J " 'Tis past the hour-the gates are closed, "I'm wet," cried Harry, "to the skin; "Humph!" growl'd the greedy old curmudgeon, Cursing the rain which never stopp'd, Because no shilling had been dropp'd; Of Harry mimicking old Ben. "Who's there? - 'Tis really a disgrace PETER "Psha! Mr. Dashing "No: all, or none- Drew out the "Surely you 'll gi "Psha! Mr. Dashington: remember, I'm stripp'd;---'tis raining cats and dogs." As a whole company of hogs: "No: all, or none-a full acquittance : Drew out the guinea, and restored it. "Since, as you urge, I broke your rest, And you're half drown'd, and quite undress'd, I'll give you leave to go to bed." ROUSSEAU'S HERMITAGE. O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi ROUSSEAU Parisian, who pronounce mond Hill would be no the wood and water, for and the prospect is pr matter. The town its would be little known Hermitage, and the in whose accommodation a blishment of donkeys i choosing to avail our walked along a windin of attraction, and Kere and most pastoral sce of the path left some left, thickly planted had yet seen. elimb this ascent, ar shade of outspreading girls dancing quadril day costume, (for it of crimson cotton go worked caps; while bank into an orche benches, or reclinin whole assemblage. matic than the dres semble of this pict nothing could be m than the air of the neous effusion of dered doubly attra O WHAT picturesque, what romantic associations did I connect with this spot! A hermitage in the midst of woods is abstractedly scenic and piquant to the fancy; but when I recollected the glowing and pastoral beauties with which this morbid enthusiast had invested it in his Confessions-when I called to mind that he had here composed some of his most touching effusions, and had attributed their fervour to the inspiration of these sylvan and sequestered haunts, my imagination was disposed to run riot in the luxuriance of its rural shadowings. I had determined, however, that the Hermitage itself was a kind of Swiss cottage, somewhat like those in the gardens of the little Trianon, the trellis-work of whose latticed windows was nearly hidden by clusters of roses, jessamin, and honeysuckle; while acacias, mountain-ash, laburnum, and other flowering trees, gracefully threw their varicoloured foliage over the roof, contrasting finely with the gigantic boughs and impenetrable shade of the forest in which the whole was embowered. Alas! this inauspicious day was but a tissue of disappointments. After toiling up the hill of Montmorency, I looked around me, and if its valley be in reality what it is generally stated to be,-one of the most picturesque and romantic spots in France, -I can only say, So much the worse for France. I agree with the The i 1! ssociations ige m誌| quant Wing 800 enthusar called 'his mor fervour ed haunts the lux etermined d of Si ns of the iced wi jessamii. sh, labur rew ther ng finelt shade di 1. Als sappoint prener. I ity wha st pict only sor with the Parisian, who pronounced that the view from Rich- 1 J the parties concerned, by the absence of men, who in this country are in woeful discordance with all pastoral associations. Unwillingly quitting this primitive scene, we bent our steps to the Hermitage, which we found to be a common-place, square, vulgar house, in the court-yard of which stood a carriage, no very hermitlike appendage. Passing through some shabby rooms, we were ushered into the far-famed garden, a small, formal, square enclosure, surrounded by walls, in one corner of which was a poor bust of Jean-Jacques, with some lines by his quondam patroness; in another was a bust of Gretry, the musician, who tenanted the house after Rousseau; and at the extremity was a miserable miniature attempt at rusticity, consisting of a cork-screw walk, a gutter with a large stone or two, meant to imitate a cascade and rock, and that indispensable article in all French gardening, a little basin with a jet d'eau. "O what a falling off was here!"Disappointed and dejected, I left this paltry cabbagegarden, resolved to plunge for consolation into the woods of Montmorency; but these have long since gone to warm ragouts and fricandeaus for the epicures of Paris, and nothing now exists but some mathematical rows of poplars, and straggling plantations of young trees and underwood. Yet this dry chalky valley, glaring with white houses-this forest of twigs and young poplars this cockney hermitage, worthy of Mile End or Homerton, the Parisians consider as the beau idéal of all that is wild, sylvan, and romantic; proudly adducing them as irrefragable proofs of the superiority of their own environs, whenever a Lon ROUSSEAU doner ventures to say a Hill. Almost every eminenc pable of affording a vi monarch or mistress for and if Voltaire and othe have fixed their Augu reign of Louis Quator from this standard of p to be expected that s should depart from the ing practised by Le Not and so happily illustr terraces, parterres, clip ture of Versailles. Th ficial style of that age, means of the Academy has stamped itself up left a legible impres Magnificence and ext original ;-its poverty superadded t tion, and this is the c succe ▼ and grounds in the in Circumstances have mony of nature. the trees of a certain of any thing like sc the forest, which imp glades they oversh emotions in the sp |