THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.
Back There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set about telling any one who I am,--for there is scarce any body I cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often wished I could do it in a single word,--and have an end of it. It was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this to any purpose;--for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my finger all the way over the name,--Me voici! said I.
Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in this account;--'tis certain the French conceive better than they combine;--I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this; inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into the same mistake in the very same case: --"He could not bear," he said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's jester." Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks. The Yorick your Lordship thinks of, has been dead and buried eight hundred years ago; he flourished in Horwendillus's court;--the other Yorick is myself, who have flourished, my Lord, in no court.- -He shook his head. Good God! said I, you might as well confound Alexander the Great with Alexander the Coppersmith, my lord!-- "'Twas all one," he replied. -
- If Alexander, King of Macedon, could have translated your Lordship, said I, I'm sure your Lordship would not have said so.
The poor Count de B- fell but into the same ERROR.
- Et, Monsieur, est-il Yorick? cried the Count.--Je le suis, said I.--Vous?--Moi,--moi qui ai l'honneur de vous parler, Monsieur le Comte.--Mon Dieu! said he, embracing me,--Vous etes Yorick!
The Count instantly put the Shakespeare into his pocket, and left me alone in his room.
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