diality by the higher circles of society, and was very sanguine of success. He found every body opposed to France-even the members of the imperial family. He had an interview with Alexander. The Emperor, with noble frankness, reproached Austria with dissimulation and falsehood in professing peace, while making every preparation for war. He declared that he was under formal engagements to France, which he was resolved honorably to fulfill. "If Austria," said he, "is foolish enough to come to a rupture, she will be crushed by Napoleon. She will force Russia to unite her troops with those of France. She will make him, whom you call an overwhelming Colossus, still more overwhelming. And she will give England the power of still longer postponing that peace which the Continent so greatly needs. I shall regard as an enemy whoever renders peace more remote." These were noble words. Unfortunately, we can not receive them at their full apparent value, when we reflect that Alexander desired peace with Austria because war with that power would frustrate his designs upon Turkey. He was eager at any moment to draw the sword, if, by so doing, he could annex to his dominions dismembered provinces of the Turkish empire. The Austrian minister was, however, confounded, and sent most discouraging dispatches to his government.

Alexander then expressed himself with equal apparent frankness to M. Caulaincourt, the minister of Napoleon at St. Petersburg. He declared that it would be extremely painful for him to fight against the old allies by whose side he had stood at Austerlitz. He affirmed that even the success of the new war would cause him extreme perplexity, for he should look with alarm on the extinction of Austria, and on the vast preponderance of France, which would be the necessary consequence. He, therefore, expressed the desire to do every thing in his power to prevent the war. He was unwilling to intrust a matter of so much importance to the two ministers of France and Russia, but decided personally to re-assure Austria that no designs were entertained against her, and to warn her of the disastrous results, which, by a renewal of the war, she would bring upon herself. "Our ministers," said he, "will make a medley of every thing. Let me be left to act and to speak, and if war can be avoided I will avoid it. If it can not, I will act, when it becomes inevitable, loyally and frankly."

strong. They regarded his strenuous efforts for peace but as indications of conscious weakness. With renewed alacrity they marshaled their hosts and combined their armies, and set their majestic columns in motion. Napoleon remained in Paris calmly awaiting the onset. He knew not upon what point the storm would fall. Engaged in myriad cares by day and by night, he provided for every possible emergency. The energies of his tireless spirit swept over the broad expanse of Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Never before did a single mind grasp and control interests of such prodigious magnitude. All hope of peace was now at an end, and Napoleon issued his orders with the most extraordinary ardor, and with unparalleled activity.

The King of Bavaria wished to place the Bavarian troops under the command of his son, a young man of energy but inexperienced. Napoleon would not give his consent. "Your army," he wrote, "must fight in earnest in this campaign. It concerns the conservation and the extension of the aggrandizements which Bavaria has received. Your son may be able to command when he shall have made six or seven campaigns with us. Meanwhile let him come to my head-quarters. He will be received there with all the consideration due to him, and he will learn our trade." Napoleon gave the young prince command of one of the Bavarian divisions. The King of Würtemberg, furnished a quota of 12,000 men. They were placed under the command of General Vandamme. The king objected to the appointment. Napoleon wrote, 'I know General Vandamme's defects, but he is a true soldier. In this difficult calling much must be forgiven in consideration of great qualities." Napoleon concentrated divisions of his army amounting to over 100,000 men in the vivinity of Ratisbon. A line of telegraphs was established from the extreme frontiers of Bavaria to the Tuileries. Special relays of post horses were kept that Napoleon might pass, with the utmost rapidity, from the Seine to the Danube.

Now, if, at that period, I was just out of college, when had all my European travels taken place? When had I made the acquaintance of the distinguished diplomat I have had the honor of introducing to you, and when and where had I acquired that general knowledge of the world on which I pride myself, and which makes me such an ornament to society? These questions, which, O Sarianna, are so trenchantly asked in your perfumed note, dated May-day, are easily answered by stating the fact-possibly unknown to you—that I was rusticated during my college course, for one year and a half, which time I devoted to solemnizing my mind amid the sobrieties of Italy, and the graver influences of Paris. So that I am not so old as you choose to believe, Sarianna; although, indeed, I have that huge experience which weighs so heavily upon all of us youth, and which imparts to our manners that pensive torpidity and heroic indifference which have so often charmed you.

