FAILING RESOURCES.

There can be nothing imagined more charming, more fascinating,
than this colony ; between their sufferings and their argr‚mens
they occupy us almost wholly. M. de Narbonne,
alas, has no thousand pounds a year! he got over only four
thousand pounds at the beginning, from a most splendid fortune;
and, little foreseeing how all has turned out, he has lived, we
fear, upon the principal ; for he says, if all remittance is
withdrawn, on account of the war, he shall soon be as ruined as
those companions of his misfortunes with whom as yet he has
shared his little all. He bears the highest character for
goodness, parts, sweetness of manners, and ready wit. You could
not keep your heart from him if you saw him only for . half an
hour. He has not yet recovered from the black blow of the king's
death, but he is better, and less jaundiced ; and he has had a
letter which, I hear, has comforted him, though at first it was
almost heart-breaking, informing him of the unabated regard for
him of the truly saint-like Louis. This is communicated in a
letter from M. de Malesherbes.(69)

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

M. d'Arblay is one of the most singularly interesting characters
that can ever have been formed. He has a sincerity, a frankness,
an ingenuous openness of nature, that I had been unjust enough to
think could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, which is
his military portion, he is passionately fond of literature, a