eeing in their deshabille. The Persian proverb, which
accounted for the fragrance of a pebble by its having lain beside the rose,
has been in some degree realized in these pages. They are evidently of the
Selwyn school; and if he is not here witty himself, he is, like the "fat
knight," the cause of wit in others. We are enjoying a part of the feast
which his science had cooked, and then distributed to his friends to
figure as the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of their own tables. At all events, though
often on trifling subjects, and often not worth preserving, they vindicate
on the whole the claim of English letter-writing to European superiority.
Taking Walpole as the head, and nothing can be happier than his mixture of
keen remark, intelligent knowledge of his time, high-bred ease of language,
and exquisite point and polish of anecdote; his followers, even in these
few volumes, show that there were many men, even in the midst of all the
practical business and nervous agitation of public life, not unworthy of
their master. We have no doubt that there have been hundreds of persons,
and thousands of letters, which might equally contribute to this most
interesting, and sometimes most brilliant, portion of our literature. The
French lay claim to superiority in this as in every thing else; but we
must acknowledge that it is with some toil we have ever read the boasted
letters of De Sevigne--often pointed, and always elegant, they are too
often frivolous, and almost always local. We are sick of the adorable
Grignan, and her "belle chevelure." The letters of Du Deffand, Espinasse,
Roland, and even of De Stael, though always exhibiting ability, are too
hard or too hot, too fierce or too fond, for our tastes; they are also so
evidently intended for any human being except the one to whom they were
addressed, or rather for all human beings--they were so palpably "private
effusions" for the public ear--sentiments stereotyped, and sympathies for
the circulating library--that they possessed as little the interest as the
character of correspondence.

Voltaire's letters are always spirited. That extraordinary man could do
nothing on which his talent was not marked; but his letters are
epigrammes--all is sacrificed to point, and all is written for the salons
of Paris. What Talleyrand's _might_ be, we can imagine from the singular
subtlety and universal knowledge of that most dexterous player of the most
difficult game which was ever on the diplomatic