memory as if burned in with a red-hot brand. Thenceforward my solitude was peopled, my time filled up, my brain fully furnished. I even had extacies in which the heroes of the book figured: in my dreams I saw them smile on me, glide behind the hedges as I walked, and go before me up the mountain side. They formed a cortege sufficient to fill my thoughts, and from which I would not for worlds be separated.

Now from the personages of the romance, my thoughts naturally strayed to the author who had given them life and form. My dear cousin, if the benches of the Faculty of Toulouse could speak, they would betray the injustice done by my engrossing pre-occupation to the Pandects of Justinian. Even during the most interesting causes, I had little attention to spare from the very illegal object that lay in the bottom of my hat. I had now devoured, and ranged in the compartments of my brain, twenty volumes of phantoms, who always appeared to me in my sombre hours, and made the charm of my solitary existence. You ask me if I had known the Countess of Mauleon and where I had seen her ; I have never seen her any place in my life, and yet I know her intimately. Out of all the beings animated by the breath of her genius, I have composed an essence, and that essence is herself. She has the grace of this, the port of that heroine; the eyes of one, the ebon locks of the other. Here and there I have collected the charms which she has painted, to attribute them to herself; the beauties budding and blowing under her pen, to present her the gracious offering. This is how I know her, it is this that brings her name to my lips on every occasion; this is why I recognised her when she passed us. Now you have the solution of the enigma: was I not right in calling it a schoolboy's fantasy ?'

Say rather a poet's; we must cure you of it, it is a malady of the country.'

'Cure me, dear cousin! why cure me of my only happiness?' I did not push the inquisition farther, but I was sufficiently alarmed by my discovery. The head of my pupil was susceptible of a fermentation greater than I could have imagined. There were perils, and of different kinds in his path. I knew the divinity in whose honour he had been burning his solitary and unmarked incense for three years. I knew how she would treat her worshipper if he ever approached her altar, and on what footing she would receive his homage. These forebodings caused me much trouble. I should procure him some distraction, turn his attention to, and fix his interest on other objects; you will shortly see how I succeeded."

Nepomucene proceeds to say, that he looked on his patient in the light of those mariners of old whom the syrens allured, and reduced to death by inanition when they did not drown them outright; but how to stop Lucien's ears against the great

syren's song is the task. He is of solitary habits, and duped by the creatures of his own imagination; his veneration for literary celebrities is extravagant; the proper cure for this must be an admiration directed to himself: it is the doctrine of cure by semblables in all its grandeur. We never see writers sincerely admiring their fellows; they reserve the precious article for themselves.

"To make amends they shew great attention to the dead, and this for two reasons equally judicious. First, they have nothing to dread from the vicinity of their pens, and secondly, the objects of their praise are not in a condition to profit by it."

It is hard if after securing so many literary reputations, I should fail in this one on which I have set my heart: but wherefore fear ? a check to me indeed! You shall arrive, my Lucien, at the summit of literary eminence, without a halt, and to the sound of clarions. Nothing shall be wanting, and brass instruments shall be provided, regardless of expense. You shall have six benches of chevaliers hired expressly to applaud, and twenty crowns (provided by the management) descending on your head at once. You shall have six recals in succession, and four swoonings in the pit, confided to well dressed persons. You shall see, my dear Lucien, if my arm is heavy or not."

He now looks at his pupil's papers, and passing over several pretentious efforts, he fixes on a slight dramatic sketch, which he makes him retouch and enlarge; and after a world of trouble, he gets it accepted at a theatre on the Boulevards, songs being interwoven by a hack of the establishment.

"My first trouble was with the actress who was to play the principal part. All depended on her; let her take her role with a bad grace, with negligence, or ill humour, all was over; we sunk into the river of Lethe, where so many fine things are lost, from the humble vaudeville to the proud opera. Cost what it would, we must enlist her in our cause, push her to excess-excess of zeal, excess of the toilette; dazzle her with the merit of the work, and inaugurate its reception by a dress of a novel and tasteful character. A new dress for a piece in one act! When you put an actress to the expense of a new gown for a performance you enchain her; there is a unity of interest between you; a new robe! Nothing more sovereign; she must appear in it thirty times to have her outlay replaced.

Being sure of the actors, I had still to disarm and seduce the press. Nothing more easy; your newspaper critic for the most

part, is easy and goodnatured; his ferule often comes down without touching the obnoxious fingers. Besides I had had the forethought to scatter green-room reports abroad, which had found their way everywhere. In twenty quarters there were questions of a new piece destined to effect a revolution in art. A young genius had come up from the south, with his portfolio, crammed with the most original and finished productions. From his rich bouquet he had consented to detach one simple and modest flower. When pressed, the name of the piece and of the theatre so happy as to obtain it, were given; but the name of the writer was enveloped in the most complete mystery. The human spirit is accessible to fables: this report had the completest success, and its echoes were innumerable among the lazy and inquisitive public. I was not content with public seductions, I practised personal ones and with great success. I visited the distributors of praise or blame. To interest them, I had only the one note, but it threw enchantment over each. The Author belongs to your school,' said I to the first. The Author has drawn inspiration from your works,' was my confidential remark to the second. To the third by way of variety, The Author looks to you as the true organ of public opinion: he sets little store by the judgments of the rest.' I made exception with none; I repeated this song to every critic: what advantage in making any one jealous or discontented."

