THE PREACHER. A Gascon preacher stopped short in the pulpit; it was in vain that he scratched his head; nothing would come out. "My friends," said he, as he walked quietly down the pulpit stairs, "my friends, I pity you, for you have lost a fine discourse." VOLTAIRE AND MONTESQUIEU. Voltaire having given a representation of his Orphan of China, at the Delices near Geneva, before it appeared in Paris, the President Montesquieu, who was present, fell fast asleep. Voltaire threw his hat at his head, saying, "He thinks he is in court."-" No, no," said Montesquieu, awaking, "in church." VOLTAIRE'S "MARIANNE." Voltaire's Marianne was at first only once acted. It is said, that the public being divided as to the merit of the work, the question was oddly settled. The farce, which happened to be played that evening, was entitled, The Mourning:"For the deceased play, I suppose," said a critic in the pit; and this decided the fate of the piece. VOLTAIRE'S EAGLE. move between the cage of the eagle and the window of his apartment, from which he had a view of the great road. At length his courier appeared, and along with him, the Esculapius so much wished for; Voltaire raised a cry of joy; flew to meet him, gave him a most distinguished reception, and lavished on him prayers and promises to interest him for his sick favourite. The man, astonished at a reception to which he was little accustomed, examined the wounds of the eagle. Voltaire, full of anxiety, sought to read in his eyes his hopes and fears. The doctor declared, with the air of a professor, that he would not venture to pronounce on the case until after the first dressing was removed; but promised to repeat his visit on the morrow, and departed, handsomely paid. On the morrow Voltaire was on thorns, and at last the decision was, that the physician could not answer for the life of the eagle; a new source of disquietude. Voltaire's first question every morning to one of his servants, named Madeline, whose business it was to wake him, was, "How is my eagle?" "Very poorly, sir, very poorly." One day at length Madeline answered, laughing: "Ah, sir, your eagle is no lonThe greatest geniuses have always ger sick." "It is cured then! their weaknesses to connect them What happiness!" "No; it is with the ordinary race of mankind. | dead!" "Dead! my eagle dead! Voltaire was not exempt from this and this you tell me laughing?" tribute which nature seems to exact "Why, sir, it was so lean, it is all from great men, as an expiation for the better dead." How, lean!" their superiority. The following exclaimed Voltaire in a rage; an anecdote is in point:-"Voltaire excellent reason, truly! I suppose took great delight in a young eagle you must kill me also because I am which he kept chained in the court lean. You baggage! to laugh at of his chateau at Ferney. One day the death of my poor eagle, because the eagle fell to fighting with two it was lean! because you are in good cocks, and was severely wounded. condition yourself, you think it is Voltaire, disconsolate, sent an ex-only people of your stamp that press to Geneva, with directions to should have a right to live? Out bring a man who passed there as a of my sight! begone!" Madame pretty expert animal doctor. In Denis, hearing the noise, ran to her his impatience, he did nothing but uncle, and asked what had discom 66 SIGNIFICANT CRITICISM. posed him. JOHNSON AND THE POETESS. 269 he thus recorded of himself, I replied, that I was surprised any person should obtrude their writings upon his attention; adding, that if I could write as well as Milton or Gray, I should think the best fate to be desired for my compositions was exemption from his notice. I expected a sharp sarcasm in return, but he only rolled his large head in silence. "Johnson told me once, he 'would hang a dog that read the Lycidas of Milton twice.' 'What, then,' replied I, 'must become of me, who can say it by heart, and who often repeat it to myself with a delight which grows by what it feeds upon?' 'Die!' returned the growler, 'in a surfeit of bad taste.' Thus it was that the wit and aweless impoliteness of the stupendous creature bore down by storm every barrier which reason attempted to rear against his injustice." CRITICISM OF A HATTER'S SIGN. A journeyman hatter, a companion of Dr. Franklin, on commencing business for himself, was anxious to get a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. This he composed himself, as follows: "John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money," with the figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word hatter tautologous, because followed by the words "makes hats," which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. "When last in Lichfield," says Anna Seward, "Johnson told me that a lady in London once sent him a poem which she had written, and afterwards desired to know his opinion of it. 