ed yourself to borrow, as I can prove to you, from Voltaire de the second scene of the fourth act." fended himself as well as he could against the charge. "I say nothing," answered La Motte, "which I cannot support, and to prove it I shall recite this same scene, which pleased me so much when I first read it that I got it by heart, and not a word of it has escaped me." Accordingly he repeated the whole without hesitation, and with as much animation as if he had composed it himself. All present at the reading of the piece, looked at each other and did not know what to think. The author was utterly confounded. After enjoying his embarrassment for a short time," Make yourself easy, sir," said La Motte, "the scene is entirely your own, as much your own as all the rest; but it struck me as so beautiful and touching, that I could not resist the pleasure of committing it to memory." CCCXXI. ADJECTIVES. Voltaire amused himself sometimes with the style of certain authors all bristling with epithets; "If they could only understand," he said, “ that adjectives are the greatest enemies of substantives, although they agree in gender, number, and case !" CCCXXII. TURGOT. Turgot came one day to visit Voltaire in the house of the Marquis de Villette, when he was so much tormented by the gout that he had not the free use of his limbs. "Ah, M. Turgot," said Voltaire, addressing him, "how do you do?" "I can scarcely walk for pain." "Gentlemen," cried Voltaire, with enthusiasm, "I never see M. Turgot but I think I see Nebuchadnezzar's image." "Yes," answered the Minister, "feet of clay." "And the head of gold, the head of gold," replied Voltaire. CCCXXIII. ALZIRE. At the first appearance of the tragedy of Alzire, some one maintained in company that the piece was not by Voltaire. "I should wish that were the case, from my heart," said a lady present. "Why?" "Because," replied she, "we should at least have one great poet more." CCCXXIV. PELLEGRIN. One of Voltaire's tragedies happened to meet with indifferent success; the Abbé Pellegrin complained that the poet had appropriated a good many of his verses. "How is it," said he to Voltaire," that you, who are so rich in your own resources, should lay your hands on the stores of others?" "What! I have robbed you?" said the author of the Henriade; " I do not wonder then at the fate of my piece." CCCXXV. THE BIBLE. An inhabitant of Lyons, being at the Delices, appeared astonished to find Voltaire with the Bible in his hands," I am here,” said he, "like the counsel in a great cause, examining the pleadings of the opposite party." TABLE-TALK. SELDENIANA. [John Selden, the learned author of this collection, was born in 1584. After distinguishing himself at College, he became a member of the Inner Temple; and though he seldom appeared at the Bar, was soon in eminent practice as a Chamber Counsel. Into the political events of his life, it is impossible to enter; his literary labours were principally of a legal and antiquarian nature. Of these, his Dissertation on the Norman Conquest, his History of Tithes, and his Mare Clausum, written in reply to the treatise of Grotius, entitled Mare Liberum, are the most distinguished. The Seldeniana are marked by much of the discursive scholarship, the boldness and occasional coarseness of expression which characterised the man. He died in 1654.] I. CHRISTMAS. 1. CHRISTMAS Succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same number of holidays; then the master waited upon the servant, like the lord of misrule. 2. Our meats and our sports (much of them) have relation to church-works. The coffin of our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch; our choosing kings and queens, on Twelfth-night, hath reference to the three kings: so, likewise, our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, Jack of Lents, &c; they |