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He was a great admirer of Cicero, and very fond of Normandy cider, facts which, owing to the alphabetical sequence, jostle each other in the book. He preserves some of the mots of the great Henry, such as, Let us [kings] look after the fools; the wise men will do us no harm.' He had the tendency to laugh at the Germans which was then fashionable, and seems to have had a notion that Luther did not believe the immortality of the soul. But the Cardinal, as we know from other Ana, was gouty in his old age, like many lively men, from Erasmus to James Smith, and his temper may have suffered. In his youth he had been so active as to be a wonderful jumper-a fact which he of course dwelt on when the dira podagra chained him to his garden-chair.

and the strangeness is all the more pro- | bon, which the reader need not believe. minent from the alphabetical arrangement. Turn over C, and you find that cheese generates gout; that Calvin was asthmatic and spoke beautifully; and that Cujas studied, like David Hume, lying 'le ventre contre terre,' with his books around him. Turning over a few pages more, you find a bit of oriental learning, or classical criticism, and then an anecdote which brings before us in frightful reality the horrors of those bloody times, how Joseph's mother, when grosse de moy,' met a man carrying a sack full of the heads of executed criminals, and fainted. Next we have a lament over the fact that nobody reads now,' excepting Casaubon and myself, of course! or a flourish about the house of Scaliger, followed by a wail over his fallen position. How absurd this pretended descent from the Scaligers was, how it led to the Scaliger Hypobolimæus' of the dreadful Scioppius,' the man who accused Cicero of barbarism, and whose lash was truly awful, is well known to the curious in literary history. Joseph Scaliger accepted the fact on his father's assertion, who died when he was only eighteen, and too young to be critical on the parental story. He was recognised by his admirers as the Scaliger, and addressed by them as Most Illustrious Hero. It is now beyond all question, that Julius was the son of Benedetto Bordone, who kept a little shop in Venice, after having been originally a schoolmaster in Padua, and was a near kinsman of Paris Bordone, the painter. It is a curious fact which we have never seen noticed anywhere, that old Julius Cæsar Scaliger had himself a great talent for painting, and had taken lessons from Durer. The Thuana' and Perroniana' (or Table-Talk of Cardinal Perron) appeared together in 1669. This book we likewise The Ménagiana' occupies undoubtedly owe to Isaac Vossius. But nothing can be a rank next to the Scaligerana.' Mémore meagre, more unsatisfactory as a nage whose fine manly face, adorned by record of an eminent man, than the Thu- a flowing and stately wig, is one of the ana.' The Perroniana' is much fuller. most pleasing in the 'Hommes Illustres' of It brings the Cardinal before us-a lively, Perrault-was among the most learned vain, lettered, colloquial, and rather worldly men of his century, and a conspicuous orprelate-much as he may have been sup-nament of Paris in days when Paris was posed to appear to the courtiers of Henri Quatre. The Cardinal flattered himself that he had nearly converted Isaac Casautison,—a lively and accomplished scholar, who is

deeply read in the literature of that age.

Few at present,' says Bayle, believe his pretensions to be well founded.' (Dict, art Verona.) In the splendid work of Count Litta on Italian families, the claim is rejected as preposterous. Julius Caesar's pretended grandfather figures in the pedigree of the Scaligeri as an imaginary individual.-(Litta, tom. v.)

After these publications Ana became quite a literary rage. They fell like a shower of leaves on the tables of Europe. Unfortunately, people were careless what they gave forth under the title; and we often turn to them with curiosity only to be disappointed. There is a 'Bolæana.' Who would not like to hear the table-talk of Boileau? But the book is as thin as a pancake, and to judge from this record, it might be supposed that Boileau once said a good thing, as Brummell once ate a pea. The pleasantry was apropos of the mad theory of Hardouin, that the classics were written by the monks. The poet answered that he did not like monks generally, but that one would not object to live with Brother Virgil or Father Horace. It is questionable whether Boileau was strictly a diseur de bons-mots, any more than Pope; but we think it probable that all such men have talked better than is commonly believed.

the head-quarters of the intellect of Europe. He was essentially a conversationist-that is to say, he was witty without being only a wit, and could bring all the resources of his mind into play in a manner agreeable to society. It is a very happy combination which enables a man to achieve this; for the two dangers which threaten him are imminent-he runs a risk of being a jester, and he runs a risk of being a

bore.

