e
quantity rather than the quality of his remarks, and the stipulated price
he is to receive per line. Indeed the parallel would hold good in more
respects than that of knowledge, for his language was unusually captious
and supercilious, his tone authoritative, and his motive the desire to
exhibit his own endowments, rather than the wish he affected to manifest
of setting forth the excellences of others. His speeches were more
frequently than ever directed to the Signor Grimaldi, for whom there had
suddenly arisen in his mind a still stronger gusto than that he had so
liberally manifested, and which had already drawn so much attention to the
deportment of this pleasing but modest stranger. Still he never failed to
compel all, within reach of a reasonable exercise of his voice, to listen
to his oracles.

"Those that have passed, brother Melchior," said the bailiff, addressing
the Baron de Willading in the fraternal style of the buergerschaft, while
his eye was directed to the Genoese, in whom in reality he wished to
excite admiration for his readiness in Heathen lore, "are no more than
shepherds and shepherdesses of our mountains, and none of your gods and
demigods, the former of which are to be known in this ceremony from all
others by the fact that they are carried on men's shoulders, and the
latter that they ride on asses, or have other conveniences natural to
their wants. Ah! here we have the higher orders of the mummers in person
--this comely creature is, in reality, Mariette Marron of this country,
as strapping a wench as there is in Vaud, and as impudent--but no matter!
She is now the Priestess of Flora, and I'll warrant you there is not a
horn in all our valleys that will bring a louder echo out of the rocks
than this very priestess will raise with her single throat! That yonder on
the throne is Flora herself, represented by a comely young woman, the
daughter of a warm citizen here in Vevey, and one able to give her all the
equipments she bears, without taxing the abbaye a doit. I warrant you that
every flower about her was culled from their own garden!"

"Thou treatest the poetry of the ceremonies with so little respect, good
Peterchen, that the goddess and her train dwindle into little more than
vine-dressers and milk-maids beneath thy tongue."

"Of Heaven's sake, friend Melchior," interrupted the amused Genoese, "do
not rob us of the advantage of the worthy bailiff's graphic remarks. Your
Heathen may be wel