"Where is your brother?" he asked. "You can act as you please towards the other person, as you appear to be beyond conviction from anything I can urge. François is at present the most important object for our vigilance. Is he in Paris?"

"He is not," replied the Marchioness. "Both my brothers are at Offemont, arranging the distribution of the effects about the estate. They will remain there for some days, and then depart to Villequoy. Fortunately François has discharged one of his servants, and is compelled to look after many of his affairs himself, the superintendence of which would otherwise fall to his valet."

"Is he anxious to supply the place of the domestic ?" inquired Gaudin eagerly.

"He is now looking out for some one. But why are you thus curious?"

"Because I have a creature in my employ-one who dares scarcely call his life his own, unless by my permission, who might fill the post with advantage."

"I do not see what we could gain by that," observed the Marchioness.

"He might wait upon his master at table," said Gaudin, "and pour out his drink."

He regarded his companion with fixed intensity as he threw out the dark hint contained in his last words.

"But would there be no suspicion?" asked Marie.

"None,” replied her lover." For his own sake, he would keep the secret close as the grave. He has a ready wit, too, and an unabashed presence, that would carry him through any dilemma. I ought to know it."

Hist!" cried Marie; "there is a noise in the passage. We are overheard."

"It is nothing," said Sainte-Croix. "The night-wind rushing along the passages has blown-to some of the doors."

The Marchioness had gone to the entrance of the salle, and looked along the vaulted way that led to it. A door at the upper end was distinctly heard to close.

"I heard retreating footsteps!" she exclaimed rapidly, as she returned. "There have been some eavesdroppers, I tell you."

"Pshaw!" replied Gaudin; "who would come down here? It might be Philippe Glazer, who brought me into the hospital, and is anxious to know how much longer our interview is to last."

"He does not know me?" inquired the Marchioness, in a tone that led up to the answer she desired.

"He knows nothing, beyond that I have some idle affair with a religieuse. Pardieu! if every similar gallantry was taken notice of in Paris, the newsmongers would have enough to do."

"However," said Marie, "it is time that we departed. I must go back to my dreary home."

And she uttered the last words in a tone of well-acted despondency, as she prepared to depart.

Stay, Marie!" cried Gaudin.

"You have said that

your

bro

thers are at Offemont; who else have you to mind? There is a réunion of all the best that Paris contains of life and revelry in the Rue des Mathurins this evening. You will go with me?"

"It would be madness, Gaudin. The city would ring with the scandal to-morrow morning."

"You can mask," returned Sainte-Croix, “and so will I. I shall be known to all I care about, and those I can rely on. Marie! you will come?"

He drew a visor from his cloak as he spoke, and held it towards the Marchioness. The necessity for sudden concealment in the affairs of gallantry of the time, made such an article part of the appointments of both sexes.

Marie appeared to waver for an instant; but Gaudin seized her hands, and whispered a few low, but intense and impassioned words closely in her ear, as though he now mistrusted the very air that, damp and thickened, clung around them. She pulled the white hood over her face, and, taking his arm, they quitted the dismal chamber in which this strange interview had taken place.

No notice was taken of them as they left the hospital. The porter was half asleep in his huge covered settle, still holding the cord of the door in his hand, and he pulled it open mechanically as they passed. On reaching the open space of the Parvis Notre Dame, Sainte-Croix hailed a voiture de remise-a clumsy, ill-fashioned thing, but still answering the purpose of those who patronized it, more especially as there was but a small window on either side, and that of such inferior glass, that the parties within were doubly private.

They crossed the river by the Petit Pont, and proceeded first to the Rue des Bernardins, where Sainte-Croix's apartments were situated. Here the Marchioness left the dress of the sisterhood, in which she had visited the hospital, and appeared in her own rich garments; the other having been merely a species of domino with which she had veiled her usual attire. The coach then went on by the Rue des Noyers towards the hôtel indicated by Gaudin.

"This is a wild mad action, Gaudin," said the Marchioness. "If it should be discovered, I shall be indeed lost."

"There is no chance of recognition," replied Sainte-Croix, as he assisted his companion to fasten on her mask. "No one has track

ed us."

"I am not so certain of that," said Marie. "My eyes have deceived me, or else I have seen, each time we passed a lamp, a figure following the coach, and crouching against the walls and houses. See! there it is again!”

As she spoke, she wiped away the condensed breath upon the windows with her mantle, and called Gaudin's attention to the

street.

"There!" she cried: "I still see the same figure—tall and dark -moving after us. I cannot discern the features."

