days, on Edward Jerningham, playwright, poetaster, and _petit
maitre_, who, unluckily for himself, lived into the more roughly
satirical times of the Revolutionary War.

[398] "The _sylph_ishness of _Le Mari Sylphe_ is only an ingenious and
defensible fraud; and the philtre-flasks of _Alcidonis_ are little more
than "properties.""

[399] Here is a specimen of his largest and most ambitious production,
the _Etudes de la Nature_. "La femelle du tigre, exhalant l'odeur du
carnage, fait retentir les solitudes de l'Afrique de ses miaulements
affreux, et parait remplie d'attraits a ses cruels amants." By an odd
chance, I once saw a real scene contrasting remarkably with
Saint-Pierre's sentimental melodrama. It was in the Clifton Zoological
Gardens, which, as possibly some readers may know, were at one time
regarded as particularly home-like by the larger carnivora. It was a
very fine day, and an equally fine young tigress was endeavouring to
attract the attention of her cruel lover. She rolled delicately about,
like a very large, very pretty, and exceptionally graceful cat; she made
fantastic gestures with her paws and tail; and she purred literally "as
gently as any sucking dove"--_roucoulement_ was the only word for it.
But her "lover," though he certainly looked "cruel" and as if he would
very much like to eat _me_, appeared totally indifferent to her
attractions.

[400] So, also, when one is told that he called his son Paul and his
daughter Virginie, it is cheerful to remember, with a pleasant sense of
contrast, Scott's good-humoured contempt for the tourists who wanted to
know whether Abbotsford was to be called Tullyveolan or Tillietudlem.

[401] As the story is not now, I believe, the universal school-book it
once was, something more than mere allusion may be desirable. The ship
in which Virginie is returning to the Isle of France gets into shallows
during a hurricane, and is being beaten to pieces close to land. One
stalwart sailor, stripped to swim for his life, approaches Virginie,
imploring her to strip likewise and let him try to pilot her through the
surf. But she (like the lady in the coach, at an early part of _Joseph
Andrews_) won't so much as look at a naked man, clasps her arms round
her own garments, and is very deservedly drowned. The sailor, to one's
great relief, is not.

[402] Julie herself is an intense type rather than individual.

[403] I have not thought it necessary, except in regard to thos