times express their strongest feelings with a levity at which formalists are shocked, and which dull men are wholly unable to understand. But language which, when coldly repeated, might seem to border upon irreverence and burlesque, has its effect in popular preaching, when the intention of the speaker is perfectly understood: it is suited to the great mass of people; it is felt by them, when better things would have produced no impression; and it is borne away, when wiser arguments would have been forgotten. There was another and more uncommon way in which Whitefield's peculiar talent sometimes was indulged: he could direct his discourse toward an individual so skillfully, that the congregation had no suspicion of any particular purport in that part of the sermon; while the person at whom it was aimed felt it, as it was directed, in its full force. There was sometimes a degree of sportiveness almost akin to mischief in his humor.

Remarkable instances are related of the manner in which he impressed his hearers. A man at Exeter stood with stones in his pocket, and one in his hand, ready to throw at him; but he dropped it before the sermon was far advanced, and going up to him after the preaching was over, he said, "Sir, I came to hear you with an intention to break your head; but God, through your ministry, has given me a broken heart." A shipbuilder was once asked what he thought of him. "Think!" he replied, "I tell you, sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church, I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon; but were it to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield I could not lay a single plank." Hume pronounced him the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard; and said it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him.

But perhaps the greatest proof of his persuasive powers was, when he drew from Franklin's pocket the money which that clear, cool reasoner had determined not to give; it was for the orphan-house at Savannah. "I did not," "I did not," says the American philosopher, "disapprove of the design; but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia, at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived

he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper; another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all.

"At this sermon," continues Franklin, "there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home; toward the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbor who stood near him to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, 'At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely, but not now; for thee seems to me to be out of thy right senses.""

LETTERS OF MME. D'ÉPINAY.

(Translated for this work.)

[LOUISE TARDIEU D'ESCLAVELLES was born at Valenciennes in 1726; daughter of a general killed in battle when she was nineteen, in recognition of whose services the state arranged a marriage between her and her cousin, De la Live d'Épinay, and made him a farmer-general of taxes. After much unhappiness, she rejected further obligations to the marriage bond, justifying herself by his infidelity and profligacy; and had a liaison first with Rousseau, for whom in 1756 she built the famous cottage "The Hermitage" in her grounds near Montmorency, where she lived the rest of her life, though Rousseau left and libeled her. After him she connected herself with Baron Von Grimm, and aided him greatly in his noted news-letters to European sovereigns, writing them herself (under Diderot's supervision) when he was absent. She wrote other things, as the "Conversations d'Emilie," for her granddaughter's education, "Letters to My Son" and "My Happy Moments " (1758, anonymous), "Memoirs" (autobiographic romance); but her letters to the brilliant literary chiefs of the time are most valuable. She died in 1783.]

TO VOLTAIRE.

I SEE, my dear Philosopher, that I shall be the dupe of a false shame; and because I have been so foolish as to pass my

time in presiding over insipidities and business boredoms, in place of doing myself the service of writing to you, that is no reason at all for not daring to implore your indulgence and your friendship for myself. During all this time I meant to make public your benefactions to Mademoiselle Corneille, and I said of them: "Is it really true that a philosopher an accursed breed, men of bag and cord in fact-should act like the eyes of devotees? They remain with arms crossed vis-àvis, such a fine example! That class never grow flushed, they take affronts with meekness, they follow the gospel to the letter; and when they are slapped in the face, they firmly hold out the other cheek without getting excited."

While you are in the line of well-doing, don't fail to celebrate the arrival of the little new-born, the son of the great Pompignan. That event well deserves to be sung, and you owe that mark of attention to the friendship which unites you with the head of that illustrious family.

Have they spoken to you of a book of M. de Mirabeau, entitled "Theory of the Impost"? It is a thunder-storm : everything there is confused, obscure; and then the flashes of lightning which dazzle, which overthrow; the false arithmetic, the just ideas, the eloquence, the rigmarole; bold to rashness - anybody else would have said to insolence, and perhaps said rightly — but I do not know how to express the truth about it; for the rest, a marked respect for the monks, a true and striking list of our evils, a light pencil on remedies uncertain enough. The whole has conducted him to Vincennes [prison], where he has been since yesterday: they seem to have sent him there in order to have the right of hanging somebody else for it. Never was a man arrested as he has been-they saying to him: "Monsieur, my orders do not extend to hurrying you: to-morrow, if you have not time to-day."—"No, monsieur, one cannot obey the king's orders too promptly I am at your service." And he goes off with a trunk crammed with books and papers; and all he does is right. The book is a quarto, and none the less prohibited. It is too large to be carried in the mails; without which, my dear Philosopher, you will have had it already.

