ls, and for
something that was called eloquence. These bounties produced of course
the ordinary effect of bounties, and turned people who might have been
thriving attorneys and useful apothecaries into small wits and bad
poets. Barere does not appear to have been so lucky as to obtain any of
these precious flowers; but one of his performances was mentioned with
honour. At Montauban he was more fortunate. The academy of that town
bestowed on him several prizes, one for a panegyric on Louis the
Twelfth, in which the blessings of monarchy and the loyalty of the
French nation were set forth; and another for a panegyric on poor Franc
de Pompignan, in which, as may easily be supposed, the philosophy of the
eighteenth century was sharply assailed. Then Barere found an old stone
inscribed with three Latin words, and wrote a dissertation upon it,
which procured him a seat in a learned Assembly, called the Toulouse
Academy of Sciences, Inscriptions, and Polite Literature. At length the
doors of the Academy of the Floral Games were opened to so much
merit. Barere, in his thirty-third year, took his seat as one of that
illustrious brotherhood, and made an inaugural oration which was greatly
admired. He apologises for recounting these triumphs of his youthful
genius. We own that we cannot blame him for dwelling long on the least
disgraceful portion of his existence. To send in declamations for prizes
offered by provincial academies is indeed no very useful or dignified
employment for a bearded man; but it would have been well if Barere had
always been so employed.

In 1785 he married a young lady of considerable fortune. Whether she was
in other respects qualified to make a home happy, is a point respecting
which we are imperfectly informed. In a little work, entitled
"Melancholy Pages", which was written in 1797, Barere avers that his
marriage was one of mere convenience, that at the altar his heart was
heavy with sorrowful forebodings, that he turned pale as he pronounced
the solemn "Yes," that unbidden tears rolled down his cheeks, that his
mother shared his presentiment, and that the evil omen was accomplished.
"My marriage," he says, "was one of the most unhappy of marriages." So
romantic a tale, told by so noted a liar, did not command our belief. We
were, therefore, not much surprised to discover that, in his Memoirs,
he calls his wife a most amiable woman, and declares that, after he
had been united to her six years, he foun