reader may
not be displeased to have a specimen of the manner of rendering these
distichs into French verse:

1.
Dum tener es, MURETE, avidis haec auribus hauri:
Nec memori modo conde animo, sed et exprime factis.

2.
Imprimis venerare Deum; venerare parentes:
Et quos ipsa loco tibi dat natura parentum.
&c.

1.
_Jeune encore, o mon fils! pour etre homme de bien,
Ecoute, et dans ton coeur grave cet entretien_.

2.
_Sers, honors le Dieu qui crea tous les etres;
Sois fils respectueux, sois docile a tes maitres.
&c_.

[161] [Smartly and felicitously rendered by my translator Mons. Licquet;
"Jamais bouche Normande ne m'avait paru plus eloquente que celle de M.
Adam." vol. ii. p. 220.]

[162] The present seems to be the proper place to give the reader some
account of this once famous Bacchanalian poet. It is not often that
France rests her pretensions to poetical celebrity upon such claims.
Love, romantic adventures, gaiety of heart and of disposition, form
the chief materials of her minor poems; but we have here before us, in
the person and productions of OLIVIER BASSELIN, a rival to ANACREON of
old; to our own RICHARD BRAITHWAIT, VINCENT BOURNE, and THOMAS MOORE.
As this volume may not be of general notoriety, the reader may be
prepared to receive an account of its contents with the greater
readiness and satisfaction. First, then, of the life and occupations
of Olivier Basselin; which, as Goujet has entirely passed over all
notice of him, we can gather only from the editors of the present
edition of his works. Basselin appears to have been a _Virois_;
in other words, an inhabitant of the town of Vire. But he had a
strange propensity to rusticating, and preferred the immediate
vicinity of Vire--its quiet little valleys, running streams, and rocky
recesses--to a more open and more distant residence. In such places,
therefore, he carried with him his flasks of cider and his flagons of
wine. Thither he resorted with his "boon and merry companions," and
there he poured forth his ardent and unpremeditated strains. These
"strains" all savoured of the jovial propensities of their author; it
being very rarely that tenderness of sentiment, whether connected with
friendship or love, is admitted into his compositions. He was the
thorou