mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B----, "those are the very fellows I
should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to
paint when all was dark around them?"

"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J----, "to the Legend
of Good Women?"--"Name, name, Mr. J----," cried H---- in a boisterous tone
of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please, without reserve or
fear of molestation!" J---- was perplexed between so many amiable
recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice expired in a
pensive whiff of his pipe; and B---- impatiently declared for the Duchess
of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, than she carried
the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous on this subject of
filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as there was already one in
the room as good, as sensible, and in all respects as exemplary, as the
best of them could be for their lives! "I should like vastly to have seen
Ninon de l'Enclos," said that incomparable person; and this immediately
put us in mind that we had neglected to pay honour due to our friends on
the other side of the Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and
Rousseau, the father of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom
and in wit), Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round
him (in the print of that subject) to hear him read his comedy of the
Tartuffe at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St.
Evremont, etc.

"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather see
than all these--Don Quixote!"

"Come, come!" said H----; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or
fabulous. What say you, Mr. B----? Are you for eking out your shadowy list
with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis
Khan?"--"Excuse me," said B----, "on the subject of characters in active
life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own,
which I beg leave to reserve."--"No, no! come, out with your
worthies!"--"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?" H----
turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of
smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all sides; and
A---- thought that B---- had now fairly entangled himself. "Why, I cannot
but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Faux, that
poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and rags, is an ill-used
gentleman. I