failing all at once. At my age one begins to be sensible of infirmities, and those of the body communicate with the mind. I repeat it to you, Gil Blas, as soon as you shall be of opinion. that my head is not so clear as usual, give me warning of it instantly. Do not be afraid of offending by frankness and sincerity: to put me in mind of my own frailty will be the strongest proof of your affection for me. Besides, your very interest is concerned in it; for if it should, by any spite of chance towards you, come to my ears that the people say in town, 'His Grace's sermons produce no longer their accustomed impression; it is time for him to abandon his pulpit to younger candidates,' -I do assure you, most seriously and solemnly, you will lose not only my friendship, but the provision for life that I have promised you. Such will be the result of your silly tampering with truth."

Here my patron left off to wait for my answer, which was an echo of his speech and a promise of obeying him in all things. From that moment there were no secrets from me; I became the prime favorite. All the household, except Melchior de la Ronda, looked at me with an eye of envy. It was curious to observe the manner in which the whole establishment, from the highest to the lowest, thought it necessary to demean themselves towards his Grace's confidential secretary; there was no meanness to which they would not stoop to curry favor with me: I could scarcely believe they were Spaniards. I left no stone unturned to be of service to them, without being taken in by their interested assiduities. . . .

Two months after this worthy gentleman had left us, in the luxuriant harvest of my highest favor, a lowering storm came suddenly over the episcopal palace: the archbishop had a stroke of apoplexy. By dint of immediate applications and good nursing, in a few days there was no bodily appearance of disease remaining. But his reverend intellects did not so easily recover from their lethargy. I could not help observing it to myself in the very first discourse that he composed. Yet there was not such a wide gap between the merits of the present and the former ones as to warrant the inference that the sun of oratory was many degrees advanced in its post-meridian course. A second homily was worth waiting for, because that would clearly determine the line of my conduct. Alas, and well-a-day! when that second homily came, it was a knock-down argument. Sometimes the good prelate moved forward, and sometimes he moved

backward; sometimes he mounted up into the garret, and sometimes dipped down into the cellar. It was a composition of more sound than meaning; something like a superannuated schoolmaster's theme when he attempts to give his boys more sense than he possesses of his own, or like a capuchin's sermon which only scatters a few artificial flowers of paltry rhetoric over a barren desert of doctrine.

I was not the only person whom the alteration struck. The audience at large, when he delivered it, as if they too had been pledged to watch the advances of dotage, said to one another in a whisper all around the church, "Here is a sermon with symptoms of apoplexy in every paragraph." "Come, my good Coryphæus of the public taste in homilies," said I then to myself, "prepare to do your office. You see that my lord archbishop is going very fast, you ought to warn him of it, not only as his bosom friend on whose sincerity he relies, but lest some blunt fellow should anticipate you and bolt out the truth in an offensive manner; in that case you know the consequence: you would be struck out of his will, where, no doubt, you have a more convertible bequest than the licentiate Sedillo's library.

But as reason, like Janus, looks at things with two faces, I began to consider the other side of the question: the hint seemed difficult to wrap up so as to make it palatable. Authors in general are stark mad on the subject of their own works, and such an author might be more testy than the common herd of the irritable race; but that suspicion seemed illiberal on my part, for it was impossible that my freedom should be taken amiss when it had been forced upon me by so positive an injunction. Add to this, that I reckoned upon handling the subject skillfully, and cramming discretion down his throat like a high-seasoned epicurean dish. After all my pro and con, finding that I risked more by keeping silence than by breaking it, I determined to venture on the delicate duty of speaking my mind.

Now there was but one difficulty, - a a difficulty indeed! — how to open the business Luckily the orator himself extricated me from that embarrassment, by asking what they said of him in the world at large, and whether people were tolerably well pleased with his last discourse. I answered that there could be but one opinion about his homilies; but that it should seem as if the last had not quite struck home to the hearts of the audience, like those which had gone before. "Do you really mean what you say, my friend?" replied he, with a sort of wriggling sur

prise. "Then my congregation are more in the temper of Aristarchus than of Longinus!" "No, may it please your Grace," rejoined I: "quite the contrary. Performances of that order are above the reach of vulgar criticism: there is not a soul but expects to be saved by their influence. Nevertheless, since you have made it my duty to be sincere and unreserved, I shall take the liberty of just stating that your last discourse is not written with quite the overpowering eloquence and conclusive argument of your former ones. Does not your Grace feel just as I do on the subject?"

