when I was introduced to one, the lady of the house came to undress me, which is another high compliment that they pay to strangers. After she had slipped off my gown and saw my stays, she was very much struck at the sight of them, and cried out to the other ladies in the bath, "Come hither and see how cruelly the poor English ladies are used by their husbands; you need boast indeed of the superior liberties allowed you, when they lock you up thus in a box!"-The same.

It was from the customs of the Turks that I first had the thought of a septennial bill for the benefit of married persons, and of the advantages that might arise from our wives having no portions.-The same. [That lady's little treatise.upon these two subjects is very prettily writ, and has very uncommon arguments in it. She is very strong for both those tenets; that all married people should have the liberty of declaring every seventh year, whether they chose to continue on together in that state for another seven years or not; and that,

if women had nothing but their own good qualities and merit to recommend them, it would make them more virtuous, and their husbands more happy than they are in the present marketing way among us. She talks of it very seriously, and wishes the legislature would take it under their consideration, and regulate these two points by her system.]

Sure there cannot be a more detestable set of creatures upon earth than those AntiKnight-errants, who run about only to ruin as many ladies as they can.-The same.

Lord Bacon makes beauty to consist in grace and motion.-The same. [Mr. Locke makes it consist in colour and figure. Perhaps the two definitions joined together would make one much better than either of them is apart.]

CHEVALIER RAMSAY.

Ramsay wrote his Cyrus in imitation of the Archbishop of Cambray, and perhaps had some papers of his to help him in that work. That got him a character; but it is

much fallen again by the publishing of his Turenne. Every body is angry with him for that history, because Turenne's is a favourite character among us, and every body complains that he has not writ up to the dignity of the subject.-Abbé Boileau (at Tours.)

Yes, the Commentaries of Turenne himself are much better written, and have a great deal of Julius Cæsar's manner in them.-The same,

Ramsay's Cyrus was translated by Mr. Hooke in twenty days. Mr. Hooke was then at Bath for his health, and Dr. Cheney's brother was so good as to write for him. Hooke walked about the chamber and dictated to him; so that it was a sort of exercise as well as study. He always took the first heat; and if any passage did not fall readily into English to his mind, he marked the place, and went on with the next, to keep up his warmth and freedom. -Mr. Hooke. [Might not this be one reason of its being so generally mistaken for an original, for a good while after it

was published ? for almost every body then, and many still imagine, that Ramsay himself had written it in English as well as in French.]

CHENEY.

The sale of a book may be hurt a good deal by an ill-chosen title. Dr. Cheney's bookseller absolutely refused to print his book on health, unless he would change the title. The original name designed for it was-A Treatise on Sanity and Longevity. -Mr. Hooke....

ST. EVREMONT.

Monsieur St. Evremont would talk for ever. He was a great epicure, and as great a sloven. He lived, you know, to a great old age, and in the latter part of his life used to be always feeding his ducks, or the fowls that he kept in his chamber. He had a great variety of these and other sorts of animals all over the house, and used always to say, That when we grow old, and our own spirits decay, it reanimates one to

have a number of living creatures about one, and to be much with them*.-Mr. Pope.

BAYLE.

Ay, he is the only man that ever collected with so much judgment, and wrote with so much spirit, at the same time.The same. [After somebody had been speaking of Monsieur Bayle's manner in his Dictionary.]

GRAVINA.

Gravina was an Abbé, and as great a free-thinker as any of them. When he died, all his papers were searched by the Emperor's Ambassador at Rome. Among other things, there were notes of his upon the Bible; which, considering his character, would be curious enough to see. He was no poet; and his five tragedies are

* There is some truth in this observation, which may account for the great delight grandfathers take in the company and prattle of their grandchildren; who are surely much better companions than ducks and chickens.-M.