"It is but some late passenger," said Gaudin, "who is keeping near our carriage for the safety of an escort. You must recollect we

are in the centre of the cut-purse students."

The coach turned round the corner of the Rue des Mathurins as he spoke, crossing the Rue St. Jacques, and halfway along the street stopped at a porte cochère, which was lighted up with unusual brightness. The door was opened, and, as Gaudin assisted the Marchioness to alight, both cast a searching glance along the narrow street in either direction; but, excepting a lacquey attached to the Hôtel de Clugny, where they now got down, not a person was visible.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

A LITERARY RETROSPECT BY A MIDDLE-AGED MAN.

As I recall to mind the eminent men whom I have known, a form arises at my beckoning, stands beside me, leans on my chair. He is not old: the shrunken limbs, the hose a world too wide, the feeble voice, the wreck of a face, the wreck of a mind, denote not age. It is not age; can it be care? Yes; age has come before its time. Beneath that brown wig, assumed in compliance with a bygone custom, happily discarded (for grey hair and bald heads are now recognized), small, regular, handsome features-eyes that want nothing but light-a somewhat formal cast of physiognomy, are turned towards me. The last traces of fascination still linger on that countenance at times; but there are hours when all is confusion, all is darkness there. Peace, and oblivion to the memory of his failings!-honour to the shade of him who has bequeathed to us not the remembrance of errors, of which none ought to estimate the extent until they have known the temptation, but the ennobling stanzas of "Hohenlinden," "The Soldier's Dream," "The Mariners of England," the "Gertrude of Wyoming," "The Pleasures of Hope."

Thomas Campbell, whose image memory thus calls to my mind's eye, was the son of a Scotch clergyman somewhere in the north of Caledonia, and where his future biographer will doubtless inform us. Of his early fortunes I have heard much from one who knew him well, when both the poet and my informant were climbing up the ascent to fame, with very small refreshment by the way. But the stern selfdenial of the Scot knows no obstacles; and he can, like the camel, subsist upon food at longer intervals than other creatures. Campbell went first to college at Glasgow; but at the time that his old friend knew him he was transcribing, for a consideration, in a writer's office in Edinburgh. There, also, he studied medicine; or rather he attended the medical classes, and supported himself by his transcribing, whilst he was pursuing the path to science. Resembling, in this respect, another great man, Sir James Mackintosh, he had, in choosing medicine, mistaken his vocation. Sir James Mackintosh also began life as a student of medicine, and obtained the title of Doctor. It is reported of him, by a brother debater of the "Speculative," in Edinburgh, that on one occasion he made so eloquent an harangue on one of the subjects which were assigned to him, that the assembled listeners were entranced with wonder. "Mr. Mackintosh," observed one of the judges who was present to him, " you have mistaken your profession: it should have been the law." The student took the hint, and the result is known to have justified the comment. Mackintosh, nevertheless, retained, all his life, a love of medicine as a pursuit; he not unfrequently spoke of it to practitioners in terms of scientific accuracy; and he was fond of conversing upon the subject.

And what, may and will be asked by English readers, was the Speculative Society ? It was a debating society, established in 1764, composed of selected students of the University of Edinburgh, and an admission into its choice number was deemed an honour, and has al

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ways since established a man's pretensions to a degree of attainment and of reputation in his day. The list of members in the annals of the Speculative comprises the great names of Dugald Stewart, of Robertson, of Sir Walter Scott, of Jeffrey, Brougham, Francis Horner, Lord Dudley, Lord Lansdowne, and countless others. In its meetings ambition was excited, talent developed, and character strengthened by commerce of mind with mind. Many an orator, who has since delighted and edified mankind, was trained in the Speculative.

Campbell was poor; but poverty in Edinburgh, at that period, did not entail the solitude of the shabby lodging, or the exclusion from all that was cheerful and intellectual. In its suppers, now declining even in Edinburgh, the Scotch of the metropolis had retained a custom, perhaps originally borrowed from the French, whose language and whose cookery are still to be traced among a people, as different to their Gallic neighbours as the stately head of Benvenue is to the Champs Elysées, After a day of writing, varied by attendance at the medical classes, Campbell was in the habit of visiting at the house of a lady, then a milliner in Edinburgh. Smile not, reader;—this milliner was indeed a lady of an ancient Scottish lineage, and of undoubted respectability. It was, in former days, by no means uncommon for English families of respectability to place their portionless daughters in business; for education was not the profitable avocation which it has since become. In Scotland it was still more frequently the case. The pride of even noble Scottish families, strange to say, was not compromised by having relations in business. Even I can remember wedding-dresses being made for a female relation of mine by the Misses D, who were connected, and that closely, with the noble houses which glory in their ancient name; and these excellent and respected ladies were visited by their proud kinsfolk, and regarded with a consideration that did credit to both the great and the humble. A word more about milliners. "Among all these," observed a noted lady" in business," addressing one of my sisters, who had chanced to pass the door of her workroom, and was looking at a group of poor girls, busily plying the needle, "I should say there are not two who ought to be here. Some," she added, as she passed on, "are the daughters of English clergymen, others of officers; four of them, and the best, and most patient, are the daughters of high proud Scotch families."