'Madam, I have not cut the leaves. I did not even peep The next observed, between them.' He met her again that the word "makes" might as in company, and she again asked well be omitted, because his cushim after the 'trash.' He made no tomers would not care who made reply, and began talking to another the hats; if good, and to their mind, person. The next time they met, they would buy, by whomsoever she asked him if he had yet read made. He struck that out also. her poem. He answered, 'No, A third said, he thought the words madam, nor never intend to!'"for ready money" were useless; Shocked at the unfeeling rudeness as it was not the custom of the place VOLTAIRE AND THE ENGLISHMAN. to sell on credit, every one who pur-! chased expected to pay. These, too, were parted with, and the inscrip- An Englishman who stopped at tion then stood, "John Thompson Ferney, in his way to Italy, offered sells hats." "Sells hats!" says his to Voltaire to bring him from Rome next friend; "why, who expects whatever he desired. "Good," said you to give them away? What, the philosopher, "bring me the ears then, is the use of the word?" It of the grand Inquisitor." The was struck out, and hats was all that Englishman, in the course of a faremained attached to the name of miliar conversation with Clement John Thompson. Even this in-XIV., related to him this piece of scription, brief as it was, was re-pleasantry. "Tell Voltaire from duced ultimately to "John Thomp-me," answered the pope, laughing, son," with the figure of a hat sub-"that our Inquisitor is no longer joined. possessed of ears." RICHARD I. IMMORTALITY. THE LATEST INFORMATION. Foulques de Neully, a celebrated Bautru, in presenting a poet to preacher of his day, addressing M. d'Hemery, addressed him, "Sir, himself in a prophetic style to I present to you a person who will Richard I., King of England, told give you immortality; but you him he had three daughters to must give him something to live marry, and that, if he did not dis- upon in the meantime." pose of them soon, God would punish him severely. "You are a false prophet," said the king; "I have was relating a story. no daughter." "Pardon me, sir," M. de B said to him, "That replied the priest, "your majesty cannot be, for I have a letter of the has three, ambition, avarice, and 31st, which says the contrary." luxury; get rid of them as fast"Ah," replied the narrator, "but as possible, else assuredly some mine is of the 32d!" great misfortune will be the consequence." "If it must be so then," said the king, with a sneer, "I give my ambition to the templars, my avarice to the monks, and my luxury to the prelates." IMPROMPTUS. It is a difficult matter to make a good impromptu. I believe, for my own part, that none are good but those that are made at leisure. -(Menage.) VOLTAIRE'S GENIUS. CASAUBON. Casaubon being present during the discussion of a thesis in the Sorbonne, listened to a very long and stubborn dispute, which was carried on in a style so barbarous and unintelligible to him, that he could not help remarking, as he left the hall, "I never listened to so much Latin before without understanding it!" BACON'S INCONSISTENCIES. The difference between the soarIt was observed by Madame ing angel and the creeping snake Necker, that Voltaire had extracted was but a type of the difference from his genius everything of which between Bacon the philosopher and it was susceptible; that in his case Bacon the attorney-general, Bacon it was like a sponge, which he had seeking for truth, and Bacon seekdrained of its contents to the lasting for the seals. Those who survey only one half of his character drop. M. DE BAUTRU. 271 may speak of him with unmixed in a fair wife, could obtain a more admiration, or with unmixed con- cordial salute from Buckingham, tempt. But those only judge of while some buffoon, versed in all him correctly who take in at one the latest scandal of the court, view Bacon in speculation and could draw a louder laugh from Bacon in action. They will have James.-(Macaulay.) THE RETORT COURTEOUS. M. le Comte de was, like many others who take the name of Count, without the property. In a company where I was present, he once endeavoured to turn into ridicule an abbé, who, according to custom, had assumed the name, without possessing a benefice. "It is strange," said he, “that we should have known each other so long, and yet that I don't know whereabouts your abbey lies." "What!" said the abbé, "don't you know? It is within your county.”