Though nothing can be prettier than the quadrille, when correctly and gracefully danced, it is so difficult to attain any thing like perfection in the performance, that, even at Paris, none make the attempt but the youngest of our beaux and belles; and those who do so devote half their mornings to previous rehearsals. Is it surprising, then, that in England it is rarely well executed? Indeed, nothing can be more absurd to the eye of a Frenchman than to see eight, or, at most, sixteen persons of different ages and figures, monopolizing the attention of a numerous assembly, while some unfortunate girl, disappointed of a partner, plays, unwillingly, the part of the musician at the piano-forte. On such occasions, it seems to me that this fashion has the happy effect of making a small number of individuals ridiculous, and condemning every body

else to give away their evenings in apathy and ill-humour. But before I conclude, I must beg you to understand, that in venturing to tell you how little pleased I am with the ostentatious entertainments which I have attempted to describe, I am far from wishing to insinuate, that real hospitality is effaced from the list of your virtues; for though, certainly, a plain dinner has now become as rare in London as a plain coat was formerly at Paris, I have, at many sumptuous banquets, been received with the utmost cordiality and unaifected kindness.-And though, at the generality of houses, there is more taste displayed in the choice of the dishes than in that of the company, there are not a few, where the selection of persons of corresponding dispositions is never neglected, and it is in such parties that my happiest days. are spent. Farewell.

DE VERMONT.

Eur. May. Vol. 82.

3R

E. N. D.

Ir was about four o'clock in the afternoon of a bleak day in December, that the benevolent Pastor of Arley was returning home to his little parsonage, when, in crossing the church-yard, which lay immediately contiguous, he observed a young man of very shabby yet not vulgar exterior, and whom he did not recognize for a parishioner, resting his folded arms on the gate through which he must necessarily pass. Having arrived at the extremity of the pathway, he waited a minute or two, in the expectation that the stranger would proffer the courtesy of pulling open the wicket, but in vain; he merely retreated a few paces, and allowed Erpingham to perform the service for himself. -A strange face was a rare sight in the obscure village of Arley; and the degree of curiosity, which this alone would have excited in the vicar's mind, was augmented into a feeling of strong interest, by the singular and almost wild expression of the countenance which he caught a glimpse of, as it was half turned towards him and then hastily averted. Erpingham halted; and, in a conciliatory tone, addressed the stranger with a remark on the severity of the weather. A sullen monosyllable was the only reply elicited, the brevity of which only served but to tantalize the spirit of inquiry it seemed intended to repress; he aimed a second observation, and a third, which were no less abruptly disposed of; till, at length, the mild pertinacity of the one overcoming the other's reservedness, Erpingham was enabled to glean, that the stranger was come there from a neighbouring market town, yet without any avowed object, since he was not acquainted with the name of a single inhabitant of the village, and appeared to be devoid of any fixed place of habitation.

A violent gust of wind driving a cloud of sleet full in his face, reminded the pastor of the vicinity of a comfortable fire-side, and he terminated the parley by inviting the stranger to follow him to the cottage before them, which was acceded to by the other, if not with manifest

reluctance, at least without any acknowledgment of the vicar's disinterested civility.

Being entered into the house, Erpingham commended his companion to the hospitality of his housekeeper, in the kitchen, while himself proceeded to partake, alone, of the meal which had been, for the last half hour, waiting his re

turn.

The honours of dinner despatched, he sent for the stranger, and, inviting him to a seat on the opposite side of the fire, renewed his friendly and well-meant questions; when his unwearied affability, and the exhilarating influence of some gooseberrywine, succeeded in dispelling the panoply of gloom and moroseness which had hitherto invested his companion, who was induced, after some hesitation, to confide the particulars of his story, which he did, as concisely as possible, thus:

"My surname," said he, "I would wish to be exempted from communicating; my christian name, which will serve well enough to know and call me by, is Henry. My father, who was a military officer on foreign service, died when I was young, and I was brought up by my mother, who had me educated at à considerable expense, and with, no doubt, great privation to herself, for her pension was but small, not that she ever suffered me to feel the pressure of her poverty. At the age of sixteen, she procured for me a writership to an attorney; she had no interest to do any thing better, in which ocenpation I might have gone on soberly and respectably enough, but that, among the young men in our office, was one, a wild, dissipated fellow, whose frank vivacity of manners led me into extreme intimacy with him, and, at the same time, into all kinds of mischief. I was naturally possessed of a very powerful voice, and a good ear for music; and at all the clubs and convivial meetings, to which he was accustomed to introduce me, my vocal talents acted as a letter of recommendation, and proved a passport to favourable distinction and noisy honour, though seldom attended with any more

substantial advantage. The vehement plaudits, which invariably followed my exhibitions, vibrated on my heart long after they were silent to the ear, until, intoxicated by vanity, I suffered myself to be persuaded by partial, and, probably, incompetent judges, that I was destined to arrive at wealth and fame, as a public singer of the first order; and, having acquired a smattering of musical knowledge, resolved to abandon the drudgery of penmanship for the free and roving life of a player, and obtained, through the patronage of one of my social friends, an engagement with, of course, a very low salary, at one of the minor theatres of the metropolis.

"I had not been long on the stage before one of the girls, who was principal dancer belonging to our company, cajoled me into marrying her. We had one little boy, (thank heaven he's dead), and, for nearly three years, lived tolerably merry together; till my Jezabel of a wife thought proper to go off with our head tragedian. I would not appear to grieve greatly for her loss at the time, but quitted my quarters, to rid myself of the mockery of pity, that secretly derided my misfortune, and united myself to a strolling troop in the West of England, with whom I remained for several years. I then again visited London, and was permitted to make a first, and, alas! a last appearance at one of the theatres-royal.

