Borromeo, who is most categorically the Marquis de Carabas of " that ilk." How gloriously, how primevally beautiful, is just this one favoured spot! how flat, stale, and unprofitable" the plains of Lombardy beyond! and how infernal look the red lights, that glare out the way, previous to reaching the ferry at Cesto Calendo, where the poor blind fiddler, with his songs of "Bella Italia" and "La Placida Campagna," seems, Orpheus-like, to move the sticks and stones of the heavily-laden ferry, and make the passage over less miserable than it otherwise would be! 66 But, in Italy, let no one fear a lack of discomfort; no, no! at every "poste" they will be sure of the eternal dogana, the large, dirty, miserable inn, and the pitched battle between the courier and the maestro della posta, about the "tariffe:" add to this, the having |