D'Aubigné. He offered to pay her way into a convent or to marry her. She chose the latter alternative. When the notary inquired concerning her dowry, Scarron replied: "Two great mutinous eyes, a handsome bust, a pair of lovely hands, and plenty of wit." Questioned as to his settlement on her, he answered, "Immortality. Other names may perish; that of Scarron's wife will remain for ever." As Critic Van Laun remarks on this romantic episode: "Scarron was right; but another vied with Scarron in giving immortality to Françoise, who is better known to fame as Madame de Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV." She made Scarron a devoted wife and nurse, however, till death ended his wreck nine years after this wedding. His small, mean rooms were turned into a salon in which she reigned as queen.

As for Scarron's works, it is unnecessary to enlarge on his travesty of Virgil, or on his comedies. While he invented French burlesque, the name was invented by his friend Sarasin, from "burla"-a jest. In his plays he introduced Crispin, who became to the French stage what Harlequin was to that of Italy. Crispin is a witty, impudent, boasting valet. In Scarron's "L'Hypocrite" (1654), a "tragi-comique," we see the original of Molière's "Tartuffe" (1667). Scarron's "Roman Comique," in which he told realistically the (unfinished) history of a troupe of strolling players, gave birth to the imitations of Le Sage and Fielding. La Fontaine has woven this story into a comedy, while Goldsmith has made an English version of the highly amusing romance-the Odyssey of the mummers.

Scarron left his own epitaph, as follows:

"He who sleeps here now,

Caused more pity than envy,

And suffered a thousand deaths

Before losing his life.

Passer-by, do not make any noise here,

And take care not to awake him,

For this is the first night

That poor Scarron slumbers."

HIS DESCRIPTION OF HIMSELF.
(From the "Comic Romance.")

READER, you who have never seen me, and who perhaps trouble yourself very little about me-for there is not much to be gained by seeing a person made like me -know that I should not be anxious that you should see me, if I had not learned that some facetious wits make themselves merry at the expense of my misfortunes, and depict me as quite different from what I am. Some say that I am a cripple in a bowl; others, that I have no thighs, and that I am put on the table

in a box, where I chatter like a winking magpie; and others, that my hat is fastened to a cord that's attached to a pulley, and that I raise and lower it to salute those who come to see me. I think I ought in conscience to prevent them from telling any more lies. I would have had myself well painted, if any painter had dared to undertake it.

I have left thirty years behind me. If I get to forty, I shall add many pains to those I have already suffered for eight or nine years. I have had a good figure, though short. My illness has shortened it by a good foot. My head is rather large for my height. I have a pretty full face for my very meagre body; hair enough not to need a wig; I have many white ones in spite of the proverb; pretty good sight, though my eyes are rather large: they are blue, one is more deeply set than the other, on the side that I bend my head. I have a nose of tolerably good shape. My teeth, which used to be squares of pearl, are of the color of wood, and will soon be the color of slate. I have one and a half on the left side,

and two and a half on the right, and two are a little chipped. My legs and my thighs formed at first an obtuse angle, and then a right angle, and at last an acute angle. My thighs and my body made another; and my head bending down on my chest, I am pretty much like a Z. My arms are shortened as well as my legs, and my fingers as well as my arms. In fact, I am an epitome of human misery. That's pretty nearly how I look.

Since I am in such a fair way, I will tell you something of my temper. Besides, this introduction is written just to make the book bigger, at the request of the bookseller, who is afraid he will not get back the expenses of printing, but for that it would be of no use, just like a good many others. But it is no new thing to commit folly out of good nature, besides those that one does on one's own account.

I have always been rather passionate, rather fond of good things, and rather idle. I often call my valet a fool, and soon after, Sir. I hate nobody; God send they may treat me the same. I am very comfortable when I have any money, and should be still more comfortable if I had my health. I enjoy myself very well in company. I am very well content when I am alone. I bear my troubles pretty patiently.

PARIS.

HOUSES in labyrinthine maze;

The streets with mud bespattered all;
Palace and prison, churches, quays,
Here stately shop, there shabby stall.
Passengers black, red, gray and white,

The pursed-up prude, the light coquette;

Murder and Treason dark as night;

With clerks, their hands with inkstains wet;

A gold-laced coat without a sou,

And trembling at a bailiff's sight;

A braggart shivering with fear;

Pages and lacqueys, thieves of night;

And 'mid the tumult noise, and stink of it,
There's Paris-Pray, what do you think of it?

VIRGIL TRAVESTIED.

Two little morsels may serve as specimens of the once famous "Travesty of Virgil." In the first Dido confesses to her sister her new love for Æneas shipwrecked on her shore. The other is part of that prince's story of the fate of Troy.

Ah! sister-faithful sister-tell

By what strange destiny it fell
That thus Æneas hither came?
Eneas! how I love the name!

How fresh is he!-how fat!-how fair!
How strong and big! with what an air
He tells his deeds! and what a height!
O sister Anne-he charms me quite.

By that gate fair Andromache
Would pass, papa-in-law to see,
And cre those fatal Greek attacks
Would bring with her Astyanax.
Queen Hecuba's continued joy
Was to caress and kiss the boy.
When he was but a tiny child

She dandling him her hours beguiled;
And when he somewhat bigger grew
This good grandam, a baby too,

Would play with him. Sometimes the queen
Would tell him of fair Melusine,

And Fierabras, of wondrous Jack,

And all the old tales in the pack:
The child her idol was, and pet:
Sometimes so doting did she get,
That she would even ride cock-horse,
A stick between her legs, and course
All up and down, till, tired and weak,
She could not either breathe or speak.
Andromache oft plainly said

That grandmamma would spoil the lad:
And Priam, when he saw him cram
His mouth all day with bread and jam,
Remarked with some severity,

The boy would surely ruined be.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE.

PEN-PICTURES of characters are found in ancient and modern literatures, but there has been no greater painter of those of his time than Jean de La Bruyère (1645

1696). He chose the concrete, where La Rochefoucauld took the abstract. And yet, having been appointed-at Bossuet's suggestion-as historical preceptor to Duke Louis of Bourbon, son of Condé, La Bruyère did not go the full length of painting all the great people of his acquaintance. He made enough enemies as it was, even though, "holding a handful of truth, he chose to open only his little finger." His "Characters" (1687) grew out of his translation-really an alteration and extension-of the work of Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle in his philosophical school, and the first Greek describer of characters. But whereas Theophrastus had treated the abstract qualities, La Bruyère determined to draw life-like portraits (even if not always full-length). Under the thin disguise of such names as were then rife in the romances of the court and salons, he put many of his contemporaries on his immortal canvas. By slow degrees his "Characters" increased to 1119-quite a respectable portrait gallery; and despite the desultory framework of his masterpiece he hung these pictures in a kind of order. Thus, in consecutive chapters "On Mind," "On Personal Merit," "On Women," "On the Heart," "On Society and Conversation," "On Wealth," "On the Town," "On the Court," "On the Great," etc., hę illustrates all the virtues and vices under review with his; inimitable pen-sketches. He has a felicitously indirect way of saying a harsh word, as in his conclusion that "a healthy mind receives at court a taste for solitude and retirement." In the same chapter with his fulsome portrait of Louis XIV.