—(Menage.) THE FIRST SMOKER. Tobacco was first brought into repute in England by Sir Walter Raleigh. By the caution he took no difficulty in comprehending how one and the same man should have been far before his age and far behind it, in one line the boldest and most useful of innovators, in another line the most obstinate champion of the foulest abuses. In his library, all his rare powers were under the guidance of an honest ambition, of an enlarged philanthropy, of a sincere love of truth. There, no temptation drew him away from the right course. Thomas Aquinas could pay no fees. Duns Scotus could confer no peerages. The master of the sentences had no rich reversions in his gift. Far different was the situation of the great philosopher when he came forth from his study and his laboratory to mingle with the crowd which filled the galleries of White-in smoking it privately, he did not hall. In all that crowd there was no man equally qualified to render great and lasting services to mankind. But in all that crowd there was not a heart more set on things which no man ought to suffer to be necessary to his happiness, on things which can often be obtained only by the sacrifice of integrity and honour. To be the leader of the human race in the career of improvement, to found on the ruins of ancient intellectual dynasties a more prosperous and a more enduring empire, to be revered by the M. de Bautru had been often latest generations as the most illus-pressed by the Queen to show her trious among the benefactors of his wife. At last she told him mankind, all this was within his plainly, that she was determined to reach. But all this availed him nothing while some quibbling special pleader was promoted before him to the bench, while some heavy country gentleman took precedence of him by virtue of a purchased coronet, while some pander, happy intend it should be copied. But M. DE BAUTRU. be presented to her. Bautru, who had resisted as long as he possibly could, promised to bring her with him after dinner; "but, please your Majesty," added he, "she is terribly deaf." "O, no matter," said the Queen, "I will talk loud." He immediately went home to prepare his wife for the interview, and warned her to speak as loud as possible, as the Queen would be unable otherwise to understand her. He brought her to the Louvre in the evening, and the Queen immediately opened the conference by bawling as loudly as possible, while Madame de Bautru answered her in the same tone. The King, who had been apprised of the whole by Bautru, laughed with all his heart at the scene. At last the Queen, who perceived it, said to Madame de Bautru, "Is it not the case that Bautru has made you believe that I am deaf?" Madame de Bautru admitted that it was so. Ah, the villain!" continued the Queen, "he told me the same of you." (Menage.) AMERICAN COPYRIGHTS. American publishers usually pay authors 10 per cent. on the retail price of their works. But authors of extraordinary popularity in some instances have received from 20 to 40 per cent. Stephens, author of Travels in the Holy Land, &c., had received from his publishers, the Harpers, as early as 1848, more than fifteen thousand dollars; and Prescott, for his Life of Ferdinand and Isabella, and his Conquest of Mexico, had received some twenty or twentyfive thousand dollars from the same firm. THE "COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT." The early patroness of Burns, Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop, had an old housekeeper, a sort of privileged person, who had certain aristocratical notions of the family dignity, that made her utterly astonished at the attentions that were paid by her mistress to a man in such low worldly estate as the rustic poet. In order to overcome her prejudice and surprise, her mistress persuaded her to peruse a MS. copy of the Cotter's Saturday Night, which the poet had just then written. When Mrs. Dunlop inquired her opinion of the poem, she replied, with a quaint indifference, “Aweel, madam, that's vera weel." "Is that all you have to say in its favour?" asked the mistress. "Deed, madam," she returned, "the like o' you quality may see a vast in't; but I was aye used to the like o' all that the poet has written about in my ain father's house, and atweel I dinna ken how he could hae described it ony other gate." When Burns heard of the old woman's criticism, he remarked that it was one of the highest compliments he had ever received. INVITATIONS. You are not invited to an entertainment, it is because you have not bought the invitation, which he who makes it sells to those who flatter him, and are obsequious to him. Instead of a good supper, then, I have nothing. Yes; you have the pleasure of knowing you have not commended the man you disliked, nor endured his insolent behaviour.-(Epictetus.) EVIL SPEAKING. If anybody tells you such an one has spoken ill of you, do not refute them in that particular; but answer, had he known all my vices he had not spoken only of that one. -(Ibid.) CARDINAL RICHELIEU. Amidst the important occupations of the Cardinal Richelieu, he generally found time to unbend a little from the fatigue attendant on the ministry. He was fond of violent exercises, particularly after meals, but did not like to be surprised in these moments of amusement and pleasure. M. de Boisrobert, who was constantly with |