Certain writers have recently amused themselves (more than the public), by endeavoring to ridicule that state of things known as 66 Young America." For I find that term signifies a social spirit rather than a class. There are, indeed, some of us who are constituted, as it were, the priests of that mystery, whose duty it is to indicate in our appearance and behavior, the spirit which governs it. You may know us by the angle at which we wear our hats, by our cravat-ties, by the sleeves of our coats, and the cut of our trowsers-best of all, by an air of supreme consequence, which becomes us, and which shows that we understand ourselves to be the heirs, in fee simple, of Broadway and the Avenue sidewalks.

Why should this air be ridiculed? Who should walk the streets with the mien of victors, if not we? Why, to show you that it is appreciated, and does not fail of its effect, I will relate to you, privately, that only last June, as I stepped out, in a new coat, trowsers, and waistcoat, perfectly adapted to summer wear, and began switching my little amber stick, and kindly surveying the girls that passed, a sober old gentleman, a decayed clerk, I should say, in a suit of black broadcloth (it was June, hot, of course, and in the morning, yet he wore BLACK trowsers!) suddenly stopped me, and looking at me from head to foot, inquired with an air of great curiosity:

Sir, are you any body in particular?"

I was much flattered by the question. For you must see that is the necessary result of our fine dress and fine swaggering. Every sensible old gentleman (and some fair young ladies, I know!) instantly says to himself:

"Now, that must be somebody."

And it is no unpleasant thing for some people to pass for somebody, I can tell you. Perhaps my old friend fancied I was the son of a British nobleman! Why not? I trust you find nothing in my appearance inconsonant with such a supposition; although, poor old gentleman, those black trowsers in the morning

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did his business, so far as any theory of his being related to the nobility is concerned. Or, possibly, he thought a Russian man-of-war had arrived, and that I was the Hereditary Grand Duke of the Empire, promenading incognito in a foreign country.

You observe that all these little suggestions which enrich the ramble of an old gentleman, or a young lady, of imagination, are due to our general appearance. When I put my hat slightly on one side, and walk down Broadway as if I had an assignation with the Queen of Sheba, and was so blasé of royal amours, that I am in no hurry to meet that august lady, and would even prefer that my amiable friend Dove should take the bore off my hands-why, at that moment, I am as good as a verse of Sanscrit poetry to any poet or other imaginative and useless person who chances to pass. He doesn't in the slightest degree know what such an appearance as I present indicates, and he falls to theorizing; how do I know that he doesn't fall to poetizing, about it?

Do we dissipate?

Of course, we dissipate a little. We must be manly, we must pass all our leisure time in smoking, and sitting, heels up, in hotel corridors; in drinking brandy and water until we are fuddled, and it is necessary to take us home, yelping and roaring through the streets. I am surprised you don't see the necessity of this kind of thing to the complete man of the world. It is astonishing to me, that you don't see that the girls like us better for it. Dear me! my fortune would be made if there could only be a vague rumor among the girls, that I am "very dissipated." The darlings don't quite know what it means. But they fancy it is so manly, and courageous, and shows such knowledge of the world.

A waste of time?

My dear Sarianna, you take such odd views of the case, that I could almost fancy you to be an old gentleman wearing black trowsers in the morning. What is time given us for, but to enjoy? And what is our life but enjoyment? Why, we enjoy so enthusiastically that there is no new form of entertainment for us, after we are twenty-one years old.

Therefore you mustn't be surprised at my having so much experience while I am still so young. It is the spirit of our time and of our city: we can not help it. You thought I was, in reality, an old man, writing the memoir of my youth? Why, my respected lady, I am only

Ah! what a pity you don't know Mrs. Flack. She would tell you what you will hardly expect me to betray. Indeed, I have my own doubts whether Don Bobtail Fandango knew my exact age. He always called me his "young friend," but it was rather as if it were only a habit of speech, not a personal conviction in regard to me. And you have surely observed that he always treated me as a man thoroughly versed in the ways of what is called "the world."

I had already advanced matters so far as to introduce him to an heiress.

Now it is reported that men sometimes shrink a little from meeting a great crisis, even when their minds are fully made up to it, and when they go through it manfully and well. History and the human heart forgive a slight tremor to the limbs of a king, for instance, mounting a scaffold. Nor is the heroism of Anne Boleyn less heroic, if her cheek blanches a moment as she confronts the headsman.

