Tout le secret se decouvrit.

Well; we must take this glimpse, such as it is, into the interior of the
young man,--fine buoyant, pungent German spirit, roadways for it very
bad, and universal rain-torrents falling, yet with coruscations from
a higher quarter;--and you can forget, if need be, the "Literature"
of this young Majesty, as you would a staccato on the flute by him! In
after months, on new occasion rising, "there was no end to his gibings
and bitter pleasantries on the ridiculous reception Broglio had given
him at Strasburg," says Valori, [_Memoires,_ i. 88.]--of which this
Doggerel itself offers specimen.

"Probably the weakest Piece I ever translated?" exclaims one, who has
translated several such. Nevertheless there is a straggle of pungent
sense in it,--like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet
weather, which the Royal Party had. Its wit is very copious, but slashy,
bantery, and proceeds mainly by exaggeration and turning topsy-turvy;
a rather barren species of wit. Of humor, in the fine poetic sense, no
vestige. But there is surprising veracity,--truthfulness unimpeachable,
if you will read well. What promptitude, too;--what funds for
conversation, when needed! This scraggy Piece, which is better than the
things people often talk to one another, was evidently written as fast
as the pen could go.--"It is done, if such a Hand could have DONE it, in
the manner of Bachaumont and La Chapelle," says Voltaire scornfully, in
that scandalous VIE PRIVEE;--of which phrase this is the commentary, if
readers need one:--

"Some seventy or eighty years before that date, a M. Bachaumont and a
M. la Chapelle, his intimate, published, in Prose skipping off into
dancings of Verse every now and then, 'a charming RELATION of a certain
VOYAGE or Home Tour' (whence or whither, or correctly when, this Editor
forgets), ["First printed in 1665," say the Bibliographies; "but known
to La Fontaine some time before." Good!--Bachaumont, practically an
important and distinguished person, not literary by trade, or indeed
otherwise than by ennui, was he that had given (some fifteen years
before) the Nickname FRONDE (Bickering of Schoolboys) to the wretched
Historical Object which is still so designated in French annals.] which
they had made in partnership. 'RELATION' capable still of being read, if
one were tolerably idle;--it was found then to be charming, by all the
world; and gave rise to a new fashion in writi