lieve to be true, and to which I can put the seal of my heart's conviction. MEDON. Good! I love a little enthusiasm now and then ; so like Britomart in the enchanter's palace, the motto is, "Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold!" ALDA. I should rather say, be gentle, be gentle, every where be gentle; and then we cannot be too bold.* MEDON. Well, then, I return once more to the charge. Have you been rambling about the world for these six months-yet learned nothing? On the contrary. ALDA. MEDON. Then what, in Heaven's name, have you learned? * Over another iron door was writt Be not too bold. FABRY QUEEN, Book iii. Canto xi. ALDA. Not much; but I have learned to sweep my mind of some ill-conditioned cobwebs. I have learned to consider my own acquired knowledge but as a torch flung into an abyss, making the darkness visible, and showing me the extent of my own ignorance. MEDON. Then give us-give me, at least-the benefit of your ignorance; only let it be all your own. L honour a profession of ignorance-if only for its rarity in these all-knowing times. Let me tell you, the ignorance of a candid and not uncultivated mind is better than the second-hand wisdom of those who take all things for granted ; who are the echoes of others' opinions, the utterers of others' words; who think they know, and who think they think: I am sick of them all. Come, refresh me with a little ignorance—and be serious. ALDA. : You make me smile after all, 'tis only going over old ground, and I know not what pleasure, what interest it can impart, beyond half an hour's amusement. MEDON. Sceptic! is that nothing? In this harsh, cold, working-day world, is half an hour's amusement nothing? Old ground!-as if you did not know the pleasure of going over old ground with a new companion to refresh half-faded recollections-to compare impressions-to correct old ideas and acquire new ones? OI can suck knowledge out of ignorance, as a weazel sucks eggs!—Begin. ALDA. Where shall I begin? MEDON. Where, but at the beginning! and then diverge as you will. Your first journey was one of mere amusement? ALDA. Merely, and it answered its purpose; we travelled à la milor Anglais-a partie carrée-a barouche hung on the most approved principledouble-cushioned-luxurious-rising and sinking on its springs like a swan on the wave-the pockets stuffed with new publications-maps and guides ad infinitum; English servants for comfort, foreign servants for use: a chess-board, backgam mon tables-in short, surrounded with all that could render us entirely independent of the amusements we had come to seek, and of the people among whom we had come to visit. MEDON. Admirable—and English! ALDA. Yes, and pleasant. I thought, not without gratitude, of the contrast between present feelings and those of a former journey. To abandon oneself to the quickening influence of new objects without care or thought of to-morrow, with a mind awake in all its strength; with restored health and cheerfulness; with sensibility tamed, not dead; possessing one's soul in quiet; not seeking, nor yet shrinking from excitement; not self-engrossed, nor yet pining for sympathy; was not this much? Not so interesting, perhaps, as playing the Ennuyée; but, oh! you know not how sad it is to look upon the lovely through tearful eyes, and walk among the loving and the kind, wrapped as in a death-shroud; to carry into the midst of the most glorious scenes of nature, and the divinest creations of art, perceptions dimmed and troubled with sickness and anguish; to move in the morning with aching and reluctance-to faint in the evening with weariness and pain; to feel all change, all motion, a torment to the dying heart; all rest, all delay, a burthen to the impatient spirit: to shiver in the presence of joy, like a ghost in the sunshine, yet have no sympathy to spare for suffering. How could I remember that all this had been, and not bless the miracle-worker-Time? And apropos to the miracles of time—I had on this first journey, one source of amusement, which I am sorry I cannot share with you at full length; it was the near contemplation of a very singular character, of which I can only afford you a sketch. Our CHEF de voyage, for so we chose to entitle him who was the planner and director of our excursion, was one of the most accomplished and most eccentric of human beings: even courtesy might have termed him old, at seventy; but old age and he were many miles asunder, and it seemed as though he had made some compact with Time, like that of Faust with the Devil, and was not to surrender to his inevitable adversary till the very last moment. Years could not quench his vivacity, nor "stale his infinite variety." He had been one of the prince's wild companions in the days of Sheridan and |