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Many person's have maintained that the French language has been impoverished since the days of Montaigne and Amyot, because expressions abound in these authors which are no longer employed; but these are for the most part terms for which equivalents have been found. It has been enriched with a number of noble and energetic expressions, and, without adverting to the eloquence of matter, has certainly that of speech. It was during the reign of Louis XIV. as already observed, that the language was fixed. Whatever changes time and caprice may have in store, the good authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will always serve for models.

Circumstances created no right to expect that France would be distinguished in philosophy. A gothic government extinguished all kind of illumination during more than twelve centuries; and professors of error, paid for brutalising human nature, more increased the darkness. Nevertheless, there is more philosophy in Paris than in any town on earth, and possibly than in all the towns put together, excepting London. The spirit of reason has even penetrated into the provinces. In a word, the French genius is probably at present equal to that of England in philosophy; while for the last fourscore years France has been superior to all other nations in literature; and has undeniably taken the lead in the courtesies of society, and in that easy and natural politeness, which is improperly termed urbanity.*

FRIENDSHIP.

THE temple of friendship has long been known by name, but it is well known that it has been very little frequented as the following verses pleasantly observe Orestes, Pylades, Pirithous, Achates, and the

* This article is somewhat national, but otherwise informing; it has, however, been deemed expedient to omit the second section, treating principally of Celtic etymologies, and conveying strictures on certain affectations in French composition, which Voltaire thought was injurionsly gaining ground when he wrote the article.-T.

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tender Nisus, were all genuine friends and great heroes; but, alas! existent only in fable.

En vieux langage on voit sur la façade
Les noms sacrés d'Oreste et de Pylade;
Le médaillon du bon Pirithoüs,

Du sage Achate et du tendre Nisus;

Tous grands héros, tous amis véritables:

Ces noms sont beaux ; mais ils sont dans les fables.

Friendship commands more than love and esteem. Love thy neighbour signifies assist thy neighbour, but not-enjoy his conversation with pleasure, if he be tiresome; confide to him thy secrets, if he be a tatler; or lend him thy money if he be a spendthrift.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce. It is a tacit contract between two sensible and virtuous persons. I say sensible, for a monk or a hermit cannot be so, who lives without knowing friendship-I say virtuous, for the wicked have only accomplices, the voluptuous companions, the interested associates; politicians assemble factions, the generality of idle men have connexions, princes courtiers-virtuous men alone possess friends.

Cethegus was the accomplice of Catiline, and Mæcenas the courtier of Octavius; but Cicero was the friend of Atticus.

What is caused by this contract between two tender honest minds? Its obligations are stronger or weaker according to the degrees of sensibility, and the number of services rendered.

The

The enthusiasm of friendship has been stronger among the Greeks and Arabs than among us. tales that these people have imagined on the subject of friendship, are admirable: we have none to compare to them. We are rather dry and reserved in everything. I see no great trait of friendship either in our histories, romances, or theatre.

The only friendship spoken of among the Jews, was that which subsisted between Jonathan and David. It is said that David loved him with a love stronger than that of women; but it is also said that David, after the death of his friend, dispossessed Mephibosheth his son, and caused him to be put to death.

Friendship was a point of religion and legislation among the Greeks. The Thebans had a regiment of lovers-a fine regiment! some have taken it for a regiment of nonconformists. They are deceived: it is taking a shameful accident for a noble principle. Friendship, among the Greeks, was prescribed by the laws and religion. Manners countenanced abuses, but not the laws.

FRIVOLITY.

WHAT persuades me still more of the existence of providence, said the profound author of "Bacha Billeboquet," is, that to console us for our innumerable miseries, nature has made us frivolous. We are sometimes ruminating oxen, overcome by the weight of our yoke; sometimes dispersed doves, tremblingly endea vouring to avoid the claws of the vulture, stained with the blood of our companions; foxes, pursued by dogs; and tigers, who devour one another. Then we suddenly become butterflies; and forget, in our volatile winnowings, all the horrors that we have experienced.

