of this chamber the sea appeared boundless, and dashed wildly against the rocks. In the register of my baptism it will be seen that my brother was my godfather, and the Countess de Plouër, daughter of the Maréchal de Contades, my godmother. I was nearly dead when I came into the world. The roaring of the waves, additionally agitated by a hurricane, shewing the approach of the equinoctial gales, prevented my cries being heard: these details have often been related to me; their melancholy nature has never been effaced from my memory; scarcely a day passes, when, pondering over what I have been, that the thought of the rock upon which I was born, the chamber in which my mother inflicted life upon me, the storm without, and the unfortunate brother who gave me the name, which I have nearly always borne in misfortune, does not rise forcibly to my mind. Heaven seemed at my birth to have foretold my future destiny.

My first exile took place immediately after I had seen the light, I was banished to Plancouët, a pretty village situated between Dinan, St. Malo, and Lamballe. The only brother of my mother, the Comte de Bedée, had built the château de Monchoir, near this village. One of the boundaries of my maternal grandmother's estates extended in this neighbourhood as far as the town of Corseul. My grandmother, who had been long a widow, lived with her sister, Mademoiselle de Boisteilleul, in a hamlet which was separated from Plancouët by a bridge, and called L'Abbaye, from an abbey of Benedictines, consecrated to our Lady of Nazareth, being on the spot. My nurse was found to be incapable of nourishing me, so another good Christian took me to her bosom,; she devoted me to the patroness of the hamlet, our Lady of Nazareth, and vowed to her that I should wear blue and white in her honour, till I arrived at the age of seven: I had lived only a few hours, and yet care seemed already stamped on my brow. Why did they not let me die? But God thought fit, in his wisdom, to grant to the prayer of innocence and ignorance, the preservation of that being who promised one day to achieve an empty reputation.

"The vow of this simple peasant woman does not belong to these days, yet it is touching to imagine the intervention of a divine mother placed between the child and heaven, and sharing the solicitude of a terrestrial mother.

"At the end of three years I was taken back to St. Malo; seven years had already elapsed since my father had recovered his estate of Combourg. He was anxious to possess those lands which had formerly belonged to his ancestors. He was unable to treat for the seigneurie de Beaufort, for the right of the family of Goyon to its possession had been established; neither could he negotiate for the barony of Chateaubriand, for it had fallen to the house of Condé ; he therefore turned his thoughts upon Combourg, spelt by Froissart, Combour. Several branches of my family had possessed it by marriages with the Coëtquen. Combourg defended Bretagne against the Normans and the English. Junken, Archbishop of Dol, built it in 1016; the great tower dates as far back as 1100. The Maréchal de Duras, who held Combourg in right of his wife, Machovie de Coëtquen, the child of De Chateaubriand, entered into arrangements with my father. The Marquis de Hallay, an officer in the horse grenadiers, forming the royal guard, and well known for his bravery, is the last of the Coëtquen-Chateaubriands. M. de Hallay has a bro

ther. The same Maréchal de Duras, in consequence of his being connected with our family, afterwards presented my brother and me to Louis the Sixteenth. It was settled I should go into the royal navy aversion to the Court was natural to every Breton, and especially to my father.

"When I returned to St. Malo, my father was at Combourg, my mother at the college of St. Brieuc, and my four sisters were at home. My mother lavished all her affection on her eldest son; though I do not for a moment mean to say that she did not fondly love her other children, but she shewed always a blind preference for the young Comte de Combourg. In consideration of my being the youngest, a boy and chevalier as I was called, I certainly was allowed a few more privileges than my sisters; but still I was almost entirely abandoned to the care of domestics. My mother, who was exceedingly virtuous and full of talent, was always either engaged by the duties of religion or the demands of society.

"The Comtesse de Plouër, my godmother, was her intimate friend, and she often saw also the relations of Maupertuis and of the Abbé Trublet. She loved politics, society, and excitement: she threw her whole soul into the affair of La Chalotais. At home she was always scolding or murmuring; her thoughts seemed to be engaged elsewhere; and she bore the appearance of a spirit of parsimony, which prevented us for some time from being able to appreciate her many good qualities. She displayed order in most of her arrangements, yet her children never felt the good effects of it; possessing real generosity, she always appeared an avaricious person; though naturally gentle in disposition, she was always chiding. My father was the terror of the domestics, and my mother their scourge.

