really they love!  Would that I could know
which of them regards this question most
honestly, and which, above all, elevating itself
above the small limits of a nationality, thinks
less of its own fractional greatness than of
humanity! Could we but have the magic gift of
invisibility, and see people as they are, and
not as they assume to be when our hosts and
entertainers, we should at last arrive at the truth.

I really was in a benevolent mood.  I wished
with all my heart to think well of the world;
and the better to work out such excellent
intentions, I took out a wonderful flask of
old Marcobrunner; and, providing myself
with an emerald green glass, artistically
"roped" along the brim, I sat down to enjoy
my good thoughts and my good wine. The
short twilight, if it deserve the name, soon
passed, and a glorious night, a true Italian
night, spread around.  Sirius threw a column of
steady light across the bay, like the reflected
glare of a lighthouse; Orion seemed to me
about the size of an ordinary carcel lamp.  Who
could wish for a moon in the presence of these
radiant glories?

How infinitely more suggestive that glorious
dome with its thousand fires!  Brewster, thou
reasonest well; else why this wish, this yearning
hope, this fond desire, that stars may be
inhabited?  And if so, what are the conditions
of existence there?  Are they above or beneath us
in the scale of intellectuals?  If one could only
know what constitutes their wants, and their
difficulties; in short—in short—

What sort of a thing is that starry life,
As the planets revolve on their axes?
Have they anything there like our party strife?
Have they heard of municipal taxes?

Have they civilised habits to fashion their lives?
Historians and great rhetoricians?
Do they secretly know how to poison their wives,
With a skill that can baffle physicians?

Have they their dull members with Parliament bills
As tiresome and long as a sermon?
Are they dosed like ourselves with their Pullaway's
pills,
And Puffandorff's method of German?

Have they Blondins to caper o'er cataracts on ropes?
And who represents Mr. Rarey?
Are they duly instructed who walks on the slopes,
And who crosses to Cowes in the Fairy?

Do they build great three-deckers, then throw them
away?
Have they parsons to send out as missioners?
And, greatest of all the great shams of our day,
Have they got Civil Service Commissioners?

To all this jargon of questioning and inquiry
there succeeded a stage of the wildest phantasy.
People came and went before my mind, just as
the figures pass on a wall before a magic
lantern.  They had, too, the same flickering
unsteadiness in their gait, and even waved
occasionally to and fro, as we see them when the
manipulation of the lantern is not in
experienced hands.  Some I would fain have seen
more of, flitted rapidly by, and never returned;
others that I cared less for—true "bores" of
the spirit world—would linger and dally, and
even come back again, when I hoped I had seen
the last of them. There was no end to the
absurd and incongruous situations that
succeeded each other.

I thought I saw the Pope at the piano rattling
the keys merrily, as he improvised verse after
verse of Mr. Albert Smith's Messenger.  Then
there stood before me the Emperor of Austria,
dressed like a German peasant: he had cut one of
the heads of an eagle he carried in his hand, and
wished to pass off the bird for a chicken.  In the
distance there was the King Victor Emmanuel,
like Oliver Twist in the picture, asking for more;
while farther, again, I beheld Lola Montez painting
a fierce pair of moustaches on Lord Campbell's
face with a burned cork.  Next, I saw, straight
in front of me, a thin, spare, elderly man; sallow
and poor-looking, who, with what appeared to
be a barrel-organ suspended by a broad strap
over his shoulder, seemed to implore my
permission to play.  It is not exactly my favourite
instrument, nor was I in the mood to listen to
it, but the poor fellow's white-seamed velveteen
jacket, his ragged gaiters, and his tattered hat
were too strong appeals to be resisted, and I
said, "Be it so, only nothing quick or lively; a
slow, plaintive air if you have one, or a ballad."
He made no reply, but, unstringing his box, he
placed it on the table, and then proceeded to
wind up a little crank at one end; after which,
with an obeisance like asking leave, he took my
lamp from its stand and placed it on the floor at
the extremity of the table. This done, he
removed a small slide and showed a sort of oval
aperture, to which, with a gesture, he invited
me to apply my eye.

"So it is not an organ!" said I, in some
surprise.

"No, signor," replied he, respectfully, "it is
called the Camera Magica del Diavolo; but
that is a vulgar designation; polite people know
it, as 'Les Tableaux Géographiques et
Ethnographes.'"

"Patria et natale solum—very fine words,
wherever you stole 'em," muttered I.

"What a ready fellow was Swift!" said he,
quickly; "his doggerel was better than most
men's wisdom."

"What," cried I, "do you itinerant showmen
know of Swift?"

"I delight in him, sir; he has all that character
of bitter sarcastic wit that I prize highest;
and his satire is as pungent to-day as it was a
hundred years ago.  I was sitting an hour with
him last night, and he remarked to me—"

"Why, you must mean with his writings.
He is dead and gone—been dead these hundred
years."

"I know that," said he, smiling; "yet he
lodges in a house I frequent.  But do not lose
time, sir; place your eyes here, for the tableau
is already passing, and I cannot wind it up
more than once a day."  As he spoke, a faint,
but sweet, music swelled out, and the old
French royalist air of "Vive Henri Quatre"