the phrase Y a-t-il.-L. G. again pleads custom, which he says has made it a rule (this sort of reasoning I have already answered); and C. J. L. again recriminates on the English language: so that the objection remains unanswered by both my antagonists.

Having thus disposed of the items, I feel that some explanation is due to L. G. for having unintentionally involved in one general censure, the French people and their language. On re-perusing my little essay, I will candidly confess, that there is an apparent illiberality, for which I am anxious to offer some apology. When I wrote the article in question, which 1 never imagined would become the subject of controversy, had not the most distant intention of offending a single individual of that country, with many of whom I am personally and intimately acquainted; and to prove, that although I have attempted to point out some of its errors, I am impressed with the highest opinion of their language, I need only refer your readers to the concluding lines of my former essay, to the truth of which, with the few exceptions I have elicited, I cheerfully and readily subscribe. In fact, the subject owes its origin to an amicable dispute on the merits of the two languages, which I held some time ago with a French gentleman, who was candid enough to acknowledge my objections, while, on the other hand, I was not so bigoted to my own tongue, as to deny his; and I trust this explanation will be satisfactory to L. G., and acquit me in his mind of being one of those men "anxious to keep up and increase prejudices between nations."

I have too much liberality, not to think with Sterne,

that

"Le pour et le contre se trouvent en chaque nation;" which may be freely translated: "there are good as well as bad in all countries ;" and I could lay no claim to common sense, if I did not acknowledge, that the French nation are in many respects deserving both of our admiration and esteem.

A parting word is due to the "teacher," Mr. C. J. L. He has presented me with a mis-quoted quotation,

which he terms a moral; and as I am unwilling to remain in his debt, I return the compliment by begging him to turn to that part of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which describes the fate of Echo. He will find the words, which he may apply to himself:

"Vox et preterea nihil:"

"Noise, and nothing else."

Apologizing for so long intruding on your patience, and that of your readers; and very heartily thanking you for your indulgence in inserting this, my last communication on the subject, I remain, &c. &c. December, 11, 1818. J. H. V*******y.

ANECDOTE AND WIT

No. 14.-BUTTONS AND WAISTCOATS.

IN 1786, there reigned in Paris the mania of buttons; they not only wore them of an enormous size, as large as crown pieces, but they painted on them miniatures and other pictures; so that a set of buttons was often valued at an incredible price. Some of these petit maitres wore the modest medals of the twelve Cæsars; others antique statues; and others the metamorphoses of Ovid. At the Palais Royal, a cynic was seen, who impudently wore on his buttons above thirty figures from one of the most infamously obscene books, so that every modest woman (if there was a modest woman in Paris) must have been obliged to turn away from this eccentric libertine. The young men imitated the romantic fancy of the ancient knights of chivalry, and wore on their buttons the cypher of their mistress; the Parisian wits exercised their puny talents, by forming, with the letters of the alphabet, insipid rebuses. In a word, the manufacture of buttons was a work of imagination, which wonderfully displayed the genius of the artist, and the purchaser, and which offered an inexhaustible source for conversation.

succeeded, in the These became a

To this fashionable extravagance same year, that of the waistcoats. capital object of luxury in dress. They had them by dozens, and by hundreds, as they had shirts. They

exhibited the fancy of the wearer, by their fine paintings, and they were enriched by the most costly ornaments. Among the variety of subjects which they offered to the eye, a number of amorous and comic scenes were drawn,; vine-gatherers, hunters, &c. ornainented the chests of the elegans; and over the belly of an effeminate trifler was seen a regiment of cavalry. One of these amateurs, delighted with finer faucies, had a dozen of these waiscoats painted, to represent the finest scenes in Richard Cœur de Lion, and the reigning operas of the day, that his wardrobe might become a learned, repository of the drama, and perpetuate its happiest scenes.

ANIMAL SAGACITY.

THE following curious fact is related by Professor Scarpa, in one of his valuable anatomical works. A duck, accustomed to feed out of his owner's hand, was offered some perfumed bread. The animal at first refused, but afterwards took it in its bill, carried it to a neighbouring pond, moved it briskly backwards and forwards under the water, as if to wash away the disagreeable smell, and then swallowed it.

NOBLE FROLICS.

