But, if required, I'll mend it with a cento
From Caravito, the great opera-poet ;—
Bel idol mio! dov'e 'l crudel sparento?

Nel con non piu lo sento!-bravo! go it!
Dolce contento caccia il rio tormento!-

For travell❜d ladies say, and doubtless know it, That Tuscan speech embodies love sublime Better than accents of our colder clime.

Meantime twill haply edify us more

To leave the staid and silent trio-true, Silent, because the lady did not snore,

As I've heard ladies in their siestas do, And in the festive hall, now flowing o'er With revellers, just trace a cause or two Of the prevailing tale, that our true knight Was, like a Sabine damsel, won in fight.

THE SUPPER OF BACCHUS.

VENUS and Bacchus of a night

Sat tête-à-tète to sup together,
The fire beside them blazing bright—
Twas in December's chilly weather.
Love chanced just then to pass with Mirth,
Two friends as true as Tom and Jerry,
Whose motto from their very birth

Was, "Hang old Care, and let's be merry."
And when they saw the light above-

I give their very words, like Flaccus,

"Ho! Mirth, my gay old boy!" cried Love,
"Let's stop and have a glass with Bacchus."

66

By Jove!" said Mirth, "I'm rather dry,
And this vile rain is deuced unpleasant:
His wine's superb-and you and I

Could relish it, I guess, at present."

They call'd, and Bacchus ope'd the door,
And when they enter'd, lock'd it after:

Mirth set them soon in such a roar,

That Venus nearly died from laughter.

They sang and joked the goblet o'er,

And ne'er more fun the veil of night hid;
For never yet assembled four

Whom song and frolic more delighted.
Old Care, towards morning, loudly knock'd-
He heard their sport, and thought to marit;
But Bacchus, who was then half cock'd,
Upset him in a butt of claret.

O'erwhelm'd beneath the crimson tide,

In vain he sought for help around him—
"Come drink, old fellow !" Bacchus cried,
And in the rosy nectar drown'd him.
And since that hour the sons of Care,
Remembering their sire's immersion,
A lasting grudge to Bacchus bear,

And hold his wine in like aversion.
But let them drain their watery draught-

In vain the fools will strive to wean us

From nectar glorious Bacchus quaff'd,

With laughing Mirth, and Love, and Venus! B. J, M.

THE traveller may search Europe over, and he will find nothing to correspond throughout with the estaminets, the restaurants, and the cafés of Paris. The general distinctions between them are these :

-an estaminet is a place where tobacco is smoked, various sorts of beverages are drunk, and generally cards and billiards played. A restaurant is one where breakfasts and dinners are eaten. A café is an. other, where breakfasts are taken, dominos played, and where coffee, ices, and all refreshing drinks may, at any hour, be enjoyed.

In Paris there are more than four hundred cafés. Of these the most ancient is the Café Procope, which may still be seen in the Faubourg St. Germain. It was established by an Italian named Zoppa. Opposite to it once stood the Comédie Française. This theatre gave place to the studio of Gros, the famous painter; that studio vanished, and now a paper magazine is on its site. The Café Procope still survives. It has, however, somewhat changed in the character of its frequenters. Formerly the resort of Rousseau, Freron, Voltaire, and the epigrammatic Piron, it is now chiefly patronized by students of law, medicine, and literature. There do they assemble in their lofty sugar-loafed hats, republican locks hanging over their shoulders, unwashed beards, and negligent attire, to chat with the damedu-comptoir, joke about the Pandects, and play at dominos. For this last sport they seem to have a perfect passion. The custom is to play for breakfasts. The losers then play among themselves, and it is not unusual for him who at ten o'clock entered, and merely called for his petit pain, and café au lait, to retire at the hour of four, having first deposited some fifty francs with the divinity of the place, or at least obtained from her a tick for that small sum. This is the genuine frequenter of the Café Procope. Sometimes, however, you will there see authors and artists, as Gustave Planche, Gigoux, the young painter, Henri Fournier, Eugene Renduel, and others, but no dramatists. The theatre has abandoned St. Germaindes-Prés. The other noted cafes on this side the Seine, are the Voltaire, the Moliere, and lastly the Desmares, an aristocratical resort, where silent and stern deputies from the extreme droit often congregate.

