Paris-and-Verdun diligence, with its leathern bag, rumbled in, to terrify the minds of men. : One figure, nevertheless, we do note at the last door of the Village: that figure in loose-flowing nightgown of Jean Baptiste Drouet, Master of the Post here. An acrid, choleric man, rather dangerous-looking still in the prime of life, though he has served in his time as a Condé Dragoon. This day, from an early hour Drouet got his choler stirred, and has been kept fretting. Hussar Goguelat in the morning saw good, by way of thrift, to bargain with his own Innkeeper, not with Drouet, regular Maître de Poste, about some gig-horse for the sending back of his gig; which thing Drouet perceiving, came over in red ire, menacing the Innkeeper, and would not be appeased. Wholly an unsatisfactory day. For Drouet is an acrid Patriot too, was at the Paris Feast of Pikes: and what do these Bouillé soldiers mean? Hussars-with their gig, and a vengeance to it! have hardly been thrust out, when Dandoins and his fresh Dragoons arrive from Clermont, and stroll. For what purpose? Choleric Drouet steps out and steps in, with long-flowing nightgown; looking abroad with that sharpness of faculty which stirred choler gives to man. On the other hand, mark Captain Dandoins on the street of that same village; sauntering with a face of indifference, a heart eaten of black care! For no Korff Berline makes its appearance. The great Sun flames broader towards setting: one's heart flutters on the verge of dread unutterabilities. By Heaven! here is the yellow Bodyguard Courier; spurring fast in the ruddy evening light! Steady, O Dandoins, stand with inscrutable indifferent face; though the yellow blockhead spurs past the Posthouse; inquires to find it and stirs the Village, all delighted with his fine livery.-Lumbering along with its mountain of bandboxes, and Chaise behind, the Korff Berline rolls in; huge Acapulco Ship, with its Cockboat, having got thus far. The eyes of the Villagers look enlightened, as such eyes do, when a coach transit, which is an event, occurs for them. Strolling Dragoons respectfully, so fine are the yellow liveries, bring hand to helmet; and a Lady in gypsy hat responds with a grace peculiar to her. Dandoins stands with folded arms, and what look of indifference and disdainful garrison-air a man can, while the heart is like leaping out of him. Curled disdainful moustachio; careless glance, which however surveys the Village-groups, and does not like them. With his eye he bespeaks the yellow Courier, Be quick, be quick! Thickheaded Yellow cannot understand the eye; comes up mumbling to ask in words: seen of the village ! Nor is Post-master Drouet unobservant all this while but steps out and steps in, with his long-flowing nightgown, in the level sunlight; prying into several things. When a man's faculties, at the right time, are sharpened by choler it may lead to much. That Lady in slouched gypsy hat, though sitting back in the Carriage, does she not resemble some one we have seen, some time;-at the Feast of Pikes, or elsewhere? And this Grosse-Tête in round hat and peruke, which, looking rear-ward, pokes itself out from time to time, methinks there are features in it? Quick Sieur Guillaume, Clerk of the Directoire, bring me a new Assignat! Drouet scans the new Assignat; compares the Paper money Picture with the Gross Head in round hat there; by Day and Night you might say the one was an attempted Engraving of the other. And this march of Troops; this sauntering and whispering,-I see it! Drouet, Post master of this Village, hot Patriot, Old Dragoon of Condé, consider, therefore, what thou wilt do. And fast, for behold the new Berline, expeditiously yoked, cracks whipcord, and rolls away!-Drouet dare not, on the spur of the instant, clutch the bridles in his own two hands; Dandoins with broad sword might hew you off. Our poor Nationals, not one of them here, have three hundred fusils, but then no powder; besides, one is not sure, only morally-certain. Drouet, as an adroit Old Dragoon of Condé, does what is advisablest; privily bespeaks Clerk Guillaume, Old Dragoon of Condé he too; privily, while Clerk Guillaume is saddling two of the fleetest horses, slips over to the Townhall to whisper a word; then mounts with Clerk Guillaume; and the two bound eastward in pursuit to see what can be done. They bound eastward in sharp trot; their moral-certainty permeating the Village, from the Townhall outwards, in busy whispers. Alas! Captain Dandoins orders his Dragoons to mount; but they, complaining of long fast, demand bread-andcheese first ;-before which brief repast can be eaten, the whole Village is permeated; not whispering now, but blustering, and shrieking! National Volunteers, in hurried muster, shriek for gunpowder; Dragoons halt between Patriotism and Rule of the Service, between bread and cheese and fixed bayonets: Dandoins hands secretly his pocket book with its secret despatches to the rigorous Quarter Master: the very Ostlers have stable forks and flails. The rigorous Quarter Master, half saddled, cuts out his way with the sword's edge amid levelled bayonets, amid Patriot vociferations, adjurations, flail strokes; and rides frantic ;-few or even none following him; the rest, so sweetly constrained, consenting to stay there. And thus the new Berline rolls; and Drouet and Guillaume gallop after it, and Dandoins' Troopers or Trooper gallops after them; and Sainte