Two hours afterwards, weary cries of "Question, question!" "Divide, divide!" sank into reluctant silence as Audley Egerton rose to conclude the debate--the man of men to speak late at night, and to impatient benches: a man who would be heard; whom a Bedlam broke loose would not have roared down; with voice clear and sound as a bell, and form as firmly set on the ground as church-tower. And while, on the dullest of dull questions, Audley Egerton thus, not too lively himself, enforced attention, where was Harley L'Estrange? Standing alone by the river at Richmond, and murmuring low fantastic thoughts as he gazed on the moonlit tide. When Audley left him at home, he had joined his parents, made them gay with his careless gaiety, seen the old-fashioned folks retire to rest, and then--while they, perhaps, deemed him once more the hero of ball-rooms and the cynosure of clubs--he drove slowly through the soft summer night, amidst the perfumes of many a garden and many a gleaming chestnut grove, with no other aim before him than to reach the loveliest margin of England's loveliest river, at the hour the moon was fullest and the song of the nightingale most sweet. And so eccentric a humourist was this man, that I believe, as he there loitered--no one near to cry "How affected!" or "How romantic!"--he enjoyed himself more than if he had been exchanging the politest "how-d'ye-do's" in the hottest of London drawing-rooms, or betting his hundreds on the odd trick with Lord De R---- for his partner. TRANSATLANTIC TOURISTS.[3] [3] _Lettres sur l'Amérique._ Par X. MARMIER. 2 volumes. Paris, 1851. _The United States and Cuba._ By JOHN GLANVILLE TAYLOR. London, 1851. Books of European travel beyond the Atlantic, of rare appearance only a few years ago, bid fair to become plentiful as snags in the Mississippi or buffaloes on the prairies of the West. Emigration, Californian gold, and the perfection of steam-navigation, have brought America to our door. The falls of Niagara now behold as many European visitors as did those of Schaffhausen half a century since; and Broadway is as familiar a word as were the Boulevards before the Peace. Even amidst her own revolutions, embroilments, and alarms, the eyes of Europe have of late been fixed with unusual attention upon the New World. Mexico, California, Cuba--aggrandising wars, treasure-seeking enterprise, piratical aggression--in turn have filled the columns of our newspapers and occupied a large share of our thoughts.