If we were not frivolous, what man without shuddering could live in a town in which the wife of a marshal of France, a lady of honour to the queen, was burnt, under the pretext that she had killed a white cock by moonlight; or in the same town in which marshal Marillac was assassinated according to form, pursuant to a sentence passed by juridical murderers appointed by a priest in his own country-house, in which he embraced Marion de Lorme whilst these robed wretches executed his sanguinary wishes?

Could a man say to himself, without trembling in every nerve, and having his heart frozen with horror, Here I am, in the very place which, it is said, was strewed with the dead and dying bodies of two thousand young gentlemen, murdered near the faubourg St. Antoine, because one man in a red cassock displeased some others in black ones!

Who could pass the rue de la Féronerie without shedding tears and falling into paroxysms of rage

against the holy and abominable principles which plunged the sword into the heart of the best of men, and of the greatest of kings?

We could not walk a step in the streets of Paris on St. Bartholomew's day, without saying, It was here that one of my ancestors was murdered for the love of God: it was here that one of my mother's family was dragged bleeding and mangled: it was here that one half of my countrymen murdered the other.

Happily, men are so light, so frivolous, so struck with the present and insensible to the past, that in ten thousand there are not above two or three who make these reflections.

How many boon companions have I seen, who, after the loss of children, wives, mistresses, fortune, and even health itself, have eagerly resorted to a party to retail a piece of scandal, or to a supper to tell humorous stories. Solidity consists chiefly in a uniformity of ideas. It has been said, that a man of sense should' invariably think in the same way: reduced to such an alternative, it would be better not to have been born. The ancients never invented a finer fable than that, which bestowed a cup of the water of Lethe on all who entered the Elysian fields.*

Would you tolerate life, mortals, forget yourselves, and enjoy it.

Lord Byron, in the following passage from " Don Juan," calls this faculty mobility; and, contrary to Voltaire, seems to regard it as unenviable.

So well she acted all and every part

By turns with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart:
They err-'tis merely what is called mobility,
A thing of temperament but not of art,

Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false, though true; for surely they're sincerest,
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.
This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,
Heroes sometimes, though seldom-sages never
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,

Little that's great, but much of what is clever.

His Lordship further observes, in a note: I am not sure that mobility is English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather

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THIS word is derived from gal, the original signification of which was gaiety and rejoicing, as may be seen in Alain Chartier, and in Froissard; even in the Romance of the Rose we meet with the word galandé in the sense of ornamented, adorned.

La belle fût bien atornée

Et d'une filet d'or galandée.

It is probable that the gala of the Italians, and the galan of the Spaniards, are derived from the word gal, which seems to be originally Celtic: hence, was insensibly formed gallant, which signifies a man forward, or eager to please. The term received an improved andmore noble signification in the times of chivalry, when the desire to please manifested itself in feats of arms, and personal conflict. To conduct himself gallantly, to extricate himself from an affair gallantly, implies, even at present, a man's conducting himself conformably to principle and honour. A gallant man, among the English, signifies a man of courage; in France it means more, a man of noble general demeanour. A gallant, (un homme galant) is totally different from a galant man, (un galant homme); the latter means a man of respectable and honourable feeling, the former, something nearer the character of a petit maitre, a man successfully addicted to intrigue.

belongs to other climates, though it is sometimes seen in a great extent in our own. It may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions-at the same time without losing the past; and is, although sometimes apparently useful to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy attribute.

DON JUAN, canto xvi. stanzas 97, 98, and note.

Mr. T. Moore, also:

For a beam on the face of the waters may glow,
When the tide runs in darknes and coldness below;
And the cheek be illum'd with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.

It may be suspected, however, that in respect to his own country, at least, Voltaire is more correct than the English poets; although, it must be confessed, that he appears to illustrate from a more frivolous class of persons.-T.

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