"And I artiste," said Sydonie; and then she added, "Monsieur and neighbour, will you do me the honour to dine and pass the evening with me?"

"Ah, mademoiselle, although the proposal opens the portal of heaven to me, it will not open those of my chamber, which are unfortunately double-locked." "You shall not the less dine with me," replied Sydonie. "Listen: I am about

to re-enter my room, where I will knock at the roof at a spot where there is a hole, only stopped up by a bit of wood, which you can easily remove; and although each in his and her own appartement, we shall almost be together."

Rodolphe set to work at once: the labour was more agreeable than writing at his uncle's manual, and in five minutes a communication was established between the two rooms.

"The hole is very small," said Rodolphe, "but there will be still room enough to pass my heart to you."

I hope, also," said Sydonie, "for me to pass the plates to you; so make ready, for the dinner is waiting."

Rodolphe let down his turban tied to a string, and brought it up again loaded with eatables, and the poet and the actress set to work dining together, yet each in a separate room. Rodolphe devoured the pastry with his teeth, and Mademoiselle Sydonie with his eyes.

"Alas! mademoiselle," said Rodolphe, when they had terminated their repast, "thanks to you, my stomach is satisfied; will you not also satisfy the yearnings of my heart, which has also been fasting for a prolonged period of time?"

"Poor youth!" said Sydonie, and, mounting upon the table, she gave Rodolphe her hand, and he loved it with kisses.

"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, "what a pity you cannot do like St. Denis, and lift up to me your head in your hands!"

This not being a very feasible performance, the host and her guest were obliged to content themselves with an animated conversation, during the course of which Rodolphe related the history of the " Vengeur," and Mademoiselle Sydonie requested to be permitted to hear the renowned but unfortunate drama. Rodolphe did not require much pressing, and Sydonie expressed herself so much charmed with it, that she resolved upon getting it received at the Luxembourg. This agreeable interchange of literary, artistic, and amatory favours was, however, interrupted by the heavy step of the smoke-curer coming along the passage. Rodolphe had only just time to close the aperture when M. Monetti made his appearance, bearing a letter in his hand.

"Look," he said to his nephew, "here is a letter that has been running after you for a month."

"Let me see," said Rodolphe. "Oh, uncle! my dear uncle!" he exclaimed, "I' am rich. This letter announces that I have gained a prize of 300 francs at the Floral Games. Quick, my clothes, that I may go and gather my laurels."

"And my chapter on Ventouses ?" asked Monetti, very coldly.

"Oh, uncle! that is not the question now; give me back my clothes. I cannot go out in this dress."

"You shall not go out till my manual is finished," said the uncle; and once more he shut in the poet with a double turn of the key.

Left alone, Rodolphe did not hesitate long upon the line of conduct to pursue. He made a sheet fast to the rails of his balcony, and, notwithstanding the danger of the descent, he let himself down by this extemporised ladder to the balcony of Mademoiselle Sydonie's appartement.

"Who is there?" exclaimed the latter, upon hearing some one knock at the window.

"Silence!" whispered Rodolphe, "and open!"

"What do you want? Who are you?"

"Can you ask the question? I am the author of the Vengeur,' and I have come to seek for my heart, which I let fall through an aperture in the roof." "Unfortunate young man," said the actress, "you might have killed yourself." "Listen, Sydonie," continued Rodolphe, as he showed her the letter he had received; "you see fortune and glory smile upon me. May love do so likewise." The next morning, with the aid of a masculine disguise, which Sydonie procured for him, Rodolphe made his escape from his uncle's house, and hastened away to the secretary of the Academy of Floral Games, from whom he received a prize of a hundred crowns, which lasted as long as the roses.

A month afterwards, M. Monetti received an invitation from his nephew to be present at the first representation of the "Vengeur." Thanks to the talent of

Mademoiselle Sydonie, it had seventeen representations, and brought forty francs to its author.

Some time afterwards-it was in summer time-Rodolphe lived in the avenue of St. Cloud, in the third tree on the left hand side as you go out of the Bois de Boulogne, upon the fifth branch.

