I am weary, I am weary! Cometh not across my breast Transient thought of that which shall be, presage of better rest? And the sounds of early spring-time with an inner meaning fraught, Seem the last notes of a requiem from some old minster brought; Solemn mass for gentle spirits, the unsullied and the true, Gone with all their bright aspirings, like the fragrant morning dew. Yet the visions of their soulful glance, and the intellectual brow, The memory of their poet words, is present with me now! Oh! I would that I were slumbering where moaneth the sea-wave, Where the setting sun might linger with a smile upon my grave! Emblems fit of life's dark heaving, and of that blessed shore Where these weary DREAMS and MEMORIES shall sadden me no more! A FIRST NIGHT OF RACINE. FROM DE JOUY'S 'HERMITE' OF THE FOURTH OF JANUARY, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE. Voila de vos arrets, Messieurs les Gens de Gout! PRIOR LA METROMAINE. Every-body has a hobby-horse, as the English say, on which he is mounted, even when sneering at the steeds of his neighbors. The wits themselves are not exempt from this mental preoeccupation, which brings every taste to bear upon only one point. Some ruin themselves in books, some in pictures and statues, others in minerals, shells, or medals. The bibliomaniac, the picture-dealer, the naturalist, the numismatist, all appear to me equally absurd. I speak of course of those who have the collecting mania without the love of science. They play at science as we play at cards, and the ridiculous part of the matter is, the perfect seriousness with which they do it. One of my friends has become infatuated with a taste which is much less common; one that he brought back with him from his travels, together with albums, mnemonics, and Kant's Philosophy. It is a taste for autograph letters. It is well known that the English, who are always ready to confound what is rare with what is really admirable, are very successful in their curiosities of this kind. They collect them at a great expense, and employ skilful engravers to reproduce fac-similes for second-rate amateurs, whose whole fortune would not suffice for the acquisition of the originals. Last week I came upon my friend the autographist, just as he was receiving a note of Boileau, of only four lines, in which he regrets that he cannot dine the next day with a Mr. Le Vasseur. This note, written in the most simple style, contained no anecdote, nor curious fact, and was only remarkable for a fault in its orthography. So that all the respect I have for our great critic did not prevent me from testifying some surprise, when I saw my friend pay ten Louis for a paper rag of no value at all.