Although I smiled, while reading this account, the idea of being or having been, one of the actors in the great and extraordinary struggle in La Vendee was very pleasant to me. I thought of it a good deal, and although I had fancied some weeks before that America was the country, of all others, to afford me a peaceful and happy refuge, I now began to long for a return to Europe, to take part in the active scenes which were going on in my native land. A LOSS AND A RECOVERY. I need not dwell upon my course of life during the next few months. Most men have experienced what it is to make one’s way in a strange town, and I do not think it would be very interesting to any one, if I were to give a detailed account of the process of being made a factitious lion of. My good friend the bookseller would have it so in my case: he wanted a lion at that moment: there was no other material at hand, and he made me into a lion. Not a newspaper did I open, without seeing my name in it. If I went to look at Faneuil Hall, or strolled from Court Street to the Common, it was sure to be recorded for the public, and by the mere act of iteration the public were driven by seeing my name every day, to think I must be somebody. But the worst of this lion system is, that it is not always very easy to shake off your lion skin when you are tired of it. I confess I began to be weary of seeing my name in the columns of the journals, and at first I was inclined to correct all the various lies that were told about me, and to assure the people of Boston, in print, that I had never done fifty things I was reported to have done, and never intended to do fifty other things that were sketched out for me by the fertile imagination of various editors. A kind and judicious friend, however, advised me to refrain; and as this little sort of false celebrity obtained for me a great number of most delightful acquaintances, I was obliged to take the good with the bad, and receive much hospitality and kindly and instructive communion, as some compensation for being made to dance grotesquely in the public prints. I lost no opportunity, however, of denying, in private, all that was said about me in public, of telling all my friends in the city that I was not the great man, or the celebrated character I was represented—that I had never been in La Vendee in my life, and had never even seen a battle but that of Zurich. I must do them the justice to say also, that these confessions did not diminish their kindness in the least; and that when they found me to be a very plain, humble person, they were, perhaps, more hospitable and friendly than before. The writing of my book was favorable to me in all respects. It was but a poor affair, it is true; but it saved my little fortune, filled the pockets of the bookseller—for its success was ridiculous, in consequence of all the Charlitanism which was used before it appeared—and it did still more