It was not always thus with Rodolphe; there were gleams of sunshine in his existence, but they passed by like April visitations. Rodolphe was no exception to the rule that poets are cheerful, social, indulgent. Byron sanctioned a morbid notion, entertained by a few sentimental, moody natures, that genius is a source of unhappiness to its possessors; but, as Jeffrey justly objected, in the whole list of our English poets, only two, Shenstone and Savage-two certainly of the lowest-were querulous and discontented. Cowley, indeed, used to call himself melancholy, but he was not in earnest, and, at any rate, was full of conceits and affectations, and has nothing to make us proud of him. Shakspeare, the greatest of them all, was evidently of a free and joyous temperament; and so was Chaucer, their common master. We have before us a little book, very nicely got up, prettily illustrated, and written in excellent taste, by, we believe, a son of Mr. Effingham Wilson, the well-known publisher, which ventures to advocate the poet's cause, even in these busy, industrious, utilitarian days. "The poet," says Mr. William Wilson, "hates task-work at all ages and periods of his existence; but it is a vulgar error to suppose that he does not labour. His work is as unceasing in its onward course as is the flight of time, and the rise of his ever-soaring spirit as certain as the ascent of sound." And in another sentence, worthy of the most genial poetic nature, the same young author says, "The large love and sympathy of the great poet's heart is fiercely world-tried, because throughout existence battling with the world, as the potent history of the lives of these saddened beings too plainly displays." The world calls it improvidence but the poet's improvidence is too often generosity, love, self-abnegation. We must, however, turn to the history of our eccentric friend, the author of the "Vengeur," for further amusing illustrations of poetic life.

It was the 19th of March, and were he to attain the advanced age of M. Raoul Rochette, who was at the building of Nineveh, Rodolphe will never forget that date; for that very day, the festival of St. Joseph, at three o'clock in the afternoon, he received at a banker's the sum of 500 francs in the current, sonorous coin of the realm.

The first use that Rodolphe made of this slice of Peru which had fallen into his pocket, was not to pay his debts; as he had inwardly taken oath to be economical and have no extras. He had, besides, well-considered views upon the subject of expenditure--one which he particularly insisted upon being, that before thinking of the superfluous we ought to procure that which is necessary,-and it was in illustration of this principle, that he resolved not to pay his creditors, but bought himself instead a Turkish pipe that he had a long time coveted.

Having effected this first outlay, he directed his steps to the house of his friend Marcel, who had for some time past given him the advantage of a home. As Rodolphe walked into the artist's study, his pockets chimed like village-bells on a festival. When Marcel heard this unusual sound, he thought it was a neighbour of his, a great gambler in the stocks, passing in review the profits of some recent transaction.

"That abominable intriguer of the next room," he muttered to himself, "is once more at his epigrams. If this is to last, I will give notice to quit. It is impossible to work with such a noise. It makes one think of giving up the profession of poor artist, and enlisting in the forty thieves." And without an idea that his friend

A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject. By William Wilson, Author of "A House for Shakspeare," &c. Darton and Co.

Rodolphe was metamorphosed into a Croesus, Marcel set once more to work at his great picture of the passage of the Red Sea, which had been upon the easel for three years.

Rodolphe had not spoken a word, so full was he of an experiment that he was about to try upon his friend. "We shall have a glorious laugh presently," said he to himself, as he let a five-franc piece fall upon the ground. Marcel turned round and looked at Rodolphe, who was as serious as an article in the Quarterly. He then took up the coin and looked at it most graciously, for, although a Bohemian, he knew how to behave himself, and was always civil to strangers. Besides, he was aware that Rodolphe had gone out to touch some money, so he contented himself with admiring the results, without asking any questions as to how the same had been brought about.

He accordingly resumed his work without an observation, and finished drowning an Egyptian in the waves of the Red Sea. Just as he accomplished this homicide Rodolphe let another five-franc piece fall. And, as he watched for the effect upon the artist, he laughed in his beard, which every one knows is tricoloured. At the sound of the metal, Marcel turned round as if he had received an electric shock, exclaiming,

"What, is there another stanza ?"

A third piece rolled on the floor, then another and another, and then another again, till a whole quadrille of crown-pieces were dancing in the room. Marcel began to show evident symptoms of mental aberration; as to Rodolphe, he laughed like the pit of the Théâtre François at the first representation of "Jeanne de Flandre." Suddenly, and without any discretion, Rodolphe brought out whole handsful from his pockets, and the crowns began a fabulous steeple-chase. It was the overflow of the Pactolus-a bacchanalian representation of Jupiter's visit to Danaë.

Marcel was at once dumb and motionless. Astonishment produced the same effect upon him that curiosity did upon the wife of Lot; and by the time that Rodolphe had thrown down his last pile of a hundred francs, he had one side of his body salted. Rodolphe, on his side, continued to laugh immoderately; by the side of that roar, one of Mr. Sax's orchestras would have been but as the sighs of an infant at the breast.

