Perhaps, Sir, I have been fancying objections to articles of this kind, without foundation. At all events, I send you a specimen for your opinion; and shall be glad to think I have been talking superfluously, by seeing its insertion. In that case, I will follow it up with others, upon subjects a little more original. The Menagiana are perhaps more known among us at present by name, than any other way, common as they once were among scholars. I confess, for my part, whose scholarship is a great deal more mischievous than any thing else, and just fitted for the humble ambition of this endeavour, that I found in the book less of what is commonly met with, than I expected. The fashion of quoting Menage has been long extinct. It went out with the perukes that began in his time. There is a fashion in learning as in every thing else. Men wear their Greek and Latin differently, as well as their hats.

Part of" the prosperity of a jest" lying in the time and manner of it, and in other

"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious joke,"

it is as well to bear in mind, that Menage was in the habit of keeping open house, for his friends to drop in and chat, and that these ana of the French Varro were collected viva voce accordingly. They are genuine talk, like those of Selden and Johnson. We are to imagine a knot of French wits and scholars of the age of Louis XIVth, with their paternal old wag in the midst of them.

Somebody saying, that to write well, either in verse or prose, it was necessary to consult one's ear, "True," said M. Guiot, "provided it 's a good one."

A Gascon, who was on ill terms with the Bishop of Bazas, swore he would never pray to God in that diocese. One day passing a river, and being in danger, the boatman said that nothing remained for him but to address himself to God. "Well," said the Gascon," are we out of the diocese of Bazas?"

Favoriti, secretary of the late Pope, reading some briefs to his Holiness, and explaining them in Italian, the good Father wept for joy, and exclaimed, "What will posterity say of us, when they see our beautiful Latin ??

Mons. D. burying his wife five hours after her decease, they told him the body was not yet cold. "Nonsense," said he; "do what I tell you. She's dead enough."

Poor Nuns.-M. le Camus, Bishop of Bellay, preaching at Nôtre Dame, prefaced his sermon with the following announcement :-" Gentlemen, your charity is requested for a young lady, who is not rich enough to make a vow of poverty."

M. d'Arfine, whose father was a grocer, (in French, epicier, spicer,) was for playing the great man. He had a motto painted for a

*This was, of course, a fiction.

The joke was on the unfeelinguess of the man

who had married a very old woman for money. They said he had married a dead

body to live by it.

devotional subject-Respice finem (Consider your end.) Somebody took away the first and last letters, and left it Epic fine (Fine spice).*

The Duke of Orleans was in the garden of the Luxembourg when it was very hot. The sun beat directly on the heads of his courtiers, who were uncovered. M. de Bautru, who was present, observed, that princes did not love their friends. The Duke said, the reproach could not attach to him, for he loved them very much. "Your Highness must love them boiled then," returned Bautru, "or, at least, well roasted."+

M. Toinard said, that the reason why people did not return borrowed books, was, that they could more easily retain the contents than remember them.

M. de M. was shewn the fine church of Coutances. "Lord!" says he," was it made here?”

Every body weeping at a pathetic sermon, except a countryman, he was asked the reason. 66 Sir," said he "I am not of this parish." The spirit that walketh at noon is Hunger.‡

A certain bishop going to take leave of Madame the Countess de V., whom he was in love with, expressed his regret at being absent from her, though for a short time. Well, sir," said the lady, "pray let the time be as short as possible; for a mistress, you know, is a living that compels the incumbent to residence."

In the last will and testament left by M. de Langre, was the following item-"To my Maître-d'hotel I leave nothing, because he has been eighteen years in my service." In another, he bequeathed a hundred crowns to whoever should write his epitaph. Some one produced the following, which is one of the best I ever read :

"Monsieur de Langre est mort testateur olographe;
Et vous me promettez, si j'en fais l'epitaphe,

Les cent écus par lui legquez à cet effet.

Parbleu ! l'argent est bon dans le siecle où nous sommes :
Comptez toujours: 'Cy gist le plus méchant des hommes :'
Payez; le voila fait."

This reminds me of a couple of epigrams once handed about on a similar occasion:

"Tom wonders what the king means, when

He says, 'My lords and gentlemen :'
He thinks the king, instead of so, Sirs,,
Should say, 'My lords and sons of grocers.'

"Tom loves the grossest lord that is,

And thinks no peer a proser;

But filial hearts should pardon this :
His father was a grosser."

The anecdote in Menage is, perhaps, the origin of the charade on the word

Majesty.

+ Ha! C. have you been here among your old books?

a foolish woman to know whether he loved children.

" boiled."

C. was plagued by "Yes, Madam," said he;

A proper discovery for a sedentary man of letters, tormented between the want

of food and the fear of indigestion.

"Monsieur de Langre wrote his own will then ?
And you're to pay me if I tip it off,

A hundred crowns bequeath'd to buy an epitaph?
No bad thing, for the times we live in, d-mme!
Well, count away- Here lies the worst of men.'-

Now pay me."

M. l'Abbé de la Victoire said of G., who never ate at home, and who spoke ill of every one, "That fellow never opens his mouth but at somebody's expense."

Madame de C. L. had taught her grandchild to play at my lady. One day she must needs have her play in my presence. The footmen were brought in; and, among other things, the little girl said,-" If M. Menage calls, say I'm not at home."

An Italian, haranguing a thin audience, opened his address with the following words: Very few gentlemen!" (Pochissimi Signori !) D. was in a company of ladies where they talked of the capture of Mons. On his rising to go away, they laid hold of him, and protested he should not be let off without writing some verses on the new conquest. After contesting the point in vain, he wrote as follows:

"Mons étoit, disoit-on, pucelle

Qu'un Roi gardoit avec le dernier soin.

