urning to the
Pope's Nuncio, who was present, very coarsely exclaimed--"Cadedids! ce
monsieur a un flux enrage, il chie un livre toutes les lunes!"

Thomson, the ardent author of the Seasons, having extravagantly praised
a person of rank, who afterwards appeared to be undeserving of
eulogiums, properly employed his pen in a solemn recantation of his
error. A very different conduct from that of Dupleix, who always spoke
highly of Queen Margaret of France for a little place he held in her
household: but after her death, when the place became extinct, spoke of
her with all the freedom of satire. Such is too often the character of
some of the literati, who only dare to reveal the truth, when they have
no interest to conceal it.

Poor Mickle, to whom we are indebted for so beautiful a version of
Camoens' Lusiad, having dedicated this work, the continued labour of
five years, to the Duke of Buccleugh, had the mortification to find, by
the discovery of a friend, that he had kept it in his possession three
weeks before he could collect sufficient intellectual desire to cut open
the pages! The neglect of this nobleman reduced the poet to a state of
despondency. This patron was a political economist, the pupil of Adam
Smith! It is pleasing to add, in contrast with this frigid Scotch
patron, that when Mickle went to Lisbon, where his translation had long
preceded his visit, he found the Prince of Portugal waiting on the quay
to be the first to receive the translator of his great national poem;
and during a residence of six months, Mickle was warmly regarded by
every Portuguese nobleman.

"Every man believes," writes Dr. Johnson to Baretti, "that mistresses
are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own
mistress, and his own patron."

A patron is sometimes oddly obtained. Benserade attached himself to
Cardinal Mazarin; but his friendship produced nothing but civility. The
poet every day indulged his easy and charming vein of amatory and
panegyrical poetry, while all the world read and admired his verses.
One evening the cardinal, in conversation with the king, described his
mode of life when at the papal court. He loved the sciences; but his
chief occupation was the belles lettres, composing little pieces of
poetry; he said that he was then in the court of Rome what Benserade was
now in that of France. Some hours afterwards, the friends of the poet
related to him the conversation of the cardinal. He quitted