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Under despotisms a certain kind of con- | folio!' Here is a literary man, M. Patru, versation attains its perfection; and it is pro- who has spent four years in translating the bable that the art reached its highest pointPro Archiâ,' and has not yet satisfied himin Paris during the Louis Quatorze period. self with his rendering of the first period. The diseur was in his glory. M. de Bautru, M. Ménage himself is not exactly a diseur Ménage tells us, was invited everywhere like the Prince de Guémené or M. de Baufor the sake of his bons-mots. When the tru. He is colloquial after the fashion of king gave an appointment, he communicat- men of letters. His talk smells a little of ed it to the object of his condescension in an the lamp; but then his lamp is of the most elegant saying. If I had known,' he would elegant form and the best fashion. He has remark, a more deserving person, I would always been in good society; and his have selected him.' His compliments were Wednesdays' are honoured by good comrepeated for their point, and by extending pany. When Christina of Sweden came to and perpetuating praise immensely multi- Paris, he had the task of presenting distinplied its value. When the old Duplessis guished persons to her majesty. This M. was mourning his misfortune in being pre- Ménage knows a vast many people of vented by age from taking part in a cam- merit!' said the Polar Star, satirically, paign, the King answered, We do but toil finding eminent people so numerous. She to earn the reputation which you have ac- had sarcasms for everybody; and when the quired.' Louis advanced to the top of the great ladies rushed to kiss her on her arristaircase to meet the great Condé, after the val, she 'exclaimed, 'Why, they seem to battle of Senef. The Prince, who ascended take me for a gentleman!' In fact, while slowly from the effects of his gout, apolo- we read the Ana of this period the air gised to his Majesty for making him wait. seems prickly with epigrams. They are as My cousin,' was the reply, do not hurry; thick as fire-flies. Whatever else may be no one could move quickly who was loaded said of them, they were brilliant days in with laurels as you are.' I have heard which Ménage flourished. They presented several great preachers,' said the monarch a degree of social splendour which has few to Massillon, and have been thoroughly parallels in history, and which is only atsatisfied with them. Every time I have tained by a proper relation between a real heard you I have been dissatisfied with aristocracy of rank and a real aristocracy myself.' He would bear uncourtly truths of letters. Something like it existed in to be spoken when they came recommended England in Anne's time, and in the semiby the lustre of wit. A disputed point French Jacobite society of Edinburgh a arose in a game. I refer it to you,' ex- century ago. It is the flowering of an anclaimed Louis to the Count de Grammont, cient system. Whatever its beauties, they who was approaching at the time. Your exist in full bloom under no other condi Majesty,' replied the Count, is wrong.' tions; and least of all are they compatible 'How can you say I am wrong when you with the dull magnificence and awkward do not yet know the question?' "Do you grandeur with which new-born wealth iminot see,' answered Grammont, that if the tates, splendours which owe the best of point had been ever so little doubtful, all their grace and charm to history, and sentithese gentlemen' (pointing to the bystand- ment, and refinement. ers) would have decided it in your favour?' The words which were the counters at that court were as choice as the counters they used at cards. It was as if diamonds had been declared a legal tender. They would not believe that silence concealed meditation, and M. de Benserade said of a man who did not talk, 'He thinks just as little.' It is a pleasant intellectual distraction-a kind of literary holiday to turn over the pages of the 'Ménagiana' and mingle for an hour or two in that brilliant company. Here comes M. de la Rivière, who went to Rome hoping vainly to be made a cardinal. We remark that he has a bad cold. It is because he has returned without a hat!' whispers M. de Bautru. Yonder is old Bishop Scarron of Grenoble, with the beard which men call a barbe en

