Fortune comes in a flood, continues Dumas, for the next day my young friend found an advantageous place, with fifteen thousand francs a year. The story shows how French fortunes are the matter of the hour; it shows how marriage is a thing of French anxiety, and of commercial importance; it shows how fate plays pranks with French mortality, and it shows how Dumas can twist a story out of trifles, and weave a tender romance from a quarrel at a cab-stand! And here we bid Dumas, and French trifles, and Ohio scenery, and the bursting season of new-come summer, our monthly adieu! AN OLD GENTLEMAN'S LETTER. "THE BRIDE OF LANDECK." Indeed, my dear sir, I can not write any thing worth reading. You are very kind--very flattering, when you would persuade me that, at the end of a long life, I can amuse the public, through the pages of your New Monthly Magazine, preoccupied as the great literary stage is with writers of reputation. If I attempt a tale, there are Bulwer, and James, and Dickens, and Hawthorne. If I write a History, there is Macaulay; if an essay, there is Legion. However, I will do my best, and tell you the story of "The Bride of Landeck," that you may make the experiment. Only remember it is none of my seeking. I am like, in one respect, the great statesman of whom my friend, Judge R----, in the character of a cockney, wrote: "He never sought for no prefarment, Instead of that, He turned a rat, To prove that he died varmint." The great difficulty with an inexperienced person is where to begin--whether, with Horace, in the middle--with Count Antoine Hamilton, at the beginning--or, with the late Lord Stowell, at the end? The latter gentleman, by the way, was one of the most extraordinary men I ever met with--full of something more than talent--of genius of the highest order, and, to my mind, far superior in intellect to his more celebrated brother, the Earl of Eldon. His judgments are more elaborately beautiful and eloquent than any that I know, and when interested in a subject, his language was rich, flowing, and easy, beyond that of any man I ever heard speak. Yet I remember his telling me once, that he would rather deliver a judgment, which occupied three whole days--such as that in the Iron Coffin case--than speak five sentences to return thanks for his health being drank after dinner. I will go on with my tale in a moment; but one point in Sir William Scott's (Lord Stowell's) character is interesting. With all his vast erudition and powers of intellect, he was in some respects as simple as a child, and had an uncontrollable passion for curious sights. I remember quite well, when I was in London, more than thirty years ago, walking down the Strand, and seeing the carriage of Lord Stowell, then Sir William Scott, dashing rapidly up toward Charing Cross. I bowed to him, and, on perceiving me, he stretched out his hand, and pulled what is called the check-string, vehemently, as an indication for his