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tions. We set out therefore, not without a considerable suspicion of the manner in which our expedition would terminate, and inwardly anticipated the jest which "The King of Clubs" would infallibly broach upon the subject of Gerard's "Turn Out."

Nothing occurred of any importance during our ride: Gerard talked much of Cupids and Hymen, but inasmuch as we were not partakers of his passion, we could not reasonably be expected to partake of his inspiration.

Upon our arrival at Mowbray Lodge, we were shewn into a room so crowded with company, that we almost fancied we had been ushered into the Earl's levee, instead of his daughter's drawing room. The eye of a lover, however, was more keen. Gerard soon perceived the goddess of the shrine receiving the incense of adulation from a crowd of votaries. Amongst these he immediately enrolled himself, while we, apprehensive that our company might be troublesome to him, hung back, and became imperceptibly engaged in conversation with some gentlemen of our acquaintance. To speak the truth, on our way to "the Lodge" these "Thoughts on Turn Out" had been the subject of our reveries, and whatever expressions or opinions we heard around us, appeared to coincide with the cogitations with which we were occupied. We first became much interested in the laments of an old gentleman, who was bewailing the "Turn Out" of a friend at the last election for the county of Next we

listened to an episode from a dandy, who was discussing the extraordinary coat "Turned out" by Mr. Michael Oakley at the last county ball. Finally, we

were engaged in a desperate argument with a Wiccamist, upon the comparative degree of talent "turned out" from each of the public schools during the last ten years. Of course we proceeded to advocate the cause of our foster-mother, against the pretensions of our numerous and illustrious rivals. Alas! we felt our unworthiness to stand forward as Etona's Panegyrists, but we made up in enthusiasm what we wanted in ability. We ran over with volubility the names of those thrice-honoured models, whose deserved success is constantly the theme of applause, and the life-spring of emulation amongst their successors. We had just brought our catalogue down to the names of our more immediate forerunners, and were dwelling with much complacency on the abilities which have, during the last few years, so nobly supported the fair fame of Eton at the universities, when our eye was caught by the countenance of our Honourable Friend, which, at this moment, wore an appearance of such unusual despon. dence, that we hastened immediately to investigate the. cause. Upon inquiry we learned that Montgomery was most romantically displeased, because Caroline had refused to sing an air of which he was passionately fond. We found we had just arrived in time for the finale of the dispute. "And so you can't sing this to oblige me?" said Gerard. Caroline looked refusal. "I shall know better than to expect such a condescension again," said Gerard, with a low sigh. "Tant mieux!" said Caroline, with a low courtesy. The audience were unanimous in an unfeeling laugh, in the midst of which Gerard made a precipitate retreat, or as O'Connor expresses it, "ran away like mad," and we followed him

as well as we could, though certainly not "passibus

door we could hear "Articles of eject"The favourite dis

æquis." As we moved to the sundry criticisms on the scene. ment!" said a limb of the law. tanced!" cried a Newmarket Squire. "I did not think the breach practicable!" observed a gentleman in regimentals. We overtook the unfortunate object of all these comments about a hundred yards from the house. His woe-begone countenance might well have stopped our malicious disposition to jocularity; nevertheless, we could not refrain from whispering in his ear "Gerard! a decided Turn Out!" "I beg your pardon," said the poor fellow, mingling a smile for his pun, with a tear for his disappointment, "I beg your pardon, I consider it a decided take in."-F. W. THE ETONIAN.

XXXI.-3.

Comparison of the Writers in the British Era of
Literature, with those of Louis XIV-From
Mr. Butler's "Reminiscences."

SUBSCRIBING to the well-known verses of Lord Roscommon,

"The weighty bullion of one English line,

"Drawn through French wire, would through whole pages shine;

he yet doubts, whether, speaking generally, French writers are not superior to the English in perspicuity and method. Their superiority in the former, if they really possess it, may be thought owing to the multitude of connective words in the French language;

and to its genders, inflections, and varied terminations; their superiority in the latter, to the mode of French education, in which a large portion of time, even in their humblest academies, is given to a course of rhetoric. Equally subscribing to the decided superiority, which the English assign to Shakspeare and Milton, over all the poets of France, the Reminiscent yet feels that other nations do not seem to acquiesce in this opinion. This is usually ascribed to their imperfect knowledge of the English language; but it may be observed, that few, who are not natives of France, have that complete knowledge of the French language which enables them to feel and judge of those niceties of language, which constitute the difference between a perfect and an imperfect style. It must be added, that both Mr. Fox and Mr. Gibbon, the former a real, the latter a professed admirer of the Grecian School, are said to have preferred Corneille and Racine to the two great English bards. In the second order of French. poets, none can be compared to Dryden: Boileau and Pope, may be considered to be equally balanced, the style of the former is singularly perfect: it has nothing of the useless epithet, the pertness, or the ribaldry, which too often disfigure the strains of Pope; but in vain should we seek in the pages of Boileau, for the fire, the imagination, the dignity, the elegant playfulness, or the occasional, though not frequent, tenderness which Pope displays. Who that reads his happy imitation of the Intermissa Venus diu of Horace, does not wish he had oftener touched the mournful chords? We have nothing to oppose to the comedies of Molière, the fables of La Fontaine, or the elegant trifles of Chalieu or Gresset,

In novels, certainly the most numerous offspring of modern literature,-England,-(at least, if we except the two most perverse productions of human talent, the Emile, and the Nouvelle Heloise), has the preeminence. The French allow the superiority of Bacon, Locke, and Sir Isaac Newton, over their own philosophers; and the superiority of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, over their own historians; but they observe, that while Bossuet, Bourdalouc, and Masillon, are to be found in all libraries, and many toilets, in every part of the continent where literature is cultivated, scarcely one English preacher or divine is read out of England. With respect, also, to Sir Isaac Newton, they remark, that since the death of that great man, the English mathematicians have done little more than slumber under his glories, while d'Alembert, Le Gendre, La Grange, La Place, and Carnot, have pursued his discoveries, have completed the grand edifice which he left unfinished, and may, therefore, be said to have given him a kind of posthumous domicile in France.

In general, the French mathematicians do justice to his memory; but, recently, M. Bossut, in his history of mathematics, has endeavoured to rob him of the glory of being the inventor of fluxions. This appears to make it very desirable, that a new edition of the Commercium Epistolicum of Collins, with a preliminary history of the discovery of that sublime science, of the important consequences which have emanated from it, and of the disputes to which it has given rise, should be published. Is it not to be wished, that some mathematical Mecænas would make it agreeable to

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