ried his shell (morally) on his back, or rather he found one ready made wherever he showed his front. And what a brazen front it was ! I first met my present hero in a large and mixed society: it was in a sea-port in the South of Europe. It was summer- hot and fiery summer. The sirocco had stolen across the Mediterranean beyond its usual limits, and it stifled the sweet breath of the orange groves, and almost parched and choked the words in the throats of common talkers. But it seemed to give additional freedom to my hero's tongue, and to double the force of his utterance. When he caught my eye he was holding forth to a small group of gaping listeners, among whom were several of his own countrymen, in an olive-grove, close to the tasteful villa where I was invited for the evening. His gesticulations were violent: he defied the heat, and sawed the sirocco with his arms. He spoke English—but not of England. His own great, free, and independent country," its “ elegant and accomplished ladies” (women was a word too vulgar for his national vocabulary), were the general subjects of his discourse, the particular illustration of it was himself. His quarrels with the one sex, and his conquests among the other (like the oaths of Gresset's vert vert) Voltigerient sur son bec. He mentioned no names—I must do that justice to his discretion ; but delicacy had nothing to do with his reserve. He might, even at that distance from the scenes of his pretended exploits, have been caught in a false boast and contradicted. I saw through his character with a glance: it was, indeed, most transparent. I first thought him intoxicated ; and so he was, but not with wine. His excesses did not take that direction : but a vanity of the most strongly pronounced Transatlantic hue tainted his whole character, and turned even his good qualities into corruption. I approached the set of which he was the centre. His sharp eye caught a new-comer, and he was resolved to make an impression. “ Sir,” said he, in reply to a question from one of his youthful interJocutors, who had swallowed his rhodomontade by wholesale, “ Sir, I split him in two with my sabre!" “ And then ?" “ And then I insisted on each half being buried in a separate grave. That's my way of serving an Englander!” As the latter words were pointedly addressed to me, I bowed low, and said, with great gravity “Sir, I wish I could cut myself across, that I might have the honour of serving you in a double capacity.” “Sir, you are infinitely accommodating," said he, with rather a confused air; but he soon recovered his applomb, and continued :—"But do not mistake me, Sir. I hate an aristocrat, I confess; and it was one of those I thus put to death, in a desperate duel one cold morning on the Canadian frontier. Lords are my aversion-from the Lord Lieutenant to the Lord Mayor. I once seized a Lord, Sir, by the waistband of his breeches, and shook him out of a window till he kicked himself into convulsions." “ And what did you do then, Sir ?” Why then I kicked him down stairs !” “ That happened in the back settlements, I suppose ?" “ Exactly so, Sir: you have, perhaps, heard of the affair before ? It is tarnation well known in England." “ New England ?” “New and Old, Sir; and I am well known in both, Sir, believe me. Ay, Sir, and well trusted too : no man stands higher than I do. Let me go to London to-morrow, and who will hold his head above mine? Sir, I am intimately acquainted with the first men in Great Britain.” “ By sight?” “ Ay, Sir, and by touch as well. I am made much of by your Princes -I am the bosom friend of your Ambassadors. Your Ministers know my value, and your Monarch admits my merit. The Duke-the Duke -yes, Sir, his Grace himself takes me under the arm, when he would pass by a Bishop with a careless nod, and would scarcely condescend to say, how d’ye do to a commoner. I tell you this just en passant, not that I care a curse for it. Me! no, not I! I despise aristocrats in my heart. A Duke is no more in my eyes than a grave-digger-a King nothing better than a cow-doctor. A man is a man, Sir-and I am a free-born, high-minded, independent republican!" “ On monarchical principles ?” "Ay, Sir," answered he (shuffling from the question)," principle, principle is everything with me. Principle's my interest, Sir, and I calculate that I am a man that knows what's what. From one end of the Union to the other, north to south, east to west, my principles are notorious. From Niagara to Natchez, from Maine to Massachussets, I might travel on trust, and never want a night's lodging.” “ That you might, Doctor, I'll be bound for you,” said one of the listeners, who I afterwards found to be a captain