"This failure of my fondest hopes, this fall from the summit of my ambition, just as I had touched the height, together with the regret which I have since felt for my wife's treachery, and the numberless mortifications and disappointments to which those of our profession are perpetually subject, have, perhaps, operated on a naturally sanguine and irritable temperament to render me cynical and misanthropic.

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About a fortnight ago I came to Atherstone, having concluded a treaty with Mr. W the manager, to perform at his theatre there; but, in my journey down on the outside of the coach, I caught a cold attended with such an inveterate hoarseness, as to utterly incapacitate me from fulfilling my engagement; I did in

deed make one essay, but was so hooted for the attempt, that I was compelled to cancel my articles altogether, while the gentleman, who undertook to supply my place, has succeeded triumphantly. I applied to an apothecary at Atherstone, who, after drenching me with emulsions and pectoral draughts, declared that it might be several months before I regained my voice; I paid his bill with my last shilling, and left a small portmanteau to discharge my reckoning at the inn, since when, not choosing to shew my face at Atherstone where I am known, I spend the day in loitering about the adjacent villages, and sleep at night wherever I can find shelter; and I am not ashamed to confess it, had not tasted food for nearly eight and forty hours, till your liberality supplied me with a dinner. So here I am, a prisoner at large, a being isolated in society, without a single penny in my pocket, nor the means nor prospect of procuring one; I am anxious to get back to town, but have neither cash, clothes, nor credit to carry me there."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Erpingham, with an unfeigned expression of sympathy; "yours is a pitiable case, truly; but take heart, young man; we will see what can be done for you; you want to go to London; what, is your mother there ?" " My mother! no; thank God, she's saved from seeing me come to want bread. No; it was among the rest of my agreeable reflexions in the church-yard just now, that I was dutiful and grateful enough to break her heart; but she's better off in heaven than here; that is, if there be any such place.'

"I am sorry to find you have any doubt upon the subject," said the pastor, placidly.

"Why, I guess you can't pretend to be over certain about it," rejoined Henry.

"So certain, that if I was anxious to disbelieve it I could not. I have been zealously and sincerely employed for thirty years in shewing my parishioners the way to heaven, and a man can hardly be constantly in the habit of giving instruction to others, on any subject whatever, without at the same time teaching something to himself; preaching

txught me to ask myself if the doctrine I preached was sound doctrine, and led me to try the spirits whether they were of God;' I read, sought, examined, weighed, compared, and believed."

What, Sir! believed all the absurdities, and inconsistencies, and impossibilities, that are in the Bible?"

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Every word, every letter of it; the seeming incongruities of the Scriptures are to my mind one of the proofs of their genuineness and authenticity; I do not shut the Bible in despair and disgust because I find in it some things hard to be understood; I should not feel so much reverence for, nor put so much faith in, a Scripture purporting to be a revelation from heaven, if its sublime mysteries were capable of being comprised within the scanty bounds of human comprehension; the ways of God are not as our ways, nor his thoughts like our thoughts.' The foundation of all Christian faith, all Christian virtue, and even of all social kindness, is humility; the impious pride of man disdains the mediatorial doctrine of Christianity, while his sensual and revengeful passions rebel against its precepts; men persnade themselves to think the Bible is not true, be'cause they wish it to be not true."

Well, all I know is, that some of the greatest rogues I ever met with, cheating rascals, fellows who did not mind what they did, so they kept their necks out of a halter, have been mighty good Christians for all that; which convinces me that religion is nothing but a tissue of canting, hypocritical stuff."

"You are under a mistake, my friend; the persons you allude to were no more Christians than they were Mussulmans or Hottentots; a Christian is a character very rarely met with. But as a man's reputation may be more materially injured by a misrepresentation of the truth, than by the propagation of an actual lie, so the cause of Christianity suffers more from being badly supported, than from direct opposition. Suppose, by way of illustration, that a magnificent piece of music, replete with the most sublime and dificult passages, the work of a composer who had lived many cen

turies ago, had been handed down through successive generations to the present. That a large proportion of persons, some because it was customary to know a little of the subject, some in the course of education, some for the purpose of making money by teaching it to others, and some for the real pleasure they derived from listening to its grand and graceful movements, undertook to play over and practise this superb composition; but, suffering more agreeable occupations to allure them from the task, not one in a thousand had mastered the subject sufficiently to be able to afford a correct idea of its beauties; though many could perform a few bars, here a little and there a little, they did not play it so completely throughout, as to produce the sentiments of admiration it was so well calculated to inspire, yet, because this divine production was thus inadequately executed, we should not be warranted in decrying it as an inharmonious jumble of discord : but should rather set to learn the work ourselves, and we should find that the more perfect we became in it, the more we should delight in the study."

"Ay, well, you will never persuade me to be a Christian."

"Yes, I think I could, if I were to attempt it in earnest," said Erpingham, with his wonted serenity of manner; "for, not to insist on the conclusiveness and undeniableness of the internal evidence of Christianity, which, of course, you do not recognize, but to take you merely on your own grounds, to shew you the reasonableness, nay, the policy of adopting the Christian faith; to reduce the question to the lowest footing possible, I would argue, that if it is wisdom in any matter, of two evils to choose the least, it would be the lesser evil to find oneself in a future state in the presence of one God, where we expect ed to meet three, than to encounter the avenging frown of a Saviour, whose existence we had till that mement stoutly denied; and I canrot but think that it would be less offence to the Majesty of heaven, to have believed so plausible a statement as the Bible, though it were not his holy word, than to have