y him with the most affectionate attention. At
last Louis Napoleon wearied of a country town and repaired to
London; but before he went he called on Mr. Hampden to take leave.
After warm thanks for all the pleasure he had experienced in his
society, he said: "I am about to prove to you my entire reliance
upon your unfailing kindness by leaving you a legacy. I want to ask
you to transfer to my poor old friend the goodness you have lavished
upon me. His health is failing, his means are small. Will you call
upon him sometimes? and will you see that those lodging-house people
do not neglect him? and will you, above all, do for him what he will
not do for himself, draw upon me for what may be wanting for his
needs or for his comforts?" Mr. Hampden promised. The prophecy
proved true; the poor old man grew worse and worse, and finally
died. Mr. Hampden, as he had promised, replaced the Prince in his
kind attentions to his old friend, and finally defrayed the charges
of his illness and of his funeral. "I would willingly have paid them
myself," said he, "but I knew that that would have offended and
grieved the Prince, so I honestly divided the expenses with him, and
I found that full provision had been made at his banker's to answer
my drafts to a much larger amount." Now I have full faith in such a
nature. Let me add that he never forgot Mr. Hampden's kindness,
sending him his different brochures and the kindest messages, both
from Ham and the Elysee. If one did not not admire Louis Napoleon, I
should like to know upon whom one could, as a public man, fix one's
admiration! Just look at our English statesmen! And see the state to
which self-government brings everything! Look at London with all its
sanitary questions just in the same state as ten years ago; look at
all our acts of Parliament, one half of a session passed in amending
the mismanagement of the other. For my own part, I really believe
that there is nothing like one mind, one wise and good ruler; and I
verily believe that the President of France is that man. My only
doubt being whether the people are worthy of him, fickle as they
are, like all great masses,--the French people, in particular. By
the way, if a most vilely translated book, called the "Prisoner of
Ham," be extant in French, I should like to possess it. The account
of th