nutes at the house, and then Zephyrine and myself
got into a carriage and set off, escorted by M. Ernest and a dozen men. I
did not forget to carry off my hundred crowns, my fowling-piece, and
game-bag. As to my poor bass, the captain's head had completely spoiled it.

"After an hour's drive, we came in sight of a large city with an enormous
dome the middle of it. It was Rome.

"'And did you see the Pope, M. Louet?'

"'At that time he was at Fontainbleau, but I saw him afterwards, and his
successor too; for M. Ernest got me an appointment as bass-player at the
Teatro de la Valle, and I remained there till the year 1830. When I at
last returned to Marseilles, they did not know me again, and for some time
refused to give me back my place in the orchestra, under pretence that I
was not myself.'

"'And Mademoiselle Zephyrine?'

"'I heard that she married M. Ernest, whose other name I never knew, and
that he became a general, and she a very great lady."

"'And Captain Tonino? Did you hear nothing more of him?'

"'Three years afterwards he came to the theatre in disguise; was
recognised, arrested, and hung.'

"'And thus it was, sir,' concluded M. Louet, 'that a thrush led me into
Italy, and caused me to pass twenty years at Rome.'"

And so ends the thrush-hunt. One word at parting, to qualify any too
sweeping commendation we may have bestowed on M. Dumas in the early part
of this paper. While we fully exonerate his writings from the charge of
grossness, and recognise the absence of those immoral and pernicious
tendencies which disfigure the works of many gifted French writers of the
day, we would yet gladly see him abstain from the somewhat too
Decameronian incidents and narratives with which he occasionally varies
his pages. That he is quite independent of such meretricious aids, is
rendered evident by his entire avoidance of them in some of his books,
which are not on that account a whit the less _piquant_. With this single
reservation, we should hail with pleasure the appearance on our side the
Channel of a few such sprightly and amusing writers as Alexander Dumas.

* * * * *

HIGH LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY.[5]

[5] _George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, with Memoirs and Notes_.
By T.H. Jesse. 4 vols.

The volumes of which we are about to give fragments and anecdotes, contain
a portion of the letters addressed to a man of witty memory, whose
existence was passed