of this work is to be eclipsed by Madame’s forthcoming quarto of ‘Haroun al Raschid and his Times.’ This, it is whispered, is to be a chef-d’oeuvre, enriched by a chronological arrangement, by a celebrated oriental scholar, of all the anecdotes in the Arabian Nights relating to the Caliph. It is, of course, the sun of Madame’s patronage that has hatched into noxious life the swarm of sciolists who now infest the Court, and who are sapping the husband’s political power while they are establishing the wife’s literary reputation. So much for Madame Carolina! I need hardly add that during your short stay at Court you will be delighted with her. If ever you know her as well as I do, you will find her vain, superficial, heartless; her sentiment a system, her enthusiasm exaggeration, and her genius merely a clever adoption of the profundity of others.” “And Beckendorff and the lady are not friendly?” asked Vivian, who was delighted with his communicative companion. “Beckendorff’s is a mind that such a woman cannot comprehend. He treats her with contempt, and, if possible, views her with hatred, for he considers that she has degraded the character of his pupil; while she, on the contrary, wonders by what magic spell he exercises such influence over the conduct of her husband. At first Beckendorff treated her and her circle of illuminati with contemptuous silence; but in politics nothing is contemptible. The Minister, knowing that the people were prosperous and happy, cared little for projected constitutions, and less for metaphysical abstractions; but some circumstances have lately occurred which, I imagine, have convinced him that for once he has miscalculated. After the arrangement of the German States, when the Princes were first mediatised, an attempt was made, by means of a threatening league, to obtain for these political victims a very ample share of the power and patronage of the new State of Reisenburg. This plan failed from the lukewarmness and indecision of our good friend of Little Lilliput, who, between ourselves, was prevented from joining the alliance by the intrigues of Beckendorff. Beckendorff secretly took measures that the Prince should be promised that, in case of his keeping backward, he should obtain more than would fall to his lot by leading the van. The Prince of Little Lilliput and his peculiar friends accordingly were quiet, and the attempt of the other chieftains failed. It was then that his Highness found that he had been duped. Beckendorff would not acknowledge the authority, and, of course, did not redeem the pledge, of his agent. The effect that this affair produced upon the Prince’s mind you can conceive. Since then he has never frequented Reisenburg, but constantly resided either at his former capital, now a provincial town of the Grand Duchy, or at this castle; viewed, you may suppose, with no very cordial feeling by his companions in misfortune. But the thirst of revenge will inscribe the bitterest enemies in the