With such preparation how could the piece be damned? It had a wonderful success, but to Nepomucene's great chagrin, Lucien was more annoyed than gratified by the adulation he met with from all quarters. So his patron takes the resolution of letting the Chevalier Rigobert loose on him.

This great unknown' had got a name by acting as fourth collaborateur in an occasional vaudeville got up to celebrate some such event as the three July days. The merit of the poetry can be judged from the specimens subjoined—

Or

Or this

Célébrons notre Souverain;
Son nom est gravé sur l'airain!

Chantons, chantons, notre bon roi ;

Il a nos cœurs et notre foi.

Vive, vive notre monarque!

Qu'il soit respecté de la Parque.

Dating from the execution of these precious bits of rhyme, he never ceased to persecute the Government till he obtained

the Cross of the Legion of Honour. His claims were cogent: 'his three fellow-labourers were decorées ; why should not he ?' The powers were tired out, and granted his request; and he became the Chevalier Rigobert, first of the name, and unprivileged to transmit his title. And oh, what a world of care he took to keep his literary merits before the public; to admit the sun and the air to his sickly hot-house plant at the proper season, and to cover it carefully at the approach of frost!

"In places where he was on a familiar footing he entered in a hurry, speaking before the door was closed behind him: what ! nothing said of my books or myself for three long weeks! Not a line quoted, not one word: do we live in Tartary?' At other times he would take the man of influence aside, and accost him in a feeling and melancholy tone: My dear sir, what can I have done to you? Me! Chevalier; nothing, at least nothing that I know.' Ah! surely I have; behold, I cast myself at your feet, I'll make any reparation in my power: speak.' Reparation! Chevalier : what need of any, seeing there is no wrong done?' Ah! I see you are implacable; but why have you attacked me with such acrimony ?' I attack you! I have not even mentioned your name for two years.' That is the very thing I complain of, and every day you speak of my collaborateur X; and now you say you have no spite to me: ah, you hypocrite!' "

So Rigobert is just the man to inoculate Lucien with a due appreciation of public favor, He has the entrée in many influential circles, Nepomucene is not always at leisure to chaperon his protegée, and so a very desirable connection springs up between the experienced dunce, and the inexperienced man of genius.

Soon after the acquaintance took place, the world was astonished to see in a certain feuilleton, a sketch replete with genius, grace, and ability, and subscribed with the name of Rigobert. How had Rigobert, the sapless, fallen on a fresh living vein? was the question. Had he, in the silence of his study, and safe from the eyes of justice, opened an artery in some young and innocent writer, and by drinking his blood infused life and vigour into his own spent frame. Still the fact was destitute of proof, till Nepomucene meeting him, and hypocritically complimenting him on his triumph, requested to see the piece, as he wished earnestly to submit it to Lucien for his imitation. Seeing the evident terror which this pro

position struck into Rigobert's heart, he said no more, but guessed at once that it was some forgotten piece of Lucien's which the old pirate had purloined. Not willing to create an enemy for his pupil, but at the same time to punish the thief, he cunningly secured his appearance before a select company of known literati; and in spite of his doubtings and denials, at last forced him to acknowledge Lucien as the author. And after all,' said he' what harm? Is he not a man without a name, and what's more, a fool?'

"Between Lucien and myself now ensued one of those strifes in which stratagem is brought to aid natural strength, and where the tactics consist in avoiding an engagement.

This role was the same as played in old times by Xenophon at the head of his ten thousand,' and by Fabius when guarding the approach to Rome against the conquering Carthaginians. It consisted in tiring out the enemy, in turning him aside from his object, and in enveloping him with wiles and ambushes. At all hazards Lucien pushed on towards his idol; while I fortified the outworks of the besieged temple with Chevaux de frise and impenetrable gabions. Mars defend the right!"

As a last resource, Mentor brings to his aid the Canoness Eulalie St. Epinac. This lady was born a poetess. Her mother saw in a dream, just before her birth, Apollo himself, lyre in hand, descend from Pindus, and scatter violets on her cradle; Euterpe executing variations on the harp, and Clio pronouncing a discourse and all concluding with a rondo in the Ionian measure.

The

An eglantine was found marked on her body at birth; and before she was four years old, she had daubed her face and clothes with ink three times every day, and had almost poisoned herself on one occasion with a bottle of best japan fluid. At a very juvenile period she began to communicate her inspirations to the world. Hers was rather a precocious muse. name of one piece was What is Love' another looked more suspicious, its title ran thus, Life for two;' another took a still more decisive part, being addressed to To the object of my dreams; but Nepomucene requested his hearers not to look for more harm than really existed: Eulalie merely clothed undefined longings in a sort of definite drapery.