Louis le Grand en eut besoin ;

Mons se rendit. Vous auriez fait comme elle."

Mons, they say, was a maiden town,

Whom a great king kept, like a gem in his crown.
But Louis the Great was for keeping her too :
So Mons surrender'd ;-and so would you."

The following, according to Monsieur the Count d'Olonne, was one of Cardinal Mazarin's stories :-A family, who had just had a kinsman made a saint of by the pope, gave some displeasure to his holiness : upon which he observed,-"These people are very ungrateful. I beatified a relation of theirs the other day, and I am sure he did not deserve it."

Instead of saying, "I am not so meritorious as you," a French lady who knew a little Italian, said to an Italian lady, "I am not so meretricious, Madam, as you are."*

They brought a child one day to a country church to be baptised. The priest had been drinking a little freely, and could not find the place in the book. "Bless me!" says he, turning over the leaves, "this child is very difficult to baptise.'

M. de la Roulerie, kinsman of M. de Bautru, having eaten himself out of house and land, an Italian, who was at table with him, said,— "Your Lordship eats nothing."-"No said he, "my Lordship is

eaten."

M. Sachot, vicar of St. Gervais, was chaunting a funeral service for a rich man, when they brought him an offering of one of the great wax

* This is like the end of Mrs. Malaprop's episode, "Yours, while meretricious, Delia." Such mistakes happen every day. A lady of my acquaintance, beginning to speak Italian, said one day to a coachman in Italy, using the word cucchiaio for cocchiero, "Spoon! spoon! not so fast!"

candles stuck full of pieces of gold, "How beautiful," said he, "are the ceremonies of the church !"

The Marechal de had a chin a yard long. M. de la G. had none at all. One day at chace they set off full gallop after a stag, which nobody saw but themselves. "What's that for?" said the king. "Sire," said M. de Clarembaut, "the Marshal has run away with G.'s chin, and G. is after him for it."

M. de L. went to Rome to be made a cardinal, and returned with nothing but a cold. Somebody said, it was because he came back without his hat.

At Saint Barthelemy, near La Ferté-Gaucher, an old countryman lay on his death-bed. His son went to fetch the clergyman, and stood knocking softly at his door for three hours. "Why didn't you knock louder ?" said the clergyman. "I was afraid of waking you," said the clown. "Well, what is the matter ?"-" I left my father dying, Sir." -"So! so! he must be dead, then, by this time ?"-"Oh no, Sir," returned the other, "neighbour Peter said he would amuse him till I came back."

Cardinal de Retz said he saw a man lay hold of one of the sails of a windmill, and take a circuit with it in the air.*

Montmaur being at table one day with a noisy company, who were all talking, singing, and laughing at once, cried out, "A little silence, for God's sake, gentlemen. One don't know what one's eating."

The Duke de Candale, who pretended to the title of Prince in right of his mother, (a natural daughter of Henry the IVth.) talked in the late Prince's presence of "Monsieur my father," "Madame my mo ther," &c. The Prince, to rally him, turned to his equerry, and said, "Monsieur my equerry, go and tell Monsieur my coachman, to put Messieurs my horses to Monsieur my carriage."

Says a judge in a court of law, "Keep silence there! It is very strange one cannot have silence! Here have we been deciding God knows how many causes, and have not heard one of them."

THE RUBICON.

He stood beside the stream

In solitude of thought,

The charm of power and the conqueror's dream

Had his lofty spirit caught.

He saw earth at his feet,

All, save his native land

And dare he that native country meet

With javelin and with brand?

Dare he the bold emprize

And pierce his mother's side,

Blotting out his honour in history's eyes

With the stain of parricide?

*This is inserted as a curiosity. The friend who made me a present of the Menagiana, has added, in a note, "I saw a boy, named Wall, do the same thing at Rugby." Some have pronounced it an easy feat; but it unquestionably implies great personal courage. Is not a similar exploit related of Lord Clive? He was capable of it. He was seen once, when a school-boy, astride the weathercock on the church steeple.

He ponder'd-well he might-
On that portentous day,

The misery, wreck, and woe that must light
Upon fair Italy.

Dark was his troubled brow,

His fix'd eyes never stirr'd;

And the waves of the river lay hush'd as when

The winds had not been heard.

No leaf shook on the tree,

All seem'd awaiting death,

Meet scene when a world hung fearfully

On proud ambition's breath

On the conqueror's pale smile,
On the red law of power,

On hopes that noble spirits beguile,
On passions that devour!

By the Rubicon he stood,

And grasp'd the last realm free;

And they say he trembled—that man of blood,
To brave posterity.

'Twas morn-the hour of light

Crept slow on the fearful day,

When the victor's foot in the triumph of might

Dash'd back the stream in spray.

That foot was the deep stamp,

The signet of Rome's fall;

And it struck on the wave as the spoiler's death-tramp Strikes on a festival.

That moment shook his frame,

His guilt was at his heart,

He shudder'd, then drew out the sting of shame,

And triumph'd o'er its smart.

But glory heal'd the wound

The world's great master past,

And flung to chance and the air around
The gloom his thoughts had cast.

"To-morrow the bays of Gaul,"

He cried, "shall be dust with me,

Or for ever shoot out their branches tall
In the sun of eternity.

"My fortune I abide

And reck not the where or when

Who would steer like me on ambition's tide
And fear to be first of men !"