of a ship from New York, lying in the harbour, and very gullible, considering the place he came from. “Yes, gentlemen,” resumed Bobadil," you may take my word for all I say, for I am not a boaster. Sir (turning to me), when I filled a station of deep diplomatic trust, at a certain Court which shall be nameless, my probity and honour were so imminent, that whenever a wonderful story-a bounce I may say-was going the rounds of the city They laid it at your door ?” “ Just so, Sir, to know if it was genooine." “ That is to say they fathered all the lies upon you ?” “ No, Sir, no; my word was a law, Sir" Which was never broken I'm sure." “ Broken! Sir, it never was even cracked ! Sir, I know all the first men in the world !" “ You have travelled much, no doubt ?” “ I guess I have, Sir. I know all the inns of Europe-ay, and the outs too. Whigs and Tories, Ultras and Liberals-côté droit and côté gauche. Art, science, literature, politics, have all their secrets and their notabilities, but I am up to them all." “Men and things?” D “Nine, Doctor !” exclaimed the Captain. “Ay, and understand six more. Fifteen altogether, Sir, dead and alive.'' “ “ Kill them! twenty more, kill them too.' Isn't it SO, Doctor ?” said I, bursting out into a long-restrained laugh, and thinking of rare old Ben, and “Every Man in his Humour." “Sir,” said he, gravely, and with an effort to look stern, “you don't mean to allude to personal practice, I hope ? No professional insinuations—no Anguis in herba-eh ?” I professed my ignorance of his scientific merits. “ I am satisfied, Sir!” exclaimed he. “ But you might have heard of my reputation without disparagement to that of the first men in France.” “ No doubt,” said I. “ Yes, Sir, I stand on a line, I may safely say, with many of the most distinguished men." “Which end of the line, Doctor ?” asked I. Only that every line has a top and a bottom, that's all.” “ Sir, I know nothing of tops or bottoms, but I know the heads of science all over the world.” “ Personally, Doctor ?" “No, Sir; life's too short for making personal acquaintances. I know eminent men by their works, their contributions to learned recueils, their public lectures, etcetera. But time is too precious to be lost in visits, or wasted in useless talk." “ You are a fast-going traveller, I presume ?” Sir, I get over my ground as fast as I can; but we are sadly deficient in means for speed. We are slow goers, Sir, in this generation." “ Why, are you not satisfied with railroad speed, Doctor ?” “ Railroads ! they are but snail-paced excuses for travelling as yet, Sir. They may, perhaps, suit the jog-trot march of old, corrupt, wornout Europe ; but, in my great and miracle-working country, we think less than 100 miles an hour is time lost—we shall never be satisfied till we come to that.” “ Never! never !" echoed the little knot of Yankee disciples, who swallowed everything he uttered. “Right, gentlemen, right!” exclaimed he, “ never be satisfied while aught is to be attained. Ah, Sir! (to me again) ours is a mighty nation, where the energies of man are gloriously put forth. Gentlemen, (to the Yankees) Alexander wept because he had no new realms to conquer. Think of that, my countrymen !" “ We will-we will!" And, remember, gentlemen, that when Archimedes wanted space to fix a lever that might raise the world, America was not discovered! Do you remember that ?” “ We do-we do!" “ And what were Alexander and Archimedes to our great men-to the gigantic mind of Jackson-to the inexhaustible intellect of Webster? Sir, the men of Europe are pigmies to our high-minded, intelligent, and wonder-working citizens. Sir, your orators, your statesmen, your scholars, are not fit to hold a candle to ours—they are mere bunglers and botchers. But we, Sir, do nothing by halves." “No, Doctor, you go the whole hog." True, Sir, we do, indeed ; to use as an illustration of our power and our vigour, that splendid Orientalism !" “ A splendid what?” “ A splendid Orientalism! Ay, Sir, originally an Orientalism, an image drawn from the profound mysteries of Mohammedan worship. Going the whole hog, Sir, as it is now adapted in realms of Transatlantic refinement, has become an elegant Americanism, a refined appropriation of one of the sublime ceremonies of the East, at which was served up the quarter, the half, or the whole hog, as the case might be. What a noble simplicity of expression! what nervous condensation of thought! Yes, Sir, as you most truly observed to our great honour and glory, we go the whole hog!” “Body and bones, bristles and crackling, spare ribs and pettitoes !" exclaimed I, with another burst of laughter, which did not ruffle my hero in the least, and which the young men around him took very goodhumouredly. The fact was they got rather ashamed of their oracle ; for, though led away a while by his Charlatanic effrontery, their shrewdness and good sense got the better of his egotism and bombast; and he (being quite as quick-sighted as they were) perceived the shift in the wind, and tacked accordingly. He was, in a moment more, in the midst of a party of natives talking French-did I say that this happened in France ?