slation I once met with of the sentence with
which it was said Timoleon, Duc de Brissac, used to apostrophize himself
before the looking-glass every morning. The original runs thus:--
"Timoleon, Duc de Brissac, Dieu t'a fait gentilhomme, le roi t'a fait
duc, fais toi la barbe, pour faire quelque chose." The translation was
charmingly ridiculous, and ran thus:--"Timoleon, Duke of Brissac,
Providence made you a gentleman; the king gave you a dukedom; shave
yourself by way of doing something."--But I wander terribly. Reader, you
must excuse me.

I one day asked an intelligent friend, long resident in the island,
whether any of the governors had ever done any good to the island, or
whether they were all satisfied by filling their pockets with handsome
bribes. He told me that the first governor-general who had rendered real
service to the people was Tacon. On his arrival, the whole place was so
infested with rogues and villains that neither property nor even life
was secure after dusk. Gambling, drunkenness, and vice of every kind
rode rampant. He gave all evil-doers one week's warning, at the
expiration of which all who could not give a satisfactory account of
themselves were to be severely punished. Long accustomed to idle
threats, they treated his warning with utter indifference; but they soon
found their mistake, to their cost. Inflexible in purpose, iron-handed
in rule, unswerving in justice, he treated nobles, clergy, and commoners
alike, and, before the fortnight was concluded, twelve hundred were in
banishment or in durance vile. Their accomplices in guilt stood aghast
at this new order of things, and, foreseeing their fate, either bolted,
reformed, or fell victims to it, and Havana became as quiet and orderly
as a church-parade. Shops, stores, and houses sprung up in every
direction. A magnificent opera-house was built outside the town, on the
Grand Paseo, and named after the governor-general; nothing can exceed
the lightness, airiness, and taste of the interior. I never saw its
equal in any building of a similar nature, and it is in every respect
most perfectly adapted to this lovely climate.

The next governor-general who seems to have left any permanent mark of
usefulness is Valdes, whom I suppose I may be allowed to call their
modern Lycurgus. It was during his rule that the laws were weeded and
improved, and eventually produced in a clear and simple form. The
patience he must have exhibited in this laborious o