THE following narrative, taken from the records of Languedoc, will evince, at the same time, the magnificence, folly, and barbarity habitual to the nobility of the early ages. In 1174, Henry II. called together the seigneurs of Languedoc, in order to mediate peace between the count of Thoulouse and the king of Arragon. As Henry, however, did not attend, the nobles had nothing else to do but to emulate each other in wild_magnificence, extended to insanity. The countess Urgel sent to the meeting a diadem worth two thousand modern pounds, to be placed on the head of a wretched buffoon. The count of Thoulouse sent a donation of four thousand pounds to a favourite knight, who distributed that sum among all the poorer knights who attended the meeting. The seigneur Guillaume Gros de Martel gave an immense dinner, the viands having all been cooked by the flame

of wax tapers. But the singularly rational magnificence of count Bertrand de Rimbault attracted the loudest applause. For he set the peasants around Beaucaire to plough up the soil, and then he openly and proudly sowed therein small pieces of money, to the amount of fifteen hundred English guineas. Piqued at this princely extravagance, and determined to out do his neighbours in savage brutality, if he could not in prodigality, the lord Raymond Venous ordered thirty of his most beautiful and valuable horses to be tied to stakes and surrounded with drywood; he then heroically lighted the piles, and consumed his favourites alive.

GREATNESS OF MIND.

THE President d' Al was arrested at Aix, during the reign of Robespierre. Upon being interrogated about the concealment of a hundred thousand crowns, which had been buried by his wife, he was discharged, but a confidential servant was taken up, and confined, it being proved that he was prior to the transaction. Every possible mode was tried to prevail upon him to discover the place where this treasure was deposited, and he was repeatedly offered his life on this condition. The president himself repaired to the prison, released him from the oath of secresy which he had taken, and, commanded him to disclose the particulars of the transaction. The faithful domestic, however, replied as follows: "When I was entrusted with the secret, both your wife and myself knew before hand that it would be improper to confide it to you, and my firmness will hereafter prove beneficial to your children." Having said this he walked forward to the scaffold prepared for the occasion, and was instantly executed.

SIGNORA CUZZONI.

THIS famous singer, whom the inimitable Hogarth has introduced into one of his satirical paintings, was short and squat, with a doughy cross face. She was not even a good actress; she dressed ill, and was silly and fantastical. As a beautiful and pathetic singer,

however, she was long unrivalled. She was, perhaps, one of the most extravagant of human beings; and this failing reduced her at length to the most deplorable poverty. She outlived her talents, and died in extreme indigence at Bologna. On her third coming to England, in 1749, two gentlemen, who were walking up the Haymarket, and had heard that she was in a pitiable state, were lamenting her hard destiny. "Let us go and visit her," said one of them, "she lives but over the way." The other consented; and calling at the door, they were shewn up stairs, but found the faded beauty dull and spiritless, unable or unwilling to converse on any subject. "How's this?" cried one of her consolers. "Are you ill? or is it but low spirits chains your tongue so?"-" Neither," replied she, "'tis hunger I suppose. I ate nothing yesterday, and now 'tis past six o'clock, and not one penny have I in the world to buy me any food."

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Come with us instantly to a tavern, we will treat -you with the best roast fowls and port wine that London can produce."-" But I will have neither my dinner, nor my place of eating it prescribed to me, answered Cuzzoni in a sharper tone; " else I need never have wanted.""Forgive me," cries the friend, "do your own way; but eat for Heaven's sake, and restore fainting nature." She thanked him, and they departed. Then, calling to her a friendly wretch, who inhabited the same theatre of misery, she gave him the guinea which the gentleman had accompanied his last words with. "Run with this money," said she, "to such a wine merchant, he is the only one who keeps good Tokay by him; 'tis a guinea a bottle. Now mind, boy, that you bid the gentleman you buy it of give you a loaf into the bargain, he won't refuse." In about half an hour the lad returned with the Tokay. "But where," cried Cuzzoni, "is the loaf that I spoke for?"-"The wine-merchant would give me no loaf," replied the messenger; "he drove me from the door, and asked if I took him for a baker."-"Blockhead!" exclaimed she," why I must have bread to my wine you know, and I have not a penny to purchase any. Go beg me a loaf directly." The fellow returned once more with one in his hand