I have had a visit from Mademoiselle

whose name I

She

have not kept in mind, because I have never known her. arrived from The Delights, where she had been making a sojourn of eighteen months near you and Madame Denis: that was a

claim, truly, to a gushing reception! I have congratulated her on her past happiness.

As for me, I go about almost in Spanish fashion, singing to my guitar, as sadly as I possibly can, my lovely days at Geneva, my boredoms at Paris. There is really something in the last sentence to make a romance out of. Nevertheless it is said that a certain event may happen, and then another, and then still another, by means of which one will be the same at Paris as at Geneva, or at Geneva as at Paris. Is that true? Do you hear me, my dear Philosopher? No, but I hear myself, and that reduces to telling you that I shall always fail of entire satisfaction in burning my incense near you and my Saviour. Send me my absolution quickly, my dear Philosopher I have a heart full of the most complete contrition for my wrongs toward you. Madame Denis, receive my homage and intercede for me. Did you know that M. Bouret had lost or stolen my Czar? I am still in tears over it.

:

by, my dear Philosopher: your benediction.

To M. DE LUBIÈRE.

Good

Since I last wrote to you, uncle of ours, I have had rheumatism, I have got well, I have become a grandmother, I have lost my sight, I have recovered it; - there's more than is needed to excuse my silence: but you know very well I never excuse myself; I travel my little road ever so blithely, making the most of the good and the least of the bad that I can, but never whitewashing my follies, for that serves only to make them attract all the more attention. As to the rest, for this time, without making a precedent, you have no right to complain, for you owe two answers. I sent you on the last occasion "The School of Youth": I am very curious to know what you think of this piece it has been set to music by Duni. Philidor gives us another at the same theater, the 28th of this month, of which the subject is drawn from the romance of "Tom Jones," and everybody is agog with expectation for the great day. Each of the authors has a party and notable cabals, because the great interests which move our souls to-day are the Opéra Comique and the cafés. The cafés above all take with prodigious alacrity but perhaps you do not know what a café is? It is, in two words, the secret of gathering to yourself a very great number of people without expense, without ceremony, and without

constraint; of course none must be admitted but people of one's own class: now see how one goes to work.

The day set for holding the café, you place in the room destined for that use a number of little tables, of two, three, four, or more places; some are furnished with cards, counters, chess, checkers, backgammon, etc., etc.; others with beer, wine, orgeat, and lemonade. The mistress of the house which holds the café is dressed in English fashion, gown simple, short, muslin apron, pointed fichu, and little bonnet; she has before her a long table in the form of a counter, on which one finds oranges, biscuits, pamphlets, and all the public papers. The chimney mantel is furnished with liquors; the valets are all in white jackets and white caps; they are called garçons, as in public cafés; no strangers are admitted; the mistress of the house does not rise for anybody, each takes his place where he wishes and at whatever table he pleases. The dining-room is furnished likewise with a great number of little tables, of five places or more; they are numbered, and the places are drawn by lot to escape the bickerings and the ceremony which a crowd of women necessarily entails. The etiquette of supper is a chicken with rice on the buffet, and a substantial piece of roast, and on each little table a solitary entrée relieved by a solitary side dish. This method seems to me very well chosen, on account of the great liberty it establishes in society. It is to be feared it will not last, for the spirit of pretension already begins to trouble in its birth the economy of such a fine invention.

But this is not all; it is all full of charming accessories to all that they play pantomimes, they dance, they sing, they represent proverbs. The proverbs had already gained favor in society before the establishment of the cafés: any proverb whatever is chosen; an outline is improvised which should be acted by many persons, and when they have thoroughly performed their parts, the assemblage must guess the proverb they have tried to render.

The celebrated David Hume, great and fat English historian, known and esteemed by his writings, has not so great a talent for the sort of amusement that all we gay ladies have decided he is suited for. He makes his début at Mrs. T―'s. He has been cast for the part of a sultan seated between two slaves, employing all his eloquence to make them love him; finding them inexorable, he is to seek for the cause of their troubles and their resistance. He is placed on a sofa between