If it be objected that the stories are too short and sketchy for the praise that has been bestowed on them, it may be answered that in their translation we have had the best opportunity to observe the skill, power, and perception of character which constitute their real merit.  Simple as they seem, they are written with masterly art.  In design, elaborateness, tone, and finish, they resemble the works of the Flemish School which have made us familiar with the Low Countries and their people through the pictures of Ruysdael, Teniers, and Ostade.  There is scarcely a leaf that does not display some of those recondite or evanescent secrets of human nature which either escape ordinary writers, or, when found by them, are spread out over volume instead of being condensed into a page.

Baltimore, August, 1856.

THE TRANSLATOR.

CHAPTER I.

Near the end of July, 1842, an open caleche might have been seen rolling along one of the three highways that lead from the frontiers of Holland toward Antwerp.  Although the vehicle had evidently been cleaned with the utmost care, every thing about it betokened decay.  Its joints were open, discolored, and weather-beaten, and it swung from side to side on its springs like a rickety skeleton.  Its patched leathers shone in the sunshine with the oil that had been used to freshen them, but the borrowed lustre could not hide the cracks and repairs with which they were defaced.  The door-handles and other parts of the vehicle that were made of copper had been carefully polished, and the vestiges of silver-plating, still visible in the creases of the ornaments, denoted a former richness which had been almost entirely worn out by time and use.

The caleche was drawn by a stout, heavy horse, whose short and lumbering gait intimated very clearly that he was oftener employed in the plough and cart than in carrying his owner toward the capital.

A peasant-boy of seventeen or eighteen was perched on the driver’s seat.  He was in livery; a tarnished gold band adorned his hat, and brass buttons glistened on his coat; but the hat fell over his ears, and the coat was so large that the driver seemed lost in it as in a bag.  The garments had been worn by many of the lackey’s predecessors on the box, and, in a long series of years, had doubtless passed from coachman to coachman till they descended to their present possessor.

The only person in the vehicle was a man about fifty years old.  He was unquestionably the master of both servant and cabriolet, for his look and deportment commanded respect and consideration.  With head depressed and moody air, he sat motionless and dreamy in his seat till he heard the approach of other vehicles, when, suddenly lifting his eyes, he would salute the strangers graciously and then instantly relapse into his former attitude.  A moment’s glance at this person was sufficient to excite an interest in