bloods. Antony Hamilton, describing his intimacy with Count Grammont, says: "St. Evremond, less engaged in frivolous pursuits, frequently gave little lectures to the Chevalier, and by making observations upon the past, endeavoured to set him right for the present, or to instruct him for the future." One of these admonitory exhortations Antony reports, almost at length. It is characteristically interrupted by Grammont's exclamation: Why, my little philosophical monitor, you talk here as if you were the Cato of Normandy."* No Cato, however, was this Norman refugee: no disciple of the Porch; but an avowed, and systematic, and advanced disciple of the Garden. Horace Walpole calls St. Evremond "a favourite philosopher of mine, for he thought what he liked, not liked what he thought." Free living and free thinking, for this he lived, and thus he thought. A "philosophy" highly esteemed by those whose aspiration is like Mat Green's, To drink a joco-serious cup With souls who've took their freedom up; In Epicurus' garden walk, Who thought it heaven to be serene; As regards epicurism, indeed, it is true, what Leigh Hunt says, that "St. Evremond, the French wit, an epicure professed, was too good an epicure not to be temperate and preserve his relish."§ As regards epicureanism, let us hear St. Evremond himself. "I am a philosopher, as far removed from superstition as from impiety; a voluptuary, who has not less abhorrence of debauchery than inclination for pleasure; a man who has never known want nor abundance. . . . Young, I hated dissipation, convinced that man must possess wealth to provide for the comforts of a long life. Old, I disliked economy; as I believe that we need not greatly dread want, when we have but a short time to be miserable. I am satisfied with what nature has done for me, nor do I repine at fortune. I do not seek in men what they have of evil, that I may censure; I only discover what they have ridiculous, that I may be amused. I feel a pleasure in detecting their follies; I should feel a greater in communicating my discoveries, did not my prudence restrain me. Life is too short, according to my ideas, to read all kinds of books, and to load our memories with an endless number of things at the cost of our judgment..... Although I constantly read, I make it less my occupation than my pleasure. In religion and in friendship, I have only to paint myself such as I am; in friendship, more tender than a philosopher; and in religion, as constant and as sincere as a youth who has more simplicity than experience. My piety is composed more of justice and charity than of penitence. I rest my confidence on God, and hope everything from his benevolence. In the bosom of Providence I find my repose and my felicity." A passable representative, in the seven Memoirs of Count Grammont, ch. vi. † Walpole's Letters, Cunningham's ed. i. 370. § The Seer: Essay on Anacreon. teenth century of the Christian era, of that ante-Christian, and may we not say anti-Christian sect, who, among flowery gardens curtained round With world-excluding groves, the brotherhood Of soft Epicureans, taught-if they The ends of being would secure, and win In one of his epistles to the Comte d'Olonne, St. Evremond develops with some fulness his epicurean system; and amidst other pregnant passages occurs the following, eminently significant of the philosopher and his philosophy, whether truly or falsely so called: "If I am obliged to regret anything, my regrets are rather sentiments of tenderness than of grief and if, in order to avoid evil, we must necessarily foresee it, my foresight never goes so far as fear. It is my aim, that the consciousness of feeling nothing that troubles me, and the consideration of seeing myself free, and master of myself, should give me the spiritual pleasure of good Epicurus. I mean that agreeable indolence, which is not a state without either grief or pleasure, but the nice sense of a pure joy, proceeding from a conscience at rest, and a mind serene." The same letter touches on the superior happiness of " true Christians" to the mere followers of Epicurus and Aristippus. But St. Evremond's ideal of true Christianity was the reverse of severe or sublime. Doctor Garth, who was himself censured for voluptuousness, and accused of infidelity— whence the point of Pope's epigrammatic verse, And Garth, the best good Christian he, is said by Atterbury to have written an epitaph on St. Evremond, intended for Westminster Abbey, in which the deceased was commended for his indifference to all religion. There are saving clauses in the French philosopher's writings, designed to establish the sincerity of his adherence to the Church of Rome. But the scope of those writings is hard