Menehould, with some leagues of the King's Highway, is in explosion; and your Military thunder-chain has gone off in a self-destructive manner; one may fear with the frightfullest issues. The French Revolution. A History. COLERIDGE. THE good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps ; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were round, and of massive weight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration; confused pain looked mildly from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and irresolute; expressive of weakness under possibility of strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, with knees bent, and stooping attitude; in walking he rather shuffled than decisively stept; and a lady once remarked, he never could fix which side of the garden-walk would suit him best, but continually shifted, in corkscrew fashion, and kept trying both. A heavy-laden, high-aspiring and surely muchsuffering man. His voice, naturally soft and good, had contracted itself into a plaintive snuffle and singsong; he spoke as if preaching, you would have said, preaching earnestly and also hopelessly the weightiest things. I still recollect his 'object' and 'subject,' terms of continual recurrence in the Kantean province; and he sung and snuffled them into "om-m-mject" and "sum-m-mject," with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled along. No talk, in his century or in any other, could be more surprising. Sterling, who assiduously attended him, with profound reverence, and was often with him by himself, for a good many months, gives a record of their first colloquy. Their colloquies were numerous, and he had taken note of many, but they are all gone to the fire, except this first which Mr. Hare has printed,—unluckily without date. It contains a number of ingenious, true and half-true observations, and is of course a faithful epitome of the things said; but it gives small idea of Coleridge's way of talking; this one feature is perhaps the most recognisable, 'Our interview lasted for three hours, during which he talked two hours and three quarters.' Nothing could be more copious than his talk; and furthermore it was always, virtually or literally, of the nature of a monologue; suffering no interruption, however reverent; hastily putting aside all foreign additions, annotations, or most ingenious desires for elucidation, as well-meant superfluities which would never do. Besides, it was talk not flowing anywhither like a river, but spreading everywhither in inextricable currents and regurgitations like a lake or sea; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, nay often in logical intelligibility; what you were to believe or do, on any earthly or heavenly thing, obstinately refusing to appear from it. So that, most times, you felt logically lost; swamped near to drowning in this tide of ingenious vocables, spreading out boundless as if to submerge the world. To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether you consent or not, can in the long-run be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is descending. But if it be withal a confused unintelligible flood of utterance, threatening to submerge all known landmarks of thought, and drown the world and you!—I have heard Coleridge talk, with eager musical energy, two stricken hours, his face radiant and moist, and communicate no meaning whatsoever to any individual of his hearers,-certain of whom, I for one, still kept eagerly listening in hope; the most had long before given up, and formed, if the room were large enough, secondary humming groups of their own. He began anywhere: you put some question to him, made some suggestive observation: instead of answering this, or decidedly setting out towards answer of it, he would accumulate formidable apparatus, logical swim-bladders, transcendental life-preservers and other precautionary and vehiculatory gear, for setting out; perhaps did at last get under way,but was swiftly solicited, turned aside by the glance of some radiant new game on this hand or that, into new courses; and ever into new; and before long into all the Universe, where it was uncertain what game you would catch, or whether any. His talk, alas, was distinguished, like himself, by irresolution: it disliked to be troubled with conditions, abstinences, definite fulfilments ;-loved to wander at its own sweet will, and make its auditor and his claims and humble wishes a mere passive bucket for itself! He had knowledge about many things and topics, much curious reading; but generally all topics led him, after a pass or two, into the high seas of theosophic philosophy, the hazy infinitude of Kantean transcendentalism, with its 'summ-mjects' and 'om-m-mjects.' Sad enough; for with such indolent impatience of the claims and ignorances of others, he had not the least talent for explaining this or anything unknown to them; and you swam and fluttered in the mistiest wide unintelligible deluge of things, for most part in a rather profitless uncomfortable manner. Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of the haze; but they were few, and soon swallowed in the general element again. Balmy sunny islets, islets of the blest and the intelligible :-on which occasions those secondary humming groups would all cease humming, and hang breathless upon the eloquent words; till once your islet got wrapt in the mist again, and they could |