The writers of that century show us that
conversation was an important part of their
study; and unquestionably the conversa-
tion of any period is the readiest and most
valuable index of its social state.
It is a
great misfortune,' says La Bruyère, 'not
to have mind enough to talk well, nor judg-
ment enough to be silent!' A distinction
of his between two sorts of bad talkers is
admirable :-There are persons who speak
a moment before they have thought-there
are others with whom you have to undergo
in conversation all the labour of their
minds.
They talk correctly and
wearisomely.' Another remark proves how
carefully he had studied the subject:-

'Christina, Arctoï lucida stella poli.'-Milton, Poemata.

"The art of conversation consists much | nouncing the vast majority of them as unless in your own abundance than in ena- worthy of reliance, and the Segraisiana bling others to find talk for themselves. especially, as full not only of falsehoods, Men do not wish to admire you; they want but of insipid falsehoods. Swift said that to please.' An excellent observation of universal as was the practice of lying, and Rochefoucauld, on the same branch of the easy as it seemed, he did not remember to question, will be a proper pendant: The have heard three good lies in all his life. reason why few persons are agreeable in conversation is because each thinks more of what he intends to say than of what others are saying, and seldom listens but when he desires to speak. Rochefoucauld, says Segrais, was the most polished man in the world; and this observation shows that he founded his good manners on the basis of good sense. Ménage lived to a great age, and the new generation seems to have thought the old gentleman a bore. Perhaps his favourite power ran away with him, and he did not observe these philanthropic directions of Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, or recollect, as our own wise and witty George Herbert has it, that

I never heard that,' said an exuberant talker of the present day, by way of contradiction. I don't know how you should,' was the reply, for you never hear anything.' La Monnoye, who edited the best edition of the Ménagiana, that of 1715 in four volumes, wrote an epitaph on him about which there is nothing remarkable, except that Moore stole the point, and used it in a satirical epitaph on Southey, part of which is

'Peace to his manes, and may he sleep

As soundly as his readers did.' During the latter half of the seventeenth century the term Ana was by no means strictly confined to records of talk, though in its rigid signification it ought to be. The public sought such compilations with avidity, eager to get a glimpse of great men en négligé, the exhibition of which constitutes the principal charm of the Ana. The booksellers took advantage of the popularity of the designation, and plenty of works appeared under this name which were made up not from the talk but from the papers of their subjects. Such are the Casauboniana, Parrhasiana, &c. Sometimes writers published their own Ana; one of the best of which is the Chevræana of Urbain Chevreau (Paris, 1697-1700). But it is obvious that with this class of books we are not at present concerned. The abuse of the title soon brought it into discredit, and the ardour for the entire genus cooled. We find Voltaire, in the Dictionnaire Philosophique,' de

We now turn to the contributions made by our own countrymen to this department of literature. Bacon's Apophthegms scarcely belong to the class of Table-Talk, though by recording the bon-mots of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and others, his book approximates to it. The great men of that day said many witty things and many wise ones, but we cannot fail to be struck with the singular contrast between the robustness of their intellects, their solemn, and often ponderous wisdom, and the poor facetic to which they sometimes stooped. With the fools, who entertained the guests of kings and nobles, and who bore some resemblance to the laughtermaker of the ancients, we are familiar through the plays of Shakspeare. Their sallies were characterised as much by impertinence as by wit. Indeed the impertinence was often itself the joke. To put one person out of countenance afforded mirth to the rest. The womanly vanity and queenly pride of Elizabeth shrunk from these rude rebukes. She would not allow her fool, Pace, because of his caustic vein, to enter her presence; but once being persuaded to have him in, Come on, Pace,' said she, now we shall hear of our faults.' 'I do not,' he replied, use to talk of that which all the town talks on.' She never probably ventured to repeat the experiment, and in this case no one can do otherwise than sympathise with the sensitiveness of Elizabeth, and wonder at the taste of our ancestors who could suffer their conversation to be broken in upon by the sorry jests and coarse personalities of a licensed buffoon. From Shakspeare we learn equally how the paltriest puns in that day were received for wit; and Lord Bacon's Apophthegms, the best repository of the smart sayings of the ancients which was made, bears testimony no less to the fact that an indifferent play on words was held in estimation by sages like himself. Nay, there was a species of elaborate, acted humour which was largely indulged in by Sir Thomas More, and which, though little removed above a practical joke, continued to pass current in the reign of James, and to receive the countenance of the great philosopher. An instance which he gives of the marvellous' pleasantry of the King is an example of the practice. In one of

