The wheel of fortune, in its revolutions, generally produces changes of two descriptions, either exalting the lowly or pulling down the great.  In rarer instances, not satisfied with giving the individual a single turn, it grants him the benefit of a more varied experience.  It carries the country-boy to wealth and power, and then transports him back to his native fields, whose pure air is not less wholesome, after all, than the heated atmosphere of the ball-room or caucus-chamber; or it may roll the wave of revolution over a kingdom, banishing the prince to wander an exile, perhaps a schoolmaster, in distant lands, to contend with poverty or duns, and then, on its receding tide, landing him once more safely on his throne.  Frequent revolutions have, however, taught princes wisdom in this respect.  Most of them now seem to be well provided for in foreign countries, beyond the reach of contingencies in their own, and if time is given them to escape with their lives, it is generally found that they have ‘laid up treasure’ where at any rate the thieves of the new dynasty can not ‘break through and steal.’  A very recent instance is afforded us by his majesty Faustin I., who, notwithstanding his confidence in the affection of his subjects, seems to have preferred taking the Bank of England as collateral security.

The first French Revolution probably affords as striking examples of change in worldly condition as any other period, and among those whom it affected for the time, few were more remarkable than two persons whom it sent to our own shores, Talleyrand and Chateaubriand.  During the residence of the former in Philadelphia, he appears at one time to have been in the most abject poverty.  We read of his pawning a watch and smaller articles, to provide himself and his companion with food; any care for their wardrobes, beyond the faded garments they were then wearing, being apparently out of the question.  If one who then met the needy foreigner walking the wide streets of that respectable city, had predicted that in a few years this shabby Frenchman would be looked up to as the leader of the diplomacy of Europe, he might with perfect justice have been regarded as a fit subject for one of that city’s excellent asylums.  But a few years did witness this change, and saw him powerful and the possessor of millions; unfortunately for the Abbe’s reputation, much of the latter being the wages of corruption.[C]

Chateaubriand speaks feelingly of the sufferings he and his companion underwent in London, about the same period.  Lodged in a dismal garret, they were at one time obliged to economize their food almost as closely as the inhabitants of a beleaguered town.  He speaks of walking the streets for hours together, utterly uncertain what to do, passing stately houses and groups of blooming English children, and then returning late at night to his attic, where his companion, ’trembling with cold,’ would rise from his ill-clad bed to open the door for him.  He