Dazzled, stupified by his emotion, Marcel fancied that he was troubled with a dream; and to drive away the nightmare that thus besieged him, he bit his finger till it bled, the pain of which proceeding made him shout again. He then perceived that he was really awake, and seeing the coin scattered on the floor, he took Rodolphe by the hand and asked him to give him an explanation of the mystery.

"If I explained it to you it would no longer be one," replied the poet, as he gathered up the crown-pieces, and placing them in piles on the table, he retired a few steps to contemplate them respectfully.

"There cannot be less than six thousand francs," said Marcel to himself, as he also looked at the piles. "I have an idea. I must get Rodolphe to buy my 'Passage of the Red Sea." "

But Rodolphe had assumed a theatrical attitude, and with great solemnity of tone and gesture, he addressed himself to the artist as follows:

"Marcel, the fortune which I have displayed to you is not the result of any vile manœuvres; I have not prostituted my pen; I am rich, but honest; this gold has been given to me by a generous hand, and, I have sworn to utilize it by making it acquire a serious position for a virtuous man. Work is the most holy of duties."

And a horse the most noble of animals," interrupted Marcel. "Come," said he, "what does this discourse mean? You have dug that prose, I suppose, from out of the quarries of your common sense!"

"Do not interrupt me, and a truce to your railleries," said Rodolphe; "besides that they will fall blunted by the cuirass of an invulnerable will, with which I am for the future invested."

"Well, a truce, then, to your prologue. Let us hear what all this is to end in." "I will tell you, then, what my projects are. Placed beyond the material troubles of life, I intend to work seriously; I shall finish my great work, and I shall take my proper place in public opinion. In the first place, I renounce Bohemia; I shall dress myself like the rest of the world; I shall have a black coat, and I shall frequent saloons. If you will tread in my footsteps we will continue to live together; but you must adopt my programme. The strictest economy must preside over our existence. By knowing how to control ourselves, we have

before us three months of labour assured without any anxiety. But, as I before said, strict economy will be necessary."

"Friend," said Marcel, "economy is a science that can only be studied to advantage by the rich-you and I are ignorant even of the first elements. Nevertheless, by making an outlay of six francs, we can purchase the works of M. Jean Baptiste Say, a very distinguished economist, and he will no doubt teach us the principles of the art. Where, by-the-by, did you get that Turkish pipe from ?"

"I bought it," answered Rodolphe, "for twenty-five francs."

"What! twenty-five francs for a pipe, and you speak of economy?"

"Yes; this is most certainly an element in the art," answered Rodolphe. "Every day I broke a pipe of two sous, and at the end of the year the expense amounted to more than the sum which I have invested in so truly an economical manner."

At this moment a neighbour's clock chimed six.

"It is dinner-time," remarked Rodolphe. "On the subject of dinners I should wish to make a reflection. We lose every day much valuable time in cooking; now, time is the wealth of the labourer; we must, therefore, be economical with it. From this day henceforth we will dine at the restaurant's."

Yes," said Marcel, "only twenty steps hence there is an excellent restaurant; the house is somewhat expensive, but it is in the neighbourhood; we shall not have so far to go, and we shall make up the difference by the gain of time."

"Well, let us go to-day," said Rodolphe, "but to-morrow we will adopt a still more economical plan. Instead of going to the restaurateur, we will hire a cook." "No, no," interrupted Marcel, "let us rather hire a servant, who will be our cook at the same time. Only consider the innumerable advantages to be derived from such a system. He will blacken our boots, wash our brushes, carry our messages; we may even teach him so much of art as will enable him to do some of the rough work. By that means we shall economise at least six hours a day." "Ah!" said Rodolphe, "I have another notion. But let us go and dine." Five minutes afterwards the two friends were installed in a box at the neighbouring restaurant's, and they continued, as they discussed a repast of unusual magnificence, to discuss also further economical projects.

"A servant," said Marcel," will add to our respectability."

"True," answered Rodolphe. "We will obtain one who is intelligent, so that I can teach him to correct my proofs."

"It will be a resource for him in his old days," said Marcel, as he examined the bill, which presented an astounding total of fifteen francs. "Why,” he continued, 66 we generally dine for thirty sous."

"Yes," said Rodolphe, "but we dined badly; so much so, that we required supper at night. It is more economical to dine well at once."

"You are always in the right," said Marcel, overcome by his friend's logic; "shall we work to night?"

"I cannot. I am going to see my uncle, and acquaint him with my good luck; he will give me some sound advice."

"Well, I shall go to the old Jew, Medicis, to ask him if he has not any pictures to restore. By-the-by, lend me five francs."