to reconcile with any shade or section of that comprehensive community. He is too fond of Petronius, by far; has too lively a relish for that classical voluptuary, too absorbing an interest in his manner of life, and especially too pronounced an admiration for the manner of his death. The death of Petronius, in fact, he reckons the most glorious of antiquity, greater and nobler certainly than that either of Cato or Socrates. "Petronius leaves us nothing at his death but an image of life: no action, no word, no circumstance, shows the perplexity of a dying man; it is with him properly that to die is to cease to live." When The Spectator was in course of publication, St. Evremond's name was fresh in the minds of men, and his sentiments about Petronius, and the philosophy of Life, and the mystery of Death, and the grand perhaps of a Hereafter, were canvassed at the same polite breakfast-tables upon which, morning by morning, that charming periodical was duly laid. Not impertinent, therefore, nor unreasonable was it in Mr. Addison, to "animadvert," in one of his more serious * Wordsworth: The Excursion, Book III. 1 1 1 moods, on the philo-Petronianism* of Monsieur de St. Evremond. That gentleman, he remarks, "is very particular in setting forth the constancy and courage of Petronius Arbiter during his last moments, and thinks he discovers in them a greater firmness of mind and resolution than in the death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. There is no question but this polite author's affectation of appearing singular in his remarks, and making discoveries which escaped the observation of others, threw him into this course of reflection. It was Petronius's merit that he died in the same gaiety of temper in which he lived; but as his life was altogether loose and dissolute, the indifference which he showed at the close of it is to be looked upon as a piece of natural carelessness and levity, rather than fortitude." And then, after remarking that the resolution of Socrates proceeded from very different motives-the consciousness of a well-spent life, and the prospect of a happy eternity-Mr. Addison takes occasion to add, that if the ingenious author above mentioned" was so pleased with gaiety of humour in a dying man, he might have found a much nobler instance of it in our countryman Sir Thomas More.† But to indite an Encomium MORIE was less within the will or the power of St. Evremond than to elaborate an Eloge de PÉTRONE, that consummate ARBITER elegantiarum. แ TOO MUCH TO WEAR. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MIDNIGHT DOINGS." LONDON was in a commotion: nothing was talked of in its gay circles but the young and lovely bride, Mrs. Dalrymple. Peers were going mad for her smiles; peeresses condescended to court them: commoners and commonesses, who could not get near, affected to hold themselves indifferent; but they scarcely made concealment of the fact that the grapes were sour. Panics do sometimes come over the fashionable world of this great metropolis: now it is a rage for speculation, like that railway mania, which once turned people's sober senses upside down; now it is the new and very ugly signora, who is ruling the boards and the boxes at Her Majesty's Theatre; now it is an insane sympathy-insane in the working-with all the black Uncle and Aunt Toms in the other hemisphere; but at the time of which we are writing, it was the admiration of one of themselves, a woman, the beautiful Mrs. Dalrymple. She was charming: not because fashion said it, but that she really was. Naturally fascinating in person, the homage she received in the gay world-a new world to her-rendered her manners irresistibly so. * Boileau alludes to this predilection, in his eleventh Satire: "Quoi qu'en ses beaux discours Saint-Evremond nous prône, † Spectator, No. 349. Some good wives, staid and plain, who had never been guilty of courting a look in their lives, and prided themselves on it, avowed privately to their lords that she laid herself out for admiration, and was a compound of vanity and danger; and the lords nodded a grave approval, and, the moment they could get out of sight, went tearing in the wake after Mrs. Dalrymple. A stylish vehicle, something between a break and a dandy-horse, with two stylish men in it, especially in the extent of their moustaches, was driving down Regent-street. He who held the reins, Captain Stanley, was attending far more to some object at a distance than to his horse his head was raised perpendicularly, as if an iron poker had been thrust down his throat, and his eyes were intently fixed far before him. A street cab whirled suddenly round the corner of Argyle-place; Captain Stanley was too absorbed to avoid