But if you would see the Parisian cafés in all their peculiarities and magnificence, go over the Seine into the vicinity of the Palais Royal, or walk along the Boulevards. There is a café, peculiar, though not very magnificent,-in a little dark street near the Halle au blé, I mean ine Café Touchard. At a certain season of the year, all the provincial actors and actresses, who, coming up to this wide theatre of human exhibition, desire to engage their professional abi. lities for the winter, assemble at this cafe. It is then a sort of foire aux comédiens. The directors of operas and theatres, in huge white cravats folded consequentially about their chins and mouths, here meet, and converse with them in significant and majestic mode. They scan them up and down, listen attentively to their pronuncia. tion, read over their recommendations, and if the adventurer be a female, scrutinize carefully her teeth, gait, and smile. If in these

last three items she be unexceptionable, you will see her, a fortnight hence, at the Variétés. If she have a strong arm, a stentorian voice, and can look the termagant, the director of the Theatre Porte St. Mar. tin is sealing an engagement with her. If she have a spiritual face, and a polished, lady-like bearing, she stands a chance for a place among the third and fourth-rate artists at the Théâtre Français.

In the Place du Palais Royal is the Café de la Régence. This is the great resort of chess-players. Formerly it was much frequented by Jean Jacques, and other distinguished men. Here was likewise the scene of Philidor's triumphs. The garçon, if you ask, will show you the very spot where the world-renowned player was wont to sit, and marshal kings, bishops, and knights. Enter the café at midday-there are some fifteen or twenty matches playing. What universal silence!-what intent expression! The automaton of Maelzel himself could not look more gravely or ponderingly. Observe that venerable man in the corner, his bald head protected by a black day-cap; his face reposes between his two hands, resting on his elbows. There does not seem to be much significance in his gaze upon the board before him. He is indeed a picture of abstraction; he has actually forgotten with whom he is playing. In vain the garçon reminds him of the bavaroise he ordered. Before his fleshy eye is that small battle-ground, with those stationary armies; but in his mental vision these ranks are all in motion. Look-those pawns have now been swept from the field. That knight is in possession of yonder castle. The queen, dashing to the right and to the left, has cried havoc; and those fearless old bishops with a single pawn have checked and then checkmated the king. His design now springs into the hand of the player, and quick as a flash it is embodied in his move. There are still good players at the Café de la Rêgence, but its grand players have passed away; and, with many a once-famed but now deserted favourite in Paris, may it exclaim, in the words of Charles V. at his convent,-"Ah, mes beaux jours, où êtes vous ?"

At one end of the Palais Royal is the Café des Aveugles et du Sauvage. It is subterranean. You descend, too, in more senses than one, when you visit it. Its name is derived from the fact that its orchestra is composed of half a dozen blind men, thither every evening led from the Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts, to accompany with their instruments a man costumed like a savage, while rolling horribly his eyes, and still horribly grinning, he plays the battle of Wagram on a drum. This is evidently a low resort. Nothing is demanded for admission; but when you have entered, you are expected to take something, and, on paying for it, you find your coffee costing twenty sous, instead of eight. The scene of youths, and even old men, with arms in loving proximity to certain necks, may not be strictly evangelical; but yet you who wish to study every phase of Parisian life, will hardly pass under the Arch of the Columns without for a few moments dropping in to see the blind musicians, and hear the battle of Wagram.

In the Place de la Bourse, and immediately behind the Exchange, is the little Café du Report. It is the Exchange for women. From the grand Bourse they are excluded by a decree of the Tribunal of Commerce. Their passion for speculation, however, is not to be thus quenched. They gamble away fortunes, sipping orgeat in the

Café du Report. Mademoiselle Mars has furnished one sad chapter in the history of that little room. It is now three o'clock in the afternoon. Let us walk into it. Pretending to read the Cours Authentique, you may hear this conversation:-"Tiens, bonjour, maʼme Fricard, comment que ça vous va?" "Pas trop bien, ma'me Chaffarou. Mes Espagnols me donnent bien du tintouin. Vingtet-un et demie, moi, qu'avais acheté à trente-trois! It appears that Don Gomes has gone into Asturias. The rascal, he has ruined me." "C'est bien fait, ma'me Fricard, pourquoi que vous n'avez pas des ducats. J'ai revendu à bénefice, maintenant je vais acheter de l'Haiti, c'est fini. Je ne prends plus de cinq,-vous ne savez, ma chere, on va le rembourser le cinq, on donnera du trois."—"Le rembourser! quelle horreur! maʼme Chaffarou. Comme si l'on ne ferait pas mieux de rembourser les assignats. J'en ai encore pour six cent mille francs, dans mon secrétaire. V'la bien les gouvernments.' A third woman now rushes in, all business-like. "Don't you know, ladies, Don Carlos has just gained a battle over the Christinos,— has killed thirty thousand men and taken one cannon. Telegraphic despatch-the Cortes are going into just nothing at all."-" What a simple thing you are, Madame Potard, for an old midwife," interrupts the Chaffarou; "don't you see it's all a trick. Gardez vos coupons. Il-y-aura hausse fin courant,-le report ira bien-demandez plutôt à Monsieur Auguste." M. Auguste, a sort of courtier de marrons of the place, has just come in. "Que voulez vous, mesdames, des differés, ou des perpêtuelles ;-des Belges, ou des Romains. Il-y-a long temps que nous n'avons rien fait ensemble. Oserai-je vous offrir un petit verre de Kerch?"-"Oh, c'est trop fort, Monsieur Auguste, du doux s'il vous plait.' "Garçon," says Auguste, "trois verres d'huile de rose."-Madame Potard changing her mind, shouts out, "Garçon, décidément, j'aimerais mieux du cognac." There would be much to amuse in this, were it not for the disastrous impoverishments to which such chat is often but the prologue.