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some acquaintance with his writings-let us say with the Titles of Honour' for instance and have bowed reverently to the immensely learned man, of whom Ben Jonson said, that he was the Law Book of the Judges.' But is the Selden of the Titles of Honour' the same person as the Selden of the Table-Talk?' One scarcely believes it. Dry, grave, and even crabbed in his writings-his conversation is homely, humorous, shrewd, vivid, even delightful! He is still the great scholar and the tough parliamentarian, but merry, playful, and witty. The dvpieuov yéλaopa is on the sea of his vast intellect. He writes like the opponent of Grotius; he talks like the friend of Ben Jonson.

"Twas an unhappy division that has been made between faith and works. Though in my intellect I may divide them, just as in the candle out the candle and they are both gone; one reI know there is both light and heat, but yet put mains not without the other; so 'tis betwixt faith and works."

Then he has admirable observations upon human nature, and pleasant anecdotes with which to exemplify his positions.

'We measure the excellency of other men by Nash, a poet poor enough, as poets used to be, some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves. seeing an alderman with his gold chain upon his great horse, by way of scorn said to one of his companions, "Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks? Why that fellow cannot make a blank verse!"'

The next extract is an instance of the

same principle of the mind under a fresh aspect.

An

'We cannot tell what is a judgment of God; 'tis presumption to take upon us to know. Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide. example we have in King James concerning the death of Henry the Fourth of France. One said he was killed for his dissoluteness, another said he was killed for turning his religion. No, he was killed for permitting duels in his kingsays King James, who could not abide fighting,

In Selden's Table-Talk' is found that exquisite illustration that libels and pasquils are like straws, which serve to show how the wind sets. In it, too, is the striking thought so much admired by Coleridge, that Transubstantiation is only 'Rhetoric turned into Logic.' His chief conversational quality, the one, says his amanuensis, which his friends most valued in him, was his turn for familiar illustration. He put off the cumbersome garb of the scholar and talked about a scholar's subjects like a man of the world. This is the great difference between Selden's Table-Talk' and the Ana generally, that it is infinitely more substantial. He employs his colloquial A remark of Swift will once more vary familiarity to light up the high themes of Church and State. You are amused, but the point of view, and show us this pervadyou are also benefited. By a single curious ing self-sufficiency in another of its habits: fact he shows us how jealous the old Par-That was excellently observed, say I, when liaments were of their independence and I read a passage in an author where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.'

power.

'In time of Parliament it used to be one of the first things the House did to petition the King that his confessor might be removed, as fearing either his power with the King, or else lest he should reveal to the Pope what the House was doing, as no doubt he did when the Catholic

cause was concerned.'

How quietly satirical is the sarcastic question with which he concludes his observation on the pretended poverty of the friars!

'The friars say they possess nothing: whose then are the lands they hold? Not their superior's; he hath vowed poverty as well as they; Whose then? To answer this, 'twas decreed they should say they were the Pope's. And why must the friars be more perfect than the Pope himself?'

How felicitous, again, is the illustration by which he expresses the necessary connexion of faith and works!

dom.'

We have already referred to Johnson's admiration of the Table-Talk' of Selden, and one of his own most celebrated dicta was borrowed from it. 'Sir,' said he to Boswell, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?' This,' said Selden, is the juggling trick of the party, they would have nobody above them, but they do not tell you they would have nobody under them.' Johnson proceeded with the democratical Mrs. Macaulay to put her principles to the test. Madam,' he said, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be