This ignorant and stupid frankness of mine completely blanched my master's cheek; but he forced a fretful smile, and said, "Then, good Master Gil Blas, that piece does not exactly hit your fancy?" "I did not mean to say that, your Grace," interrupted I, looking very foolish. "It is very far superior to what any one else could produce, though a little below par with respect to your own works in general." "I know what you mean," replied he. "You think I am going down-hill, do you not? Out with it at once. It is your opinion that it is time for me to think of retiring?" "I should never have had the presumption," said I, "to deliver myself with so little reserve, if it had not been your Grace's express command. I act in entire obedience to your Grace's orders; and I most obsequiously implore your Grace not to take offense at my boldness." "I were unfit to live in a Christian land," interrupted he, with stammering impatience, "I were unfit to live in a Christian land if I liked you the less for such a Christian virtue as sincerity. A man who does not love sincerity sets his face against the distinguishing mark between a friend and a flatterer. I should have given you infinite credit for speaking what you thought, if you had thought anything that deserved to be spoken. I have been finely taken in by your outside show of cleverness, without any solid foundation of sober judgment!”

Though completely unhorsed, and at the enemy's mercy, I wanted to make terms of decent capitulation, and to go unmolested into winter quarters; but let those who think to appease an exasperated author, and especially an author whose ear has been long attuned to the music of his own praises, take warning by my fate. "Let us talk no more on the subject, my very young friend," said he. "You are as yet scarcely in the rudiments of good taste, and utterly incompetent to distinguish between gold and tinsel. You are yet to learn that

I never in all my life composed a finer homily than that unfortunate one which had not the honor of your approbation. The immortal part of me, by the blessing of heaven on me and my congregation, is less weighed down by human infirmity than when the flesh was stronger. We all grow wiser as we grow older, and I shall in future select the people about me with more caution; nor submit the castigation of my works but to a much abler critic than yourself. Get about your business!" pursued he, giving me an angry shove by the shoulders out of his closet; "go and tell my treasurer to pay you a hundred ducats, and take my priestly blessing in addition to that sum. God speed you, good Master Gil Blas! I heartily pray that you may do well in the world! There is nothing to stand in your way but the want of a little better taste."

THE VINTNER'S STORY.

(From "The Devil upon Two Sticks.")

"UNDER the closet there is a dungeon that serves for a lodging to a young vintner." "What, my host again?" cried Leandro; "sure these people have a mind to poison all the world." "This man's case is not the same," replied Asmodeus: "he was seized yesterday, and is likewise claimed by the Inquisition. I will in few words relate to you the subject of his commitment.

“An old soldier, by his courage, or rather patience, having mounted to the post of a sergeant in his company, came to raise recruits in this city. He inquired for a lodging at an inn, where he was answered that they had indeed empty rooms, but that they could not recommend any of them to him, because the house was haunted every night by a spirit, which treated all strangers very ill that were rash enough to lodge there. This did not at all balk the sergeant. 'Put me in what chamber you please,' said he, but give me a candle, wine, pipes, and tobacco; and as for the spirit, never trouble yourself about it,ghosts have a respect for men of war who are grown old in the service.'

"As he seemed so resolute, he was shown into a chamber, where all that he desired was brought to him. He fell to drinking and smoking till midnight, and no spirit had yet disturbed the profound silence that reigned in the house. One would

have imagined he feared this new guest; but betwixt one and two, the sergeant all of a sudden heard a terrible noise like the rattling of old iron, and immediately saw entering his chamber an apparition clothed in black and laden all round with iron chains. Our smoker, not in the least affrighted at this sight, drew his sword, advanced towards the spirit, and with the flat side of it gave him a very severe blow on the head.

"The apparition, not much used to meet with such bold guests, cried out; and perceiving the soldier going to begin with him again, he most humbly prostrated himself at his feet. 'Mr. Sergeant,' said he, 'for God's sake do not give me any more; but have mercy on a poor devil that casts himself at your feet. feet. I conjure you by St. James, who, as you are, was a great soldier.' 'If you are willing to save your life,' answered the soldier, you must tell me who you are, and speak without the least prevarication; or else this moment I cut you down the middle, as your knights of old were used to serve the giants they encountered.' At these words, the ghost, finding what sort of man he had to do with, resolved to own all.

"I am the principal servant of this inn,' replied the spirit; 'my name is Guillermo; I am in love with my master's only daughter, and she does not dislike me: but the father and mother having a better match in view, the girl and I have agreed, in order to compel them to make me their son-in-law, that I shall every night act the part which I now do. I wrap myself up in a long black cloak and hang the jack-chain about my neck. Thus equipped, I run up and down the house from the cellar to the garret, and make all the noise which you have heard. When I am at my master's and mistress's chamberdoor, I stop and cry out: "Do not hope that I will ever let you rest till you marry Juanna to Guillermo, your upper drawer." After having pronounced these words with a hoarse, broken voice, I continue my noise, and at a window enter the closet where Juanna lies alone, to give her an account of what I have done. Mr. Sergeant,' continued Guillermo, you see I have told you the whole truth. I know that after this confession. you may ruin me by discovering it to my master; but if you please to serve instead of undoing me, I swear that my acknowledgments.'

"Alas, what service can I do thee?' interrupted the soldier. You need do no more,' returned Guillermo, than to say to-morrow that you have seen the spirit, that it so terribly