A few steps from the Café du Report bring you to where was, until lately, the Café Mozart, for a short time one of the most magnificent and best-frequented in all Paris. It had the great disadvantage of being in the second story. No Frenchman wishes to ascend stairs in search of coffee. It had, however this, advantage,-its dame-du-comptoir was a heroine. It was Nina Lassave, the mistress of Fieschi, who so gracefully bowed to every gentleman as he entered or left the room. While she presided, that café was in high glory. Thousands on thousands flocked thither, first, to look at her; secondly, to talk with her; and thirdly, to enjoy moka in her presence. Nina sustained her fame with noble self-possession. A little circumstance, however, quite beyond her control, required an ab sence of nine days into what we should call the country. Alas! she never returned; and the Café Mozart, with its mirrors and music joined the past.

Every theatre has in its vicinity a café. At these cafés, and likewise those of the Boulevard du Temple, the actors, the actresses, and the dramatic authors of the time principally congregate. You may see them most frequently between ten and twelve at night. There they gather, some to discuss the performances, and some to estimate the applause of the evening. Those who have received the latter

call importantly for kirch or eau-de-vie. Those who have not, merely sip sugared water, and vent their disappointment in repeti. tions of "quel public !-sacré !" The authors sometimes mingle with them, and sometimes sit apart; there they ruminate and com. bine. That gentleman, with eye resting on vacancy, and who but rarely tastes his cool sorbet, is conceiving a dramatic plot. You perceive that he has now called for a bavaroise; he sips it gently. Be assured he has advanced to intrigues and tenderest colloquies. Has he at length taken to Café noir ? Tis no small proof that his plot is growing thick and romantic,-that he wants the inspiration of its aroma, and the images which its strength and hues may perchance call up. He has finally become restless, and demanded a carafe of cognac? You are safe in the remark, that he is at last dealing with the darker passions, that he is composing for the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, and that a catastrophe of revenge and blood is on the eve of development. The dame-du-comptoir notices nothing of all this. She little dreams that, before one week shall have elapsed, she may be applauding or condemning the very work of art, the elements of which have just now been half derived out of dispensations from her own unconscious hand.

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The literary patronage of cafés is not always their only one: many are distinguished for their political frequenters. The Café Valois and the Cafe de Foy have been renowned resorts for men of the Restoration, as the Café Lemblin has been frequented peculiarly by the Liberals; but it must be acknowledged that these distinc tions are not now very strongly maintained. Legitimatists, Doctrinaires, and Republicans, the Dynastiques, and the Anti-dynastiques, may find themselves on any evening glancing at each other from different tables of the same café. Merchants and stock-jobbers meet in great numbers, between twelve and two, before Tortoni's; and in the evening, as you lounge in to melt an ice, you will frequently ob serve individuals conversing in a style, conclusive to any but the superficial, that their theme is ducats. One of the first steps in Parisian business is decidedly to strut daily up and down before Tor toni's. If you would have the earliest intelligence from any part the earth, go to Tortoni's. Moreover, if you would enjoy chocolate and ices, such as no other parts of the earth can equal, go likewise to Tortoni's. Tortoni's ices are as far beyond all other ices as Taglioni's dancing is beyond all other dancing. Taking your seat, the garçon presents you a little carte, in the two columns of which, under the words "creme" and "fruits," you read among other things, citron, vanille, framboise. You select a framboise; in a few moments the garçon deposits before you a silver plate, whereon stands a goblet holding a spoon, a glass bottle miraculously half filled with frozen water, a little basket of wafer cake, and the fram. boise, ascending, cone-like, six inches above the glass which sustains it. Different persons have different modes of taking an ice. At Tortoni's, I know of no one in particular preferable to any other. If you be not advanced, however, it may perhaps be well to secure such a position that, while each gelid morceau is vanishing away upon the palate, your eye may rest upon one of the fairest damesdu-comptoir near the Boulevards. Tortoni's ices, moreover, should be taken with extreme slowness, and with little or no conversation. Nothing should be permitted to interfere with the legitimate delight,