preparation can lead to nothing, and there appear to be no mysteries in which I am to be initiated."

“Then, after all, you want something to do?" "No doubt."

"What shall it be?" inquired Madame de Schulembourg, with a thoughtful air.

"Ah! what shall it be?" echoed Walstein, in accents of despondence; "or rather what can it be? What can be more tame, more uninteresting, more unpromising, than all around? Where is there a career?"

"A career!" exclaimed Caroline. "What you want to set the world in a blaze! I thought you were a poetic dreamer, a listless, superfine speculator of an exhausted world. And all the time you are very ambitious!"

"but I

"I know not what I am," replied Walstein; feel that my present lot is an intolerable burthen."

"But what can you desire! You have wealth, youth, and station, all the accidents of fortune which nature can bestow, and all for which men struggle. Believe me, you are born to enjoy yourself, nor do I see that you require any other career than the duties of your position. Believe me, my dear Mr. Walstein, life is a great business, and quite enough to employ any man's faculties."

66

My youth is fast fading, which I don't regret," replied Walstein, "for I am not an admirer of youth. As for station, I attribute no magic to it, and wealth I only value because knowing from experience its capacity of producing pleasure; were I a beggar to-morrow, I should be haunted by no uneasy sensations. Pardon me, Madame de Schulembourg; your philosophy does

not appear to be that of my friend the Doctor. We were told this afternoon that, to produce happiness, the nature of a being and his career must coincide. Now, what can wealth and station produce of happiness to me, if I have the mind of a bandit, or perhaps even of a mechanic."

"You must settle all this with Augustus," replied Madame de Schulembourg; "I am glad, however, to hear you abuse youth. I always tell Sidonia that he makes his heroes too young, which enrages him beyond description. Do you know him?”

"Only by fame."

"He would suit you. He is melancholy too, but only by fits. Would you like to make his acquaintance?"

"Authors are best known by their writings," replied Walstein; "I admire his, because, amid much wildness, he is a great reader of the human heart, and I find many echoes in his pages of what I dare only to think and to utter in solitude."

"I shall introduce you to him. He is exceedingly vain, and likes to make the acquaintance of an admirer."

"I entreat you not," replied Walstein, really alarmed. "It is precisely because I admire him very much that I never wish to see him. What can the conversation of Sidonia be compared with his writings. His appearance and his manner will only destroy the ideal, in which it is always interesting to indulge."

"Well, be not alarmed! He is not now in Dresden. He has been leading a wild life for some time in our Saxon Switzerland, in a state of despair. I am the unhappy nymph who occasions his present desperation," continued Madame de Schulembourg, with a smile.

"Do not think me heartless; all his passion is imagination. Change of scene ever cures him; he has written to me every week-his letters are each time more reasonable. I have no doubt he has by this time relieved his mind in some mad work which will amuse us all very much, and will return again to Dresden quite cool. I delight in Sidonia-he is my especial favourite."

After some little time the companions re-entered the carriage. The public drive was now full of sparkling equipages. Madame de Schulembourg gaily bowed as she passed along to many a beautiful friend.

"Dear girls, come home with us this eve," she exclaimed, as she curbed her ponies by the side of an open carriage, and addressed two young ladies who were seated within it with their mother. "Let me introduce Mr. Walstein to you-Madame de Manheim, the Misses de Manheim, otherwise Augusta and Amelia. Ask any of our friends whom you pass. There is Emilius-How do you do? Count Voyna, come home with us, and bring your Bavarian friend."

"How is Sidonia, Madame de Schulembourg," inquired Augusta.

"Oh, quite mad. He will not be sane this week. There is his last letter; read it, and return it to me when we meet. Adieu, Madame de Manheim; adieu, dear girls; do not stay long: adieu, adieu." So they drove

away.

IMPROMPTU.

THOUGH Old Thrift be grown richer, he's grown ne'er the wiser
For wealth has no power to add brains to the head.

Of his brains the poor devil need not be a miser,

Since no gold can be found where there's nothing but lead.

C.

MY MAIDEN SPEECH.

I HAD always been considered a youth of some promise, for having got a Latin prize at Oxford, and taken a high degree, though a fever at the time of going up prevented my being in the first class-at least, so my friends were persuaded, from the tameness of my construing, which could not possibly be want of spirit, as my Latin composition shewed so much. The fact was, my prize poem was written for me by a poor servitor, who was educating for the church, in which I had considerable patronage. However, sufficient promise had been evinced to make my friends anxious to procure a seat in the House of Commons for me, and accordingly, through the intervention of Rutter, the attorney, I was returned M. P. for, with the only condition that I should oppose "The Bill,” in every stage. The first object I had, after taking the oaths, was to make a speech, which I thought, for my Aunt told me so, would be amazingly talked of in the upper circles. Should it be a set speech, or an impromptu, or a set impromptu? I inclined to the first, as the easiest, and had no doubt the house would listen to it from me, though I saw them refuse attention to I accormany a pompous rogue who had preceded me. dingly made several splendid sentences about revolution and anarchy, and annihilation of the beautiful fabric; and what pleased me most, I found an appropriate passage in a speech of Dantin's, which my father had heard and

taken down himself, as he told me. I dined early and went down to the house, where I found all the best places taken, and I was obliged to get under the members' gallery, behind Joseph Hume, who was making a thundering speech against close boroughs, and most particularly denouncing the one which I represented. One or two gentlemen whispered that I ought to say something, but I could not, for the life of me, alter or abjure my first sentence, which began, "When the destinies of Europe stood trembling in the balance," &c. &c., and I thought I could never bring in the borough after that; so, while I was trying to turn the destinies of Europe into the fate of Little Aurelin, down plumped Joseph and up jumped a gentleman below him, who began, "Sir, I can assure you I had no intention of addressing the House when I entered it, but the extraordinary speech we have just heard, &c. I immediately thought how much better it would have been for me to try an impromptu, and determined to wait till another night; but after the Hon. Member had spoken about a quarter of an hour, I looked down to see what he was about, and casting my eye into his hat, which he kept waving to and fro, I saw not only the principal heads, but many of the actual sentences written at length in it. I was at first tempted to call him to order, but as I was too young a member, I thought I had better first mention it to some older M.P:, and though I hated Hume, I knew he was an active enemy of all abuses, and as such I directed his attention to the hat; but he took no notice of it, except saying, that the gentleman was a late lord of the Treasury, and he believed he had stolen all the gilt-edge paper in his hat from the public. I determined to listen a little, and what was my horror when my ears were arrested by