years past, been accustomed to wait upon the lady as her attendant to all parties abroad, her assistant when she received at home, and her aide-de-camp when the orders to shopkeepers were of too delicate a nature to be trusted to a footman,-my services, on this sorrowful occasion, were naturally expected, and as naturally offered.

I shall say nothing of the order of the funeral; every thing was conducted with decency, and, at the same time, with a magnificence worthy of the opulence and respectability of the family, and calculated to impress on the minds of the spectators the magnitude of the distress which the gloomy pomp represented by all the external emblems of woe. This painful ceremony finished, a monument to the deceased became the next object of attention, and I was requested to take the measures necessary for having a suitable one erected.

In order that I might worthily execute this interesting commission, I consulted my friend the Marquis of B., who had lately lost a consort whom he highly respected, but never lived with; and to whose memory he had erected a superb marble, which testified, with all the pathos of poetry, how much the heart of the survivor was torn by the violent separation. On inquiry of this gentleman what tradesman had so well served him in his affliction, he said he was unable to inform me, not having yet paid the expenses of the funeral :he referred me, however, to Monsieur G- -, the well known friend of his lamented wife; who had taken, as he expressed it, all the burden of the thing on his own shoulders, and had kindly relieved his wounded feelings by seeing that Madame received all those attentions which were due to her after death, as he had, still more kindly, been unremittingly assiduous, auprès d'elle, during the lifetime of the ever-to-be-deplored lady.

To Monsieur G- - I accordingly went without delay, and found him dull, and disposed to be silent. He said little of his lost friend, but seemed to think much; and as he appeared disinclined to entertain

company, I quitted him as soon as he had furnished me with the address of one of the most celebrated Parisian dealers in monuments.

Le Sieur M. N. is the owner of a most magnificent establishment in this way: taste, order, and smiling politeness there reign; and, walking along the first gallery into which I entered, surrounded by angels and genii, and nymphs shining in the purest alabaster, conducted by a bowing employé, I thought to myself, "this is indeed smoothing the passage to the tomb." The delicacy of the tenderest nerves would not be startled here by the mementos of death.

I found it would be necessary to wait a little before I could explain the purpose of my visit, for the master had customers with him. His talents were well known, and no genteel person at Paris likely to want a monument would think for a moment of being furnished by any other than M. N. His improvements in his art had been recorded in the Magazine of Inventions, and some of his finest articles were exhibited at the fêtes of French industry, as a proof of the increased consumption of the nation. As I advanced towards the great man, I found him too much occupied with a couple of gentlemen, dressed in deep mourning, to observe my approach; and I was, I must confess, struck by the simple dignity with which he conducted business. In the Almanac de Gourmands it is said of Beauvilliers, one of the master spirits of French cookery, who did things in his art which the world will not willingly let die, that with one of his sauces a man with a good appetite might eat his own father! It would be doing injustice to Le Sieur M. N. to limit his panegyric to saying of his monuments, that a man might desire one for his own father; this would be affirming but little; but, if I may speak from my own feelings, I would say, that no one that enters this warehouse can quit it without being seduced into desiring a monument for himself, nay, stipulating that it should be finished off hand, and sent home without delay.

When I came up to the party, I found the customers had but just commenced their bargain.

"I want a tombstone," said the elder of the two. "For man or woman, sir," asked the master, with Lacedemonian brevity, and Parisian quickness.

"For a worthy gentleman, who was rather advanced in life before he left it."

"Have the goodness to step this way, then; the men above forty are to the right. Bachelor, or husband, sir?” "Our late friend was a married man."

Vastly well. John, be ready to show the articles for married men above forty: you must have finished by this time putting the private cost mark on the young

women."

"We wish a stone that shall express the virtues of the deceased: his children greatly regret his loss."

"Ah! that's quite another thing; you ought to have mentioned at first that he was the father of a family. John, the gentlemen wish to see the fathers of families above forty-they're on the other side, you know, close to the friends in need."