it, and the two came in contact. No damage was done. All that came of it was a wordy war; for the cabman's abuse was unlimited, and Captain Stanley given to angry explosions. He concluded by promising a summons for insolence, and then urged on his horse again. "Is that the way you generally drive in London ?" quietly asked his companion. "An insolent reptile! He shall smart for it. I'll have him before the magistrate at Marlborough-street." "Don't call me as a witness, then. It was your fault. You got into the fellow's way." "I didn't get into his way." At any rate you didn't get out of it, which amounts to the same thing. I ask if that is your usual mode of driving?" "What if it is ?" "It's a careless one. The next time you offer me a seat, Stanley, I shall propose to take the reins." "I thought I saw her carriage before us," explained Captain Stanley, in a more conciliating tone, for he was beginning to recover his goodhumour. "It made me oblivious of everything else, Winchester." "Who is 'her' ?" demanded Lord Winchester. "The loveliest woman, Winchester! I can tell you you have got a treat in store: you'll say it when you get introduced to her. You have lost something by stopping abroad. I couldn't exist," added the captain, twirling his moustache, "without a daily sight of that angel." The viscount yawned. He knew, of old, Captain Stanley's propensity to go into heroics over "angels :" he went into them himself upon occasion. "Mrs. Stanley to be?" asked he, indifferently, by way of saying something. "No such luck. She's married." "Oh." "By Jove! here she comes! She has turned back again. The green carriage and dark livery. I knew I saw it. Isn't she 99 "Take care of your horse," interrupted Lord Winchester; "there's another cab." "Shoot the horse! Look at her." An open barouche was approaching. One lady sat inside it. Lord Winchester caught sight of an exquisite toilette, and then, the point-lace parasol being removed, of an exquisite face. A young face, looking younger, perhaps, than it really was; clearly cut, delicate features; cheeks of a rich damask; brown, glossy hair; and soft dark eyes of exceeding brightness. "There's a picture for you!" murmured the enamoured Captain Stanley, letting his horse go as it would-to a spill if it liked; "and the face is nothing to when you come to talk to her. She has sent half London wild." Off went his hat, for the bright eyes were smiling, and the fair head bowing to him. But off went Lord Winchester's also, for a brighter smile and a more familiar recognition-which seemed to have in it somewhat of surprise-greeted him. "Halloa, Winchester! I say, that's too bad!" cried Captain Stanley, when they had passed. "You know her!" "Before I knew you. She's Selina Dalrymple." "Selina: yes, that is her Christian name; I saw it one day on her handkerchief. Where was the pull of your making such a mystery over it? Why couldn't you say that you knew her ?" "I made no mystery, my good fellow. I did not know it was Selina Dalrymple you were speaking of. Who has she married? What's her name ?" "Married! her name! What d'ye mean ?" "I thought you said she was married." "What is the matter with you?" cried Captain Stanley, looking at the viscount. "You call her Selina Dalrymple, and then ask who she has married, and what her name is. Do you suppose she bears one name, and her husband another? That's not English fashion." "What is his name?" imperturbably continued the viscount. "Dalrymple. What should it be ?" "She has never married Oscar Dalrymple!" exclaimed Lord Winchester, in a roused tone. "Has she ?" "Her husband is the only Dalrymple I know of in the land of the living. A cold, dry, wizen-faced man. You are given to mystifying to-day, Winchester." "Not at all. She was Miss Dalrymple. How was I to know she bore the same name now ?" "Miss Dalrymple, was she! Some relation to him ?" "A cousin; three or four times removed. So ho, Oscar Dalrymple! It's better to be born lucky than rich. Moat-Grange and its fairest flower! You did not bargain for that, once upon a time." "How did you know her?" It was now on "Oh, I have often seen her. They are neighbours of my Uncle Cleveland's. Where are the Dalrymples living in town?" "May Fair. Only part of a house. They are not rich." Mrs. Dalrymple's carriage had continued its course. its way to her dressmaker's, Madame Damereau. An enormous custom -clientèle, she always said-had Madame Damereau. Thoroughly well established was madame. Her house was handsome: its rooms a mixture of Parisian taste and English comfort, with their velvet-pile carpets, rich crimson furniture, brilliant mirrors, and ornamental objects of porcelain, all delicate landscape painting and burnished gold. Surely |