the last new opera,
or referring to the latest work in vogue: things just passed away.

The _Marquise du Deffaud_ was a very different personage to Madame
Geoffrin, whose great enemy she was. When Horace Walpole first entered
into the society of the Marquise, she was stone blind, and old; but
retained not only her wit, and her memory, but her passions. Passions,
like artificial flowers, are unbecoming to age: and those of the witty,
atheistical Marquise are almost revolting. Scandal still attached her
name to that of Henault, of whom Voltaire wrote the epitaph beginning

'Henault, fameus par vos soupers
Et votre "chronologie,"' &c.

Henault was for many years deaf; and, during the whole of his life,
disagreeable. There was something farcical in the old man's receptions
on his death-bed; whilst, amongst the rest of the company came Madame du
Deffand, a blind old woman of seventy, who, bawling in his ear, aroused
the lethargic man, by inquiring after a former rival of hers, Madame de
Castelmaron--about whom he went on babbling until death stopped his
voice.

She was seventy years of age when Horace Walpole, at fifty, became her
passion. She was poor and disreputable, and even the high position of
having been mistress to the regent could not save her from being decried
by a large portion of that society which centered round the _bel
esprit_. 'She was,' observes the biographer of Horace Walpole (the
lamented author of the 'Crescent and the Cross,') 'always gay, always
charming--everything but a Christian.' The loss of her eyesight did not
impair the remains of her beauty; her replies, her compliments, were
brilliant; even from one whose best organs of expression were mute.

A frequent guest at her suppers, Walpole's kindness, real or pretended,
soon made inroads on a heart still susceptible. The ever-green passions
of this venerable sinner threw out fresh shoots; and she became
enamoured of the attentive and admired Englishman. Horace was
susceptible of ridicule: there his somewhat icy heart was easily
touched. Partly in vanity, partly in playfulness, he encouraged the
sentimental-exaggeration of his correspondent; but, becoming afraid of
the world's laughter, ended by reproving her warmth, and by chilling,
under the refrigerating influence of his cautions, all the romance of
the octogenarian.

In later days, however, after his solicitude--partly soothed by the
return of his letters to Madame du Deffand, partly b