"My early sentiments were very much influenced by the disposition of my parents. I became warmly attached to the person who took charge of me, La Villeneuve,-while I write her name, tears of gratitude gush into my eyes at the recollection of all her kindness. La Villeneuve was a sort of superintendent of the household. She would carry me in her arms, and give me secretly all that she could find; by her all my tears were wiped away. Sometimes she thought it necessary to reprove me, but she would soon take me into favour again, and stuff me with sweetmeats and wine. My childish fondness for La Villeneuve soon gave place to a more suitable friendship and affection.

"Lucille, the last of my four sisters, was two years older than myself. Being the youngest, she was less noticed than the rest, and her dress was composed of the left-off clothes of her sisters. Picture to yourself a tall, thin girl, who had outgrown her strength, with long, awkward arms, and an exceedingly timid and hesitating manner whenever she spoke, who found great difficulty in learning anything,fancy her in a dress which was evidently intended for a different figure to hers, and imagine her poor little chest and waist encased in whalebone, her throat supported by an iron-collar covered with brown velvet, her hair drawn back off her face, and confined at the top of her head in a sort of toque in some black material,-and you will then have before your eyes the miserable little creature who first met my gaze when I was brought home to the paternal roof.

"No person then dreamed for a moment that the neglected and sickly Lucille would one day become remarkable for her beauty and talents. She was abandoned to me for a playmate; but I did not

abuse the privilege allowed me. Instead of making her submit to my whims, I became her protector. I was taken every morning with her to two old hump-backed sisters, dressed in black, called Couppart, who taught children to read. Lucille read very badly; I read still worse. Lucille was scolded; but I scratched, and beat the sisters; and great complaints were made to my mother. I began to be considered a good-for-nothing fellow, a very rebel,- an idle and stupid boy. This opinion gradually took root in my parents' minds. My father said that all the Chevaliers de Chateaubriand were mere sportsmen, drunkards, and brawlers; my mother sighed and grumbled as she beheld the disorder of my jacket. Young as I was, my father's words quite revolted me; and when my mother crowned his lectures with ill-judged eulogiums on my brother, whom she called a Cato, a hero, I really felt myself disposed to be as perverse as they considered me.

"My writing-master, M. Després, was not much more satisfied with me than my parents. He made me continually copy out the same thing. I hated the very sight of the two lines-not, however, because there is any fault to be found in the language:—

'C'est à vous, mon esprit, à qui je veux parler:

Vous avez des défauts que je ne puis céler.'

"He accompanied his reprimands with blows of the fist. He would call me tête d'achôcre. Did he mean achore? I don't know what tête d'achôcre signifies, but I am sure it must have been something very dreadful.

"St. Malo is only a rock. It stood formerly in a salt-marsh, and became an island in time from the inroads of the sea, which, in 709, formed a gulf and left St. Michel in the midst of the floods. In the present day, the rock of St. Malo is joined to the main land only by a bank. This bank is poetically called Le Sillon. Le Sillon was nearly destroyed by a tempest in 1730. During the ebbing of the tide the port is perfectly dry, and large portions of the shore are covered with the most beautiful sand it is then possible to go completely round my father's estate. Far and near stretch rocks, forts, and islets; the Fort Royal, the Conchée, Cézembra, and the Grand-Bé, where my tomb is to be. I had rightly chosen this spot, yet without knowing why bé, in Breton, signifies tomb. At the end of Le Sillon, upon which was planted a Calvary, was a mound of sand bordering the open sea: this mound is called the Hoguette; it is surmounted by an old gibbet. The pillars served us to play at four-corners: we disputed possession with the sea-birds, but it was not without a certain sense of fear that we stopped to play in this place. Here, too, are also the Miels, -downs upon which sheep pasture. On the right, at the foot of Paramé, are meadows, the posting-road to St. Servan, the new cemetery, a Calvary, and several mills upon mounds of earth, like those which rise upon the tomb of Achilles at the entrance of the Hellespont.

"I was nearly seven years old, when my mother took me to Plancouët, that I might be absolved from the vow which my nurse had made for me. We visited my grandmother. If I have known happiness, it has been in that house. My grandmother occupied a house in the street of the hamlet of Abbey, and the gardens belonging to it descended in the form of a terrace into a little valley, at the bottom of

which was a fountain surrounded by willows. Madame de Bedée could no longer walk, but with the exception of this inconvenience, she suffered little from the infirmities of age. She was an interesting old lady: rather a large person, fair, and extremely neat; her deportment was majestic, and her manner particularly elegant and dignified; her dresses were of the old style, and she wore always a headdress of black lace, fastened under the chin. She possessed a cultivated mind; her disposition was of a grave cast, and her conversation partook of the same character. She was tended by her sister, Mademoiselle de Boisteilleul, who resembled her in nothing but her goodness; for she was a little, thin person, very lively, fond of chattering and a bit of scandal. She had been in love with a Count de Trémignon, who had promised to marry her, but he afterwards broke his engagement. My aunt consoled herself in celebrating their love in verse, for she was a poetess. I remember very often hearing her sing-very nasally, bythe-way, with spectacles on nose, while she was embroidering some sleeves for her sister-an apologue, which began in the following

manner:

Un épervier aimait une fauvette,
Et ce dit-on, il en était aimé.'

