general's invitation to breakfast, instead of drowning myself in the
next pond.

The general was lodged in the first floor of a fisherman's dwelling,
which, in more polished parts of the land, would have been pronounced a
hovel; but in Brighton, as it then was, bore the name of a house. We
entered it through an apartment filled with matters of the fisherman's
trade,--nets, barrels, and grapnels; and in a corner a musket or two,
which had evidently seen service, though probably _not_ in his Majesty's
pay. The walls were covered with engravings of British sea-fights and
favourite admirals, from the days of Elizabeth; patriotic in the highest
degree, and most intolerable specimens of the arts; the floor, too, had
its covering, but it was of nearly a dozen children of all sizes, from
the bluff companion of his father down to the crier in the cradle; yet
all fine bold specimens of the brood of sea and fresh air, British
bull-dogs, that were yet to pin down the game all round the world; or
rather cubs of the British lion, whose roar was to be the future terror
of the foreigner.

The general welcomed us to his little domicile with as much grace as if
he had been ushering us into the throne-room of the Tuileries. I
afterwards understood that he had been governor of the "Invalides;" and
the change from the stately halls of that military palace must have
severely taxed the philosophy of any man; yet it had no appearance of
having even ruffled the temperament of the gallant veteran. He smiled,
talked, and did the honours of his apartment with as much urbanity as if
he had been surrounded by all the glittering furniture, and all the
liveried attendance, of his governorship. I have always delighted in an
old Frenchman, especially if he has served. Experience has made me a
cosmopolite, and yet to this hour a young Frenchman is my instinctive
aversion. He is born in coxcombry, cradled in coxcombry, and educated in
coxcombry. It is only after his coxcombry is rubbed off by the changes
and chances of the world, that the really valuable material of the
national character is to be seen. He always reminds me of the
mother-of-pearl shell, rude and unpromising on the outside, but by
friction exhibiting a fine interior. However it may be thought a paradox
to pronounce the Frenchman unpolished, I hold to my assertion. If the
whole of "jeune France" sprang on their feet and clapped their hands to
the hilts of their swords, or more probably to