To prove my point still further,- -a lady, whose name stands high in the literature of our country, was obliged, by adverse circumstances, to place her young daughter in one of these establishments of business. It was in those times thought the best thing that could be done; and some sacrifice of means, and abundance of fortitude on both sides, was necessary to accomplish it. For some time everything went on well; but the ordeal was too hard-bad food, late hours, loss of air, of happiness, of home, broke the young spirit. The mother-whose name I will not tell, for those live whom the narrative may pain-came to London, in time only to see her child expire. Within my own sad experience, smile not, my sister, who may read this retrospect,—but my own experience could paint a picture scarcely less touching. Remember you, my laughing nieces, the fair Scotch girl who came, blooming as yourselves, and recommended to your notice, should she "set up for herself," to a certain fashionable modiste-I forbear to name her-in this metropolis? The girl was innocent, and humbly gay; and there were some who, knowing her family, and pitying the

decree which sent her here, thought it no derogation to ask the poor child to a sober Sunday's dinner. It was not every Sunday that she could come. Some Sabbath days she lay in bed, from downright wea riness of spirit and flesh; others, she worked till noon. One lady, of ducal rank, was in the habit of sending orders for a dress on Saturday, to be ready by four o'clock on the following Sunday. She must not be displeased; Annie, for so was the simple one called, was detained to furbish the dowager. Day by day her bloom lessened, then went wholly; the clear fair skin became transparent. One Christmas day she came so late, that my sister had ceased to expect her. When she did arrive, a burst of tears relieved her spirits: she had scarcely been in bed that week. This is but one instance of the melancholy truth -pardon the digression, and let us return to the Madame Carson of Edinburgh, the stately, money-making, respectable Miss.

Her young ladies were all of the class which I have described, and among them were some of her own young relations. Guarded by this excellent lady, around her supper-table, therefore, were assembled, after the day's work was done, not only some of the handsomest belles of the Old Town, but the cleverest among the students of Edinburgh College, and amongst then the animated, though obscure, Tom Campbell. I could specify other names; but I am the sexton of literary men, and meddle not with them until they are dead.

Among the company collected around the supper-table of Miss ——, Campbell was a favourite. His spirits were high, his wit sparkling, and he was good-looking, and kind-hearted. An old associate, to whom he took a fancy, was the first to discover this treasure of poetry within the mind of the medical student. To this friend, also a visitor at the house of Miss Campbell showed the first skeleton of "The Pleasures of Hope." It was, in that form, a very short poem; but the friend to whom it was read discerned its excellence. "And now,” said the young poet, "whom shall I get to publish it?" The answer was a promised introduction to Manners and Miller, and the poet was persuaded to try his fortune there. A fortnight after the poem had been presented to these eminent publishers, the friend to whom I refer met Campbell walking over the North Bridge. His hands were in his pockets, his head thrown back; he was humming a tune pretty loud; his whole appearance denoted an unwonted elevation of spirits. His friend stopped him with the polite interrogation, "For heaven's sake, what's the matter with you, Tom? Are you mad?" The young poet looked at him as if he were dreaming, and, clapping his hand on his coat-pocket, exclaimed, "I've got it!"- "Got what?" rejoined his friend." Twenty guineas!" answered the poet, with an expression of rapturous pride, "twenty guineas for my poem!" And he resumed his walk, or rather strut, down the bridge. "But," argued his friend, following him, "though I am very glad to hear of it, I think it is too little." Campbell, however, informed his kind adviser that, although the payment was only twenty guineas then, he was to make considerable additions to the poem, for which he was to have more he did not know what. But eventually he obtained, I think, but will not say certainly, the sum of sixty guineas, when all was completed!

I cannot follow Campbell's struggling fortunes throughout. These sketches of his early life are "retrospections" of many a fireside talk