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

4

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.

very

indifferent things. The criticisms inhis Ragioni Poetici are often false.-Crudili.

LE SAGE.

Monsieur Le Sage writes for bread. He has published Gusman, and always keeps to Spanish scenes. "Has he ever been in that country ?"-Yes, I think he has. He is a very worthy good man, and cheerful, though so extremely deaf; and even gay company by the help of a cornette.-Abbé Colville (of Tours).

1741. They have made my Hidalgo Lord in the English translation, and a Burgomaster in the Dutch. I believe that people are much alike in all countries; one cannot paint one, without painting a thousand.-Le Sage.

Ay, these were the two first works that ever I risked into the world."-The same. [We had been just speaking of his Gil Blas, and his Diable Boiteux.]

"It was in this room that I wrote most of Gil Blas."-The same. [And an extreme pretty place to write in it was. His house

is at Paris, in the suburbs of St.Jaques, and so, open to the country air; and the garden laid out in the prettiest manner that ever I saw for a town garden. It was as pretty as it was small; and when he was in the study part of it, he was quite retired from the noise of the street, or any interruptions from his own family. The garden was only of the breadth of the house, from which you step out into a raised square parterre, planted with a variety of the prettiest flowers. From this you went down a flight of steps on each side, into a berceau, which led to two rooms or summerhouses, quite at the other end of the garden. These were joined by an open portico, the roof of which was supported with columns, so that he could walk from one to the other, all under cover, in the intervals of writing. The berceaus were covered with vines and honeysuckles; and the space between them was grove work. It was in the right hand room as you go down, that he wrote Gil Blas.]