tendom.

The French rule in Spain, in Italy, and in Holland, so far from
conciliating the good-will and affection of the people, has sown the
seeds of that hatred to France in each of these countries that a century
will not eradicate; while no greater evidence of Napoleon's ignorance of
national character need be adduced than in the expectations he indulged
in the event of his landing an army in England. His calculation on
support from any part of the British people--no matter how opposed to
the ministry of the day, or how extreme in their wishes for extended
liberties--was the most chimerical thought that ever entered the brain
of man. Very little knowledge of our country might have taught him that
the differences of party spirit never survive the mere threat of foreign
invasion; that however Englishmen may oppose one another, they reserve
a very different spirit of resistance for the stranger who should
attack their common country; and that party, however it may array men
in opposite ranks, is itself but the evidence of patriotism, seeking
different paths for its development.

It was at the close of a little reverie to this purpose that I found
myself sitting with one other guest at the long table of the Speisesaal;
the rest had dropped off one by one, leaving him in the calm enjoyment
of his meerschaum and his cup of black coffee. There was something
striking in the air and appearance of this man, and I could not help
regarding him closely; he was about fifty years of age, but with a
carriage as erect and a step as firm as any man of twenty. A large white
moustache met his whiskers of the same colour, and hung in heavy curl
over his upper lip; his forehead was high and narrow, and his eyes,
deeply set, were of a greenish hue, and shaded by large eyebrows that
met when he frowned. His dress was a black frock, braided in Prussian
taste and decorated by a single cordon, which hung not over the breast,
but on an empty sleeve of his coat, for I now perceived that he had
lost his right arm near the shoulder. That he was a soldier and had seen
service, the most careless observer could have detected; his very look
and bearing bespoke the _militaire_. He never spoke to any one during
supper, and from that circumstance, as well as his dissimilarity to the
others, I judged him to be a traveller. There are times when one is more
than usually disposed to let Fancy take the bit in her mouth and run off
with them; and so I suffere