I end this book, which touches the spring of 1800. Arriving at the close of my first career, I see opening before me the writer's career; from a private individual I am about to become a public man; I leave the virginal and silent retreat of solitude to enter the dusty and noisy cross-roads of the world; broad day is about to light up my dreamy life, light to penetrate my kingdom of shadows. I cast a melting glance upon those books which contain my unremembered hours; I seem to be bidding a last farewell to the paternal house; I take leave of the thoughts and illusions of my youth as of sisters, of loving women, whom I leave by the family hearth and whom I shall see no more. We took four hours to cross from Dover to Calais. I stole into my country under the shelter of a foreign name: doubly hidden beneath the obscurity of the Swiss La Sagne and my own, I entered France with the century[360]. [247] This book was written in London between April and September 1822, and revised in February 1845.--T. [248] Cat. LXV. 9-11.--T. [249] M. A. Dulau was a Frenchman, and had been a Benedictine at Sorèze College. He emigrated and opened a shop in Wardour Street, London.--B. [250] OV., _Fasti_, VI. 772.--T. [251] Charlotte Suzanne Marie de Bedée (1762-1849), whom Chateaubriand called Caroline, survived him, and died at Dinan on the 28th of April 1849.--B. [252] Marie Anne Cuppi (1710-1770), known as the Camargo, and a famous dancer, was born in Brussels of a reputed noble Spanish family. She made her first appearance at the Opera in Pans in 1734, and continued to dance there until 1751, when she retired from her profession. Voltaire addressed a piece of verse to her.--T. [253] David Hume (1711-1776). His History of England, published from 1754 to 1761, goes down to 1688, whence it is continued by Smollett.--T. [254] Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771). That portion of his complete _History of England_ which embraces the period from the Revolution to the death of George II. is generally treated as carrying on Hume's History, and is printed as a continuation of that work.--T. [255] Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._--T. [256] William Robertson (1721-1793), a "moderate" historian, author of a History of Scotland, a History of Charles V., and a History of America.--T. [257] John Dryden (1631-1700), Poet-Laureate.--T. [258] Alexander Pope (1688-1744). His house at Twickenham stood on the site of the modern Pope's Villa, now the property of Mr. Henry Labouchere, M.P. The willow became rotten and was cut down.--T. [259] The Rev. Hugh Blair ( 1718-1800), Professor of Rhetoric at Edinburgh University, and author of the _Lectures on Rhetoric_ and a collection of famous Sermons.--T. [260] Dr. Samuel Johnson ( 1709-1783), author of the Dictionary and the _Lives of the English Poets._--T. [261] Addison and Steele's _Spectator_ ran for nearly two years, from January 1711 to December 1712.--T.