In the same way, my friend Don Bobtail was thoughtful and unusually silent after his presentation to the Romulus Swabbers and their daughter Dolly. As he had justly remarked, the finger of fate had evidently pointed to their house, as to his great good fortune; the impression he had made upon the maternal mind was the most favorable possible, and although he had exchanged few words with the daughter of the house, there could be little doubt of her quick and delighted accession to the parental wishes. Moreover it is to be considered that Don Bob had been looking forward to meeting precisely such a person she was essential to his plan of life. Yet he grew graver, day by day.

I think I have mentioned that he indulged in snuff. He now took prodigious pinches of that narcotic. He smiled more seriously. He evidently badgered himself upon his own behavior. This lasted for some time; and as I placed it in the category of the shaking of royal knees upon the scaffold, and the paleness of Anne Boleyn's cheek (the intelligent reader will reprove me if I was wrong), it did not diminish my respect for the illustrious diplomat.

While he was still in this serious state, I met him one day in Broadway, and, taking me aside, he said:

"I want to consult you about going to a Watering Place, as I understand that is essential to the full fashionable development of the American man and woman."

But to Saratoga we went, and in due season to the great ball, at which Miss Mildred and Miss Bessie Laurel were the belles. It was there that the Don and I, sitting just outside the hall, discoursed as follows:

Perhaps you have observed me a little sober of late," said he; "and I hope you have drawn no false conclusions. I have been slightly serious; but it was only a little natural wincing. I have lived at large so long that I do not willingly resign my freedom; and I regard my approaching union with feelings whose gravity, I trust, is not entirely incompatible with the solemn occasion."

The Don delivered himself of all this as if he had learned it by heart.

"Good heavens !" I cried, " is the thing settled? Are you engaged? When, where, and how, have you done it all up?

"My impetuous young friend, why do you dash on with such enthusiastic recklessness? Have I said that I was engaged? Certainly not. I have merely stated, at former periods, that I wished to marry an heiress. That object is now presented to me. I observe before me a desirable heiress, and I trust there is no doubt that I shall take it, as I should pluck a desirable fruit in a garden. Life I take to be a garden full of various flowers. Yet, I beg you to observe, the secret of my little sadness lies in this, that when a man has made up his mind to pick a rose, he can not but grieve for all the other roses, and the lilies, and the pinks, which he can not pluck, and which behold the happiness of the selected flower. You would not have me ruthlessly elect my heiress, and marry her, without a tear for those I can not marry! I assure you that is not the Spanish method. Every gentleman of proper feeling who sacrifices himself to a single woman, grieves that a retrograding civilization has annihilated polygamy.

"Forgetting? Quite the contrary. Where should I be so sure of meeting my fair young friend as, say at Saratoga?"

"Saratoga let it be, then," said I; and so, a month ago, we went up to Saratoga, from whence we came in the wake of the gay world here to Newport, where we now are, the Don and I. You can see us at any time at the Fort on Fort days-on the Beach, on Beach days-at Durfee's tea-house with choice parties-upon the Cliffs on Sunday afternoon-in the bowling alleys, pistol and archery galleries, in the morning-and at all the hops and balls in the evening. The Don you have recognized, of course, by his diplomatic button, and the ease of his address. Me, I am sure you have seen, with my loose coat-sleeves, and my straw-hat, and my little stick, and my small boots, and my beautiful vest buttons and shirt-studs, and my extreme elegance generally.

much the same thing as being engaged to that lady. If you doubt, call your young companion Bootes there, and ask him if he does not think so. If he says no, watch his demeanor toward Linda Agnus, with whom he will presently polk, and see if his manner does not give his words the lie. His whole conduct toward her indicates his settled conviction that he has but to say you?" for her to leap, blushingly, into his arms. It is an amiable consciousness of our power. We can not help being magnets to these darling, glittering motes, and if we could, they would be sorry. Say, my dear Smytthe, don't you think so?"

"Will

"'Pon my word," answered I, "it is rather a staggering view of the case. It never occurred to me."

"Why so? It is very plain. What is the end of female life? Is it not matrimony? Not for itself, I grant, but for a certain consideration, a position, &c. Well, if a daughter is