The mourners proceeded with the attendant towards ́another wing of the extensive building, when I took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded me by addressing the master. First, I complimented him on his powers of classification, which I considered as unsurpassed by those of Linnæus himself. "Sir, I find the arrangement convenient," was the modest reply of the hewer of stone. "Time and trouble are saved to all parties people by this means are always prepared for death, as one may say,—and I avoid getting into scrapes with the living. Formerly, sir, nothing could be more precarious or puzzling than the trade of a maker of monuments. It was as bad as portrait-painting: no satisfying the first demands of grief, without exceeding the decisions of reflection. I have seen an epitaph in gold letters ordered with tears in the eyes; and when the bill has been presented, the inheriting sorrower has insisted that they were commanded in black, as most suitable for mourning. Inscriptions to the memory of

faithful wives and affectionate husbands have been given to me, where epithet has vied with epithet, and exclamation with exclamation, to make a phrase of sorrow; and, sir, would you believe it, after the chisel had done its duty, I have had the charge disputed, on the ground that the eulogium was extravagant and inapplicable! Surely we could never have said so, I have been doomed to hear, when the instructions have been entered, right to a letter, in my warehouse-book of inconsolables. In short, sir, grief is prodigal; but reflection calculates. I thought it therefore best, as customers increased, and we had the prospect of an epidemic, to prepare a stock of ready-made articles, at ready-money prices; so that a gentleman might, if he pleased, be waited upon with his monument some days before his death, or, at all events, his heirs be fixed at once, and no opportunity be left for after-repenting."

I could not help expressing my admiration of a plan founded on such an exquisite knowledge of human nature, and apparently executed with an ability and industry worthy the excellence of the original idea. At the same time, I expressed some doubt whether the variety of the demand could be fully met by anticipation, and inquired whether they were not, after all, often obliged to make to order?

"Seldom, sir, seldom: not but that we are exposed to caprice and eccentricity sometimes. So great, however, is the extent and assortment of our stock, that one piece or other in it seldom fails to give satisfaction. The only persons, we may say, whom we have found at all troublesome, are the heirs of insolvents and foreigners. It is true, we have taken the precaution to engrave virtues suited to all the professions and classes of society; we have them too at all prices, and of every material from marble to plaster. Good husbands may be had here from a guinea upwards, and friends to the poor at a still lower rate. Faithful wives, being a large department, go with us very cheap; virgins untimely cut off are dearer. Our poetry is paid for by the line, but notes of admiration are charged separately. If you

will take the trouble to walk round with me, I shall be happy to show you our philanthropists in marble, and widows in freestone: we have also a handsome assortment of politicians in wood. Of philosophers it must be confessed that we are at present rather out; for the lead has been all used lately for bullets: but you will see several physicians in the block, and a number of men of letters, complete except the heads."

I readily availed myself of this invitation; and, as we proceeded, my interesting conductor left me nothing to desire in the way of information; while I was lost in astonishment at the infinite sagacity which directed this great establishment.

"I observe," said I, "that all the tablets in this division are particularly profuse of moral qualities and religious impressions. They are designed for the clergy, I suppose.

"No, sir, for the actors and actresses: these are the only people we now have that set much store by a character for virtue or religion: they demand, however, a great deal in this way, and we are almost obliged to be too full for a handsome distribution of lines, in order to satisfy their ambition to be exemplary."

"I have lost," continued he, " much good material and capital workmanship by the political changes. Legions of honour are now a drug; and senators useless. Many a magnificent slab, connected with the imperial regime, I have been obliged to sell at the price of granite, for building the foundations of statues to the Bourbons; and the same police-officer that has commanded their preparation has brought me the order for their destruction. What vexes me most, however, is, that we are obliged to bear the damage when the selfishness of individuals speculates on gain. How many family monuments, executed to order, have been left on our hands, because relations have suddenly found it inconvenient to claim the titles and achievements which they had given in with pride! How many alterations have we been obliged to make, at our own expense, to save the articles from being rejected altogether! Such