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398 intimate friend of his sovereigns. He travels constantly from Moscow to Madrid, makes regular archæological surveys through the length and breadth of France, and pays frequent visits to England. He meets every one and knows most people—most great people, at least. In the midst of these things he despatches constant notes to his correspondent, flashing his lantern fitfully over his momentary associates and over events of the hour. There is a multitude of entertaining opinions, characterizations and anecdotes; but we lack space for quotations. Everything he says is admirably said; his phrase, in its mingled brevity and laxity, is an excellent "fit" for his thought. He tells anecdotes as vividly as Madame de Sévigné and in much fewer words. His judgments are rarely flattering and his impressions rarely genial; and, as proper names have been retained throughout, with unprecedented audacity, many of his opinions must have aroused a sufficiently inharmonious echo. He goes again and again to England; but familiarity seems to breed something very much akin to contempt. "I am beginning to have enough of ce pays-ci. I am satiated with perpendicular architecture and the equally perpendicular manners of the natives. I passed two days at Cambridge and at Oxford in the houses of 'reverends,' and, the matter well considered, I prefer the Capuchins. I gave (at Salisbury)