THE BOHEMIAN. CHAPTER I. She had the Asiatic eye, Dark as above us is the sky; But through it stole a tender light, All love, half languor, and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire.-BYRON. It was in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, that the Count Adrian von Oberfeldt chanced to be at the fair of Leipzig. He was there, not for purposes of business, nor directly of pleasure; but to unite, with the dissipating a certain portion of time, the chance of meeting in the crowded and bustling scene some object or adventure, which might give him that excitation, the want of which made his time so heavy on his hands. Oberfeldt was a person very different from the race of Thonderten troncks, then so common in his country;-he had had advantages which few of them possessed, and his natural gifts had enabled him to profit by them to the utmost. He had, at the age of eighteen, become attached to the Saxon embassy at Versailles; and had resided, for several years, at that brilliant and cultivated court. Endowed by nature with great quickness of perception, and susceptibility of temperament, he had imbibed much intellectual improvement from the atmosphere of wit and of literature by which he was surrounded; and, at the same time, he graduated in that system of polished gallantry, which, at that period of Louis XIV.'s reign, was so prevalent at his court. In love, as in play, On commence par être dupe, On finit par être fripon→→→→→→ A young German, with the romantic feelings of his country fermenting in his heart, and with the blood of eighteen boiling in his veins, was, of all men, the most calculated to believe the world of love to be every thing that its first aspect seemed to his intoxicated sight,—and, consequently, to receive some most chilling and painful shocks as the reality forced itself upon him. In a state of society so factitious, and so craving of excitement, as the French court then presented, a disposition new and ardent, like that of Adrian Oberfeldt, was certain to be exceedingly attractive, and to cause its owner to be proportionately sought after. But this very effect must speedily destroy its cause: the bloom which invited the touch was worn off by its frequency, and Adrian, like Peter of Russia, bought, by his own experience, the power of retaliating, and more than retaliating, upon the parties by whose means he had suffered. If the warmth of his disposition was likely to blind him, the keenness and vigour of his mind sufficed speedily to dissipate the mist; and, like many persons of similar fine qualities, he became spoiled from the very reason of having possessed them. There can be no character more dangerous to women than that which Oberfeldt now became. With mental powers which commanded respect, and facilitated the accomplishment of the objects to which he might devote himself,-he united VOL. I. N sufficient warmth of heart to throw an air of sentiment and of reality over his professions, and sufficient experience and skill in tracing the labyrinth of female feeling to prevent his passions running beyond his management, and thus throwing the command of the game into his adversary's hand. Exercising these advantages to their full extent, and enjoying generally the polished and intellectual society in which he lived, Adrian Oberfeldt passed upwards of six years; when, to his great annoyance and mortification, he was recalled into his own country. Few things could be more different than the boy who went and the man who returned. There were, it is true, some points of resemblance left. The blooming youth had ripened into the handsome man-the eye was keener-the graceful limb more vigorous-the whole aspect more decided and mature. The mind, also, bore the effects of cultivation, but of cultivation of the original soil-the capability of expansion and accomplishment had been replaced by the acquisitions themselves. But, instead of the ardent and confiding disposition—the heart yearning to like and to love-the generous self-sacrificing unreserve of boyish feelings,-there were now the supercilious self-concentration of the man of the world-the sentiments touched with the selfishness of an indulged Epicurean—the calculating skill of a man whose commerce with women had been that of intrigue rather than of love-an art carefully studied, not the outbreaking irrepressible feelings of uncorrupted nature. To such a person as this, a country castle in the circles of Saxony could not fail to be a most distasteful abode. The business incidental upon succeeding to his paternal inheritance, as well as a reluctance to re-appear as a private individual where he had always possessed the advantages attending an official character, prevented his returning to France, to which his inclinations would otherwise have prompted him. coarseness and ignorance of his neighbours made his intercourse with them confined to the necessary formalities of his position. At the time, therefore, at which I present him to my readers, which was a few months after his return to Germany, he was beginning to be devoured with The |