—with prodigious fluency and excellent accent. I could not help admiring the tact with which he adapted himself to the varied moods of his hearers, whether male or female, and the cleverness with which he made himself still the hero of his discourse. He was infinitely entertaining. He was extremely good looking both in face and figure, something about forty years of age, and, as I very soon discovered, a person of talent as well as great knowledge of life and experience. I have no doubt but he would have been a pleasant as well as an amusing companion had not his overweening vanity gone riot as it did, running a muck against truth, taste, principle, and, whenever it suited it, all the conventional practices of good breeding. Among the large party assembled on this occasion there were people of various nations. I fell into conversation with a couple of Spaniards, who were rich in information as to the political state of their country, when Bobadil joined us and soon took a lead in the discourse, turning it, of course, into a new (that is to say, the old) channel_himself. I remarked with some surprise how admirably well he spoke Spanish, like a native, in fact; and I asked him if he had devoted much time to its study? “ Three days, Sir,” said he: “ I shut myself up in my room, went to bed, took a dictionary with me, and learned all the words from beginning to end.” “ And the grammar ?" “ Grammar! any fool can teach himself any grammar in a week, Sir." “ But it is impossible to apply such a rule to you, Doctor." In reply to this compliment he paused, looked full in my face, and then said in a most gracious and patronising tone Sir, I shall be proud if you will favour me with your company at dinner to-morrow. Let me have the honour of presenting you to my wife.” And thereupon he introduced me, as a particular friend of his, to his lady spouse, a very fine and fashionably dressed dame, a Frenchwoman, whose composed and steady manners formed a wide contrast to the flighty ways of her husband. His next display of knowledge was with a German gentleman, and there again he gave a new proof of facility in language that was quite surprising “This almost universal skill of yours, Doctor, arises no doubt from your many diplomatic changes ?” said I. Sir," said he, “ I have had many removals, but no changes. Sir, my principles are like so many rocks. The honour, the glory, the overwhelming ascendancy of my magnanimous nation has been the heart-heaving and spirit-stirring impulse of all my services." And you have served as ambassador ? minister? chargé d'affaires ? secretary of legation ? attaché?" Every one of those questions, rather impertinently curious, I confess, were answered by so many negative shakes of the head. Sir,” said he, with a ludicrous solemnity, " you little know my estimate in the eyes of my own and foreign governments. I am not a man to be employed in the dull drudgery of mere tape-tying, commonplace, official routine. My missions, Sir, were secret ones—missions involving the most intricate mazes of diplomacy-missions on which the fate of the civilised world has more than once hinged. Sir, the man who would buy me at the valuation of the great powers would have no bargain !" Unless, perhaps, he found an opportunity of selling you at your own ?" “ Admitted. Sir, the man who knows his own worth, and rates himself highly" Will never sell himself cheaply. Is not that it, Doctor?” Perhaps it is," answered he, and a faint smile curled the corner of his lip. I thought I knew my man better and better every minute. But I was not yet quite satisfied, so I resolved to pursue the crossexamination. “ Your professions seem to have been multiform, Doctor ?” Sir, my practice has been unique. That is of more moment.” “Your degree is a medical one, I presume? or in theology ? of laws ? music ?" Bobadil did not seem inclined to answer those questions distinctly. He shuffled from them with a pun. Sir," said he," the man who makes his reputation per saltum cannot be said to obtain it by degrees. Doctor, Sir, is a title of great honour “ I honour it highly." “ The immortal Franklin was a doctor, Sir.” “ Indeed!" exclaimed I; whereupon he stared at me as if striving |