"This has always appeared to me rather singular in a sparrow-hawk. The song finished with this refrain:

Ah! Tremignon, la fable est-elle obscure?

Ture lure!

"How many things in the world finish like my aunt's courtship, "ture lure !'”

THE GRAVE OF GENIUS.

WHERE sleep the dead, whose living tones filled earth with dreams of heaven ?
Where to their loved and precious dust has dust at last been given?

Where do they rest, whose honoured names breathed ever of renown—
They of the burning heart and mind, they of the laurel crown ?

Some lie beneath the sculptured tombs, within the holy shade
Of England's old cathedral walls wherein our fathers prayed;
And marble statues stand around, and o'er them banners wave,
And chisell'd flowers in beauty bend above each hallowed grave.

And some lie on a foreign shore, far from their childhood's home,
And only by their place of rest the stranger's step may roam;
And only the dark cypress-tree is left to mark the spot
Where one may sleep whose blessed name can never be forgot.

And many lie beneath the sod the village church around,
Without a stone to tell us where their green beds may be found
Neglected and alone they seem, and yet it is not so,
Though seldom to their quiet graves earth's wanderers may go.

Where sleeps the dust of those whose thoughts are not by death laid low?
Where are the graves of Genius seen ?-what matters it to know?
Think rather of the place of rest the mighty dead must find
And shrines that never may decay in every thoughtful mind.

R. G. M.

LORD MAYOR'S DAY.

BY ALBERT SMITH.

I Do not remember to have met with a matter-of-fact description of Lord Mayor's Day. Some years ago the late Mr. Theodore Hook published a famous story called "The Splendid Annual," in which he depicted, as he only could have done it, the glory of the Lord Mayor when he took possession of his office, and the grandeur thereunto attached, ending with a capital account of the indignities he endured when he sunk the mayor in the citizen at the conclusion of his reign. Every year the papers come out with long lists of the viands provided upon the occasion; the quantity of tureens of turtle "each containing three pints;" the number of dishes of potatoes, "mashed and otherwise;" the bottles of "sherbet," which I take to be the Guildhall for "Punch;" the plates of biscuits; and the removes of game; enough in themselves to have emptied all the West India ships, Irish fields, Botolph Lane warehouses, ovens, preserves, and shops generally, ever known or recognised. And they also tell us how the Lord Mayor went, and how he came back; how he was joined on his return, at the Obelisk in Fleet-street, by all the noble and distinguished personages invited to the banquet at Guildhall; and what were the speeches given. But they omit the commonplace detail; and as this is something that is sought after, now-a-days, whether it relates to a visit to a pin-manufactory, a day in a coal-mine, or a dinner in the city, I venture to give a report. And I beg to state that this is intended more for the amusement of my friends in quiet country nooks and corners who hear occasionally by a third day's paper of what is going on in our great world of London-rather than for those who know city dinners by heart, and can look back through a long vista of many years, at the sparkling splendour of Guildhall, as on our retreat from Vauxhall we cast a last glance at the Neptune, at the end of the walk, ever spouting out amidst his jets and glories.

My earliest recollections of Lord Mayor's Day are connected with my scholarship at Merchant Taylors'. The school was once called "Merchant Tailors';" but I remember some eighteen years ago, when instruction in writing was first introduced there, and we had copies to do, with the name of the establishment as our motto, that our esteemed head-master, " 'Bellamy," (for "Reverend" or "Mr." were terms alike unknown to us) altered the orthography. "How will you have Tailors' spelt, sir?" asked Mr. Clarke, who had come from the Blue-Coat School (if I remember aright) to teach us our pothooks and hangers. "With a y, most certainly," was the answer of the "Jack Gull;" for Bellamy (that I should live to write his name thus lightly, and so treat him without fear of an imposition; but he was a goodly creature and a great scholar, and will forgive me) had his name inscribed over the door of the school-room as "Jac. Gul. Bellamy, B.D. Archididascalo," and from this abbreviation he took his cognomen amongst the boys. And so, we did not mind being called "snips" by opposing schools, (and, mind you, we had great fights with