"What for?"

"To pass the Pont des Arts."

"Oh! that would be an unnecessary expense, and, although trifling, still it would be opposed to the principles we have laid down."

"True," said Marcel; "I can pass by the Pont Neuf, but then, if I go round that way to save the toll of the Pont des Arts, I shall want a cab."

The two friends parted, each taking a different direction, but which, by some strange chance, led them both to the same place, where they arrived, also, at about the same moment.

"What, was not your uncle at home?" inquired Marcel.

"What, did not you find Medicis?" retorted Rodolphe, and they both burst out laughing. Nevertheless, they got home at an early hour-the next morning.

Two days afterwards, Rodolphe and Marcel were completely metamorphosed. Dressed at the height of fashion, they were so changed in appearance, that when they met they hesitated for the privilege of addressing one another.

In other respects their system of economy was in full play. But the organisation of labour was very difficult to realise. They had taken a servant; a big fellow, native of Switzerland, and of rare intelligence. Indeed, he was too good to be made

a drudge of, and he had all the consciousness of a high calling. If one of his masters gave him a small parcel to carry, Baptiste, that was his name, blushed with indignation, and employed a messenger. But what he stood unrivalled in was his art of smoking Marcel's cigars, after lighting them with Rodolphe's manuscripts.

One day Marcel wanted Baptiste to sit in the costume of Pharaoh, in his picture of the "Passage of the Red Sea." Baptiste was so indignant at the proposal, that he asked for his salary.

"It is well," said Marcel, to a servant who presumed to ask for his salary; "I will make it up this very evening."

When Rodolphe came in his friend intimated to him that it was necessary to dismiss their domestic, as he was actually of no use whatsoever.

"No use at all," replied Rodolphe; "he would not go to the library to collect the notes I wanted."

"He would not sit for Pharaoh," said Marcel; "and he has prevented me completing my great picture."

"Let us send him away; he prevents our working."

"Decidedly; but if we dismiss him, we must pay him."

"Well, we will pay him; but he shall go. Give me some money, and I will balance his account."

"Money! why, you know it is not me who keeps the chest; it is you."

"Not at all; it is you," said Rodolphe; "you were charged with the general superintendence of household affairs."

"But I assure you I have no money," exclaimed Marcel.

"What! Is it possible that there is no more money? It is impossible! One cannot spend 500 francs in eight days, especially when living as we have done, with the strictest regard to economy. Let us verify our accounts," said Rodolphe," and we shall discover where the error lies."

"Yes," said Marcel; "but we shall not find the money."

Here is a specimen of the account, kept under the auspices of a severe economy: "19th March. Received 500 francs. Expended: A Turkish pipe, 25 francs; dinner, 15 francs; divers expenses, 40 francs.”

"What are the divers expenses?" inquired Rodolphe of Marcel, who was reading. "Oh, that is the night that we did not come home till morning; it saved us the expense of fire and lights."

"Go on then."

"March 20th. Breakfast, 1 franc 50 cents; tobacco, 20 cents; dinner, 2 francs; an opera glass, 2 francs 50 cents. The glass," continued Marcel, "stands to your account. What could you want a glass for, when your sight is perfectly good?" "You know I had to write a critical article for the Echarpe de l'Iris. It is impossible to criticise paintings without an opera glass. It was a legitimate expense. What next?"'

"A silver-headed cane

"Ah! that is to your account," said Rodolphe; "you did not want a cane." "The 21st, we breakfasted out, dined out, and supped out," continued Marcel, without vouchsafing an answer to Rodolphe's interruption.

"Well, we could not spend much that day?"

"No, not more than thirty francs."

"What in ?"

"I don't remember," said Marcel. "It is recorded under the vague and perfidious title of divers expenses."

"The 22nd, the day that Baptiste came into our service, we gave him five francs on account. An organ-grinder fifty cents. For the purchase of four little Chinese children, condemned to be thrown into the Yellow River, by parents of incredible barbarity, 2 francs 40 cents.

"The 23rd, nothing indicated. 24th, the same. These were two good days. The 25th gave to Baptiste three francs on account."

"It seems to me," said Marcel, reflecting, "that Baptiste has had a good deal on account."

"We shall owe him so much the less," answered Rodolphe; "go on."

"The 26th of March. Divers expenses, useful in the point of art, 36 francs 40 cents.

"What can we have purchased that was so useful to art?" inquired Marcel. "Don't you remember. It was the day that we ascended the towers of Notre Dame to enjoy a bird's-eye view of Paris."