these romances become inextricably confused; the characters melt
into one another; and the tale loses itself like the course of a
stream flowing through muddy and marshy ground.

For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter Scott had lost his
consciousness of outward things before his works went out of vogue.
It was good that he should forget his fame rather than that fame
should first have forgotten him. Were he still a writer, and as
brilliant a one as ever, he could no longer maintain anything like
the same position in literature. The world, nowadays, requires a
more earnest purpose, a deeper moral, and a closer and homelier
truth than he was qualified to supply it with. Yet who can be to
the present generation even what Scott has been to the past? I had
expectations from a young man,--one Dickens,--who published a few
magazine articles, very rich in humor, and not without symptoms of
genuine pathos; but the poor fellow died shortly after commencing an
odd series of sketches, entitled, I think, the Pickwick Papers. Not
impossibly the world has lost more than it dreams of by the untimley
death of this Mr. Dickens.

Whom do you think I met in Pall Mall the other day? You would not
hit it in ten guesses. Why, no less a man than Napoleon Bonaparte,
or all that is now left of him,--that is to say, the skin, bones,
and corporeal substance, little cocked hat, green coat, white
breeches, and small sword, which are still known by his redoubtable
name. He was attended only by two policemen, who walked quietly
behind the phantasm of the old ex-emperor, appearing to have no duty
in regard to him except to see that none of the light-fingered
gentry should possess themselves of thee star of the Legion of
Honor. Nobody save myself so much as turned to look after him; nor,