the family-scorn; to eat, and dress, and drink, and dance, and fight, he deemed the only actions worthy of his descent; and nature bore him out in the boast, that he was incapable of comprehending the calculations of arithmetical minds. Britain he called a land of merchants, and her king the island pedlar, whose crown was a tax-gatherer's tolldish, and his sceptre an ellwand deficient of measure. For this sally of wit he obtained the government of Havre-de-Grace. Louis was a hater of England; and, since he could not reach her with his sword, he sought to touch her purse and her spirit by taking her mutinous children to his bosom, and by heaping favours on her bitterest enemies. The Marquis retired to his government with his only daughter, an old domestic, and a favourite baboon,—the only things which prodigality had left him at the age of sixty-five.

Paul found the Marquis Chamont reclining on a satin couch, stuffed with the feathers of parrots and scented with the rarest essence. He wore a brocaded night-gown, and a waistcoat figured over with gold, while his person was surmounted by a costly peruke built storey above storey of innumerable curls. To preserve the elaborate finish of this crowning appendage he sat like a figure cut in alabaster. When he moved his head he moved his body also, and it cost him some thought to lower it into something like a bow to Paul, who now stood before him. But the words of the wise are precious;

this peer of princely descent opened not his mouth, save to take sip after sip of a cup of coffee which smoked at his side on a table of ivory and gold, or to speak to his favourite baboon, which sat beside. him with something of the demure look of a familychaplain.

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"Ah! Monsieur Baboon," said the Marquis, you drop down your brows at the Chevalier and grin. See you not that he comes from the land where Lord Monboddo says there are creatures found among the hills which have not wholly grown out of the monkey into the man? But courage! you are not of a kin: he is from the sea and you are from the wood; and he has besides that maritime sort of savour about him which suits not the nerves of a nobleman." This was spoken with that pleasant sort of air, and in that gentle tone of good nature, which seldom give lasting pain. Paul walked up to the couch where the Marquis and his favourite sat, and with a low bow said, in the same tone, "Most noble Marquis, I come from the high seas with two of the enemy's ships of war and twelve of their richest merchantmen. May my deeds meet your approbation, and may you have the goodness to permit me to proceed to Paris to pay my respects to his Majesty, these are his commands to that effect." So saying, and making a low bow, he offered the letter of Louis to the companion of the Governor. The Marquis Chamont sprung to his feet: his

well-powdered wig squandered a pound of perfumed flour on the baboon as he rose : he seized Paul by the hand, and, half choking with laughter, cried, "Well and wittily done, brave Chevalier Paul Jones!-most of your puddle-blooded islanders would have grown sulky had I served them so. But wits, Chevalier, understand one another, wit answered by wit is de Chamont's motto. You have not breakfasted-comee-a cup of coffee from a gold vessel which cooled the thirst of Louis the blessed on the burning sands of Palestine will do you no harm. All brave men love the sight of such things; and our greatest maritime warrior will be pleased to drink from an ancient hero's cup. All gallant spirits, Chevalier, are of good descent, the Chamonts can look on their tree of genealogy with the proudest in France, a growth of fifteen hundred years without one rotten branch. You have no such lineages in your little mercantile island, Chevalier."

"We have lineages, so please your Excellency," said Paul, to which the proudest in France is but a descent of yesterday. We have the pride of Wales, the vanity of Ireland, and the romance of Scotland,-long lines of imaginary monarchs, whole dynasties of barefooted barbarians, and the shadowy images of northern kings, who fill up the regal procession from Fergus down to Kenneth. France has nothing so old and absurd as our island pedigrees."-"Ah! Chevalier Paul Jones," an

swered the Marquis, laughing, "your cold and foggy island has spared us one gallant warrior, one pretty wit, and I thank it. But you must see my daughter, Chevalier, the last of the ancient line of de Chamont." He moved a small silver bell, and presently the rustling of satins and the titter of maidens' tongues announced her approach. The folding doors flew open, and, with sails spread and colours flying, the daughter of de Chamont sailed into the centre of the room, and placed herself alongside of her maritime visitor with all the freedom of one who disregarded etiquette, and who thought easy gaiety and unabashed address the true tokens of natural as well as descended greatness.

This noble dame scarcely awaited the end of introductory ceremony and greeting, and Paul had obtained but one glance of her beautiful person and splendid dress, when she thus addressed him : -"I bid you welcome to France, Chevalier, from the island of long pedigrees and dames who love devotion. You are now in the land of true gallantry and polite philosophy; so be seated, Chevalier, and tell me, do the dames of England laugh with Voltaire and weep with Rousseau, and have they discarded paint, patches, and pomatum ? All men, Chevalier, are by nature equal-are born in innocence-and, following the ways of nature, they arrive at the pure majesty of truth. The majesty of truth leads to the revelation of equality, fraternization, to universal liberty and national citizen

ship. A crown, Chevalier, is but dirty gold,—a mitre is valuable only for its metal and gems,devotion is but the dull daily observance of religious etiquette,-rank, upon which the noble de Chamont prides himself, is in his daughter's eyes no better than the tarnished embroidery of a wornout garment, and the ceremonious embarrassment which the church opposes to the free intercourse of the sexes is an impudent toll levied by presumptuous priests on the noblest passion of our nature. Truth, freedom, and fraternization, these are the gods man should bow to, and to which woman should be priestess. Come, Chevalier, confess yourself a convert from over-scrupulous Calvin to the new philosophy."

Full sorely was Paul perplexed in shaping a proper answer. In the young lady's speech he discovered something like his own democratic notions run mad. "I must indeed own, noble lady," he answered, "that my wish is for man to hold rank in the world according to his genius and his usefulness. Rank has much idle embroidery about it, religion many ridiculous and unessential ornaments, and the matrimonial contract between the sexes has sometimes held hearts together for their mutual misery and torment. Yet rank is a proper institution were it restored to its original purposes,—religion, were it disencumbered of the glittering trappings and golden restraints of man's invention, would be a blessing to the