182 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHATEAUBRIAND IN ENGLAND. 



tide of its overflowing, may pour forth in the ear of friendship. Of a 

 truth, we have the consolation to reflect that any hiatus on these 

 points will infallibly be filled up by one or more of the literary re- 

 surrectionists who do business in the reminiscence and last speech 

 line whose mission it is to wiredraw the social inspirations of genius 

 in dishabille, and to imprison in one or two, or mayhap three goodly 

 octavos, the fugitive sallies of the illustrious departed. So has it 

 been with Byron : the nothings of his idlest hours have been " set 

 in a note-book, learned and conned by rote ;" the very stones have 

 prated of his whereabouts. He has had his chroniclers from " the 

 Hebrew nasalities of Nathan," to the mellifluous mawkishness of 

 Moore. Thus have the book-makers dealt with him; and in the 

 spirit of our " prophetic fury" do we say so will they deal with 

 Chateaubriand. His sayings will be resuscitated in the shape of 

 " conversations," and his doings appropriately attired in the costume 

 of "reminiscences." 



We repeat, our world of letters is occasionally subject to singular 

 chances, and precisely by one of these do we stand possessed of 

 materials which enable us to put forth a brief sketch, forestalling the 

 more elaborate efforts of those well-meaning bibliopoles touching 

 whose probable designs we have already spoken with the tongue of 

 prophecy. In a word, we are able to communicate a few parti- 

 culars, the substance of which has been gathered from a diary that 

 has fallen into our hands honestly, we conjure the reader to believe, 

 but that main point stated, we have reasons, or it may be caprice, for 

 declining to give further information as to the quo modo. Our jour- 

 nal contains not a few details touching the celebrated writer, whose 

 name figures at the head of this chapter details which relate to the 

 period of his embassy to England, and of which the printed page, 

 whether of quarto, octavo, pamphlet, or periodical, has hitherto been 

 innocent. 



On the landing of M. de Chateaubriand at Dover, which took 

 place on the 4th of April, 1822 ; he was welcomed by a sort of 

 homage which, how flattering soever in itself, was, at least to his 

 Gallic ideas, somewhat singular in its manifestation. Scarcely had 

 the news of his arrival been circulated by one or more of the hun- 

 dred tongues of Fame, when the literary ladies of the ancient and 

 respectable town of Dover hastily resolved themselves into a com- 

 mittee, and named a deputation consisting of twenty-five of the most 

 poetical and romantic of their body, who, headed by the mayoress of 

 the town, were charged to compliment, not the ambassador, but the 

 poet, in the name of the female rank, beauty, fashion, and literature 

 of Dover. Ineffable was the modest confusion of his excellency at 

 the approach of the formidable phalanx to which he was obliged to 

 capitulate by accepting an invitation for that evening at the house of 

 my Lady Mayoress. 



About twenty years had elapsed since the period of M. de Chateau- 

 briand's first residence in England, which had commenced with the 

 emigration of the French noblesse. The feelings produced on him 

 by his second visit were rather painful, and the more so when con- 

 trasted with the impressions which his too faithful memory still re- 



