d fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at
another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing
eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the
ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good fortune,
is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow,
who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is always so
terribly afraid of intruding! and whenever I pick up a respectable
personage without wit, or a wit without respectability, he attaches
himself to me like a burr, and can't live a day without inquiring after
my health."

Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was
bent darkly and keenly upon me.

"Well," said the Prince, "what think you of our opera, Count Devereux?
It beats your English one--eh?"

"Ah, certainly, Monseigneur; ours is but a reflection of yours."

"So says your friend, Milord Bolingbroke, a person who knows about
operas almost as much as I do, which, vanity apart, is saying a great
deal. I should like very well to visit England; what should I learn best
there? In Spain (I shall always love Spain) I learned to cook."

"Monseigneur, I fear," answered I, smiling, "could obtain but little
additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude
and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years, astonished the
cultivators of the science; but the night of ignorance rests still upon
its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would
find best worth studying in England would be--the women."

"Ah, the women all over the world!" cried the Duke, laughing; "but
I hear your _belles Anglaises_ are sentimental, and love _a
l'Arcadienne_."

"It is true at present; but who shall say how far Monseigneur's example
might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous?"

"True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois? What would Philip of Orleans
have been but for thee?"

"'L'exemple souvent n'est qu'un miroir trompeur;
Quelquefois l'un se brise ou l'autre s'est sauve,
Et par ou l'un perit, un autre est conserve,'"*

answered Dubois, out of "Cinna."

* "Example is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys
himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another
is preserved."

"Corneille is right," rejoined the Regent. "After all, to do thee
justice, _mon petit Abbe_, example has little to do with corru