and his labours were condemned to oblivion or to scorn, which, to the generous mind, is more fatal still.

"I had contracted debts while abroad, for the payment of which I had relied on the success of my literary undertakings. Disappointed in this, I found, after rigourously discharging the demands of my creditors, I had not money left to support me in what the world calls the style of a gentleman, and I retired to this solitude. The curiosity I at first excited obliged me to shift my abode. Some vague and romantic associations-some reminiscences of the elegance and splendour I had ab jured for ever, induced me to fix myself in the vicinity of the countess of Llanvair. I obtained permission to construct this hut of two apartments. Here, confining my wants to the bare necessaries of life, and my pleasures to those studies which my scanty means still left me the power of pursuing, I trusted to be able to still the tumults of disappointed, but honour

able

able ambition; and not seeing my misery reflected from the altered eyes of men, to cheat myself out of the consciousness of its existence, I beguiled the time by the composition of works of fancy. I called to mind the scenes that I had witnessed, and the legends I had collected, either abroad or in my own country, to which it was possible to give the animated, though chaste colouring of moral romance. They were all that remained to me

Of love that was tender,

And yet could decay;

Of visions, whose splendour

Time wither'd away.'

"the

Yet they were much-yes," continued Trevallyn, with rising enthusiasm, cultivation of literature is its own exceeding great reward.'

Let the man of genius love his muse, and his muse shall reward him with sweet sensations, with pictures and images of beautiful nature, and with a noble generosity of spirit, which can look down with pity or indifference on patrons, who have often as little sense to understand, as liberality to reward him."

• Knox.

Hearing

Hearing our tourist quote verse and prose alternately at this rate, the fair countess would certainly have concluded he was mad, as Mrs. Gyneth had darkly hinted, but for the serious and sad coherence of the story he had previously related. This excited in her benevolent mind an ardent wish to serve him, and she demanded, with an air of the most flattering interest, the subject and scene of Trevallyn's tales.

"I have as yet completed only two," he replied; "the scene of the first of which is laid in Ireland, and the second is an English story; but I have a Spanish, a French, and a German novel seething in my brain; or, to vary the metaphor, each is now like the statue, said, by some fanciful theorist, to exist in the marble block, and only waits my clearing-chisel to start into existence."

"Ere you call them forth,” replied the countess, gaily, "I wish you would write my history, and

'Questi che mai da me non fia diviso."

As she spoke, she turned her doveliké eyes on Herbert, with the chastened rapture of a blessed and virtuous bride." Wė have experienced difficulties that would make no contemptible figure in romance! Had I had as many suitors as Penelope, my guardian would never have been brought to yield his approbation to any of them: but take your own time; I am not ambitious of acting the heroine.To return to your affairs. I am impatient that your tales should see the light. Suppose call them TALES OF A TOURIST ?” "With all my heart, lovely countess; although one of the objects of the first of my tales is to expose the pretensions of the most absurd of the brotherhood."

you

Lady Llanvair resumed" I mean to write to our trusty and well-beloved counsellor, the duchess of duchesses. You are not become such a rustic, Mr. Trevallyn, as not to know who that lady, preeminent for friendliness and taste, must

be;

be; and we will join forces, and maintain against all gainsayers, that the TALES OF A TOURIST deserve a reading. You may then publish without dread of satire.— Ah, Trevallyn!" pursued the countess, after interrupting herself, "I know what that flushed brow and indignant look would say. What! shall I owe my safety or success to patronage, and female patronage too! And why not? The highest rank requires at court some introduction; and would you present yourself, unpatronized, unintroduced, at the awful court of criticism?

For a work of fancy, a lady is a better protector than a professor—a coronet, a more persuasive recommendation than a doctor's cap. In exchange for our more dazzling triumphs in days of yore,

ladies bright' are allowed to wield the sceptre of fashion over the fairy regions of light literature: we no longer award the prize to the victor in the ring; but we adjust the merits of you